Jimmy Kimmel tries to console Geoffrey the Giraffe over the reality that Toys R Us is closing, and obviously Geoffrey is not having it. Believe it or not Toys R Us, one of the biggest and most well known toy chains throughout the US, is going out of business. You might think that that’s a joke and couldn’t possibly happen but it’s real and it’s already been plastered all over the news. The biggest toy chain that most of us ever knew is being dominated by the likes of Amazon, Target, Walmart, and other stores that can offer competitive prices and are far more prolific throughout the US. Really, how often do you see a Toys R Us as opposed to something else like a Walmart or a Target? And Amazon dominating the chain doesn’t even seem like a fair fight since anyone in the world that has wifi can order anything they want from the site, including toys of all kinds.
So what’s Toys R Us to do? A lot of us can probably remember our time spent in the toy aisles ogling everything we wanted and couldn’t have since it was either too expensive or because our parents didn’t want a house that was filled with endless shelves of toys we’d play with once and then never bother with again. Plus look at the prices these days as opposed to what they used to be when we were kids. Now we can understand just why our parents would say no so often, right? What used to be ten to twenty dollars is now around fifty to a hundred in some cases, and buying a video game system requires close to a thousand if not more if you want the system and a few games. Plus just finding a Toys R Us usually means you have to live near one or take a half hour trip or longer to find the closest store.
Eventually that won’t be a problem. Toys R Us is apparently billions in debt and is going to be shutting down all its stores in the US and the UK, while it will be trying to keep the stores it has in Canada, or sell them. Over 30,000 employees are being laid off as a result of this hit, and the stores aren’t expected to last more than a couple of months, as making it to the holiday season for 2018 is not a sustainable goal. It’s with a sad heart that a lot of people are going to have to say goodbye to this favorite toy chain sometime this year, and another part of their childhood. It’d be easy to blame the other stores and Amazon for the downfall of Toys R Us but unfortunately it’s all about business, and that’d be taking emotion to an extreme that has nothing to do with the business side of it.
A lot of us can probably still sing the Toys R Us jingle by heart, but the fact of the matter is that when the stores close, the jingle and the memories will be all that’s left.
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