It may seem like idle boasting, but there was good reason for Kay-Bee Toys to be known as “America’s toy store.”
Founded in 1922 by the Kaufman Brothers, at its peak Kay-Bee operated over 1,300 stores in all 50 states. Chances are, if your town had a mall, your mall had a Kay-Bee. The stores were a staple of a fledgling toy collector’s youth, including many of the Fwoosh gang. ibentmyman-thing picks up the tale.
“Growing up near a sleepy town that was slow to expand meant that I didn’t have some of the stores others took for granted. I was never a Toys R Us kid, because the nearest TRU was in the neighboring “big” city (and I’m using big loosely) and wouldn’t make an appearance in my city until the ’90s. So most of my toy acquisitions came from Hills or Best. That isn’t to say those stores didn’t provide for me, but I would often dream of this magical land that was dedicated solely to toys and nothing but toys. I imagined row upon row of every possible action figure I could imagine. Obviously, the reality was probably nothing like the fantasy, but you know how it is.
We did have a brief appearance of a store called “Tons of Toys,” but I felt so lied to when I walked in. Just . . . so damn lied to. Why were there so many articles of clothing in a toy store? Why are the toys twice the price? Why do they not have any G.I. Joes? Lies piled on lies.
Luckily, we did have a mall, and that mall had a Kay-bee. It was like a little brother to what I imagined the big toy stores were, but at least it was something. It was scooched right between a plant store and a Sears, and it would usually be our last stop when he made our way through our one-level mall. It would eventually die out and leave that mall, only to come back ten years later as a pathetic, limping thing full of random crap only to die yet again, but at one point it was magic.
I can still remember the first time we toured the mall after moving into the area. I was not yet six years old at the time. We stopped at one of those mall directories to see what the place had to offer. That was when I saw it: Kay-Bee Toys. I jabbed the button and looked to see where the light was. It was so far away from the “You Are Here.” I wanted to be “there.” But parents are parents and they are slow as frikkin’ molasses, so it would take forever to make it “there.” Not that I didn’t enjoy this brand new world — if you haven’t guessed, we moved to this sleepy town from an even sleepier town that had no mall, so this was really new to me. There was plenty of cool stuff, but in the back of my head, all I could concentrate on was “toy store toy store toystoretoystoretoystore.”
But when we finally got there . . . bam. It was the brightest, most colorful store in the mall. It seemed to radiate light like it contained a miniature sun inside it’s cramped walls. The toys spilled out into the walkway, and even they seemed to glow. The words “Kay-Bee” were huge and red and glowing and could be seen from way past the water fountain. Which was, like, a long way away.
In hindsight, it was never a “great” place to find things. It really didn’t have any better stock than the aforementioned Hills or Best, and the Star Wars figures were about a buck higher there than anywhere else. Occasionally they’d have something that other stores didn’t — they were a great place to find Go-Bots when other stores had given up on them — but overall I did much more of my toy buying elsewhere. But it wasn’t about that. It was about the vibe. It was a tiny chunk of colorful awesome popped in between the dull and the mundane. It was a store whose sole purpose was to say, “Hey, kids . . . I might have something for you.” Which sounds creepy as an adult, but as a kid . . . yeah, that was everything you wanted.”
Anthill again. I wasn’t a Kay-Bee kid. Most of my toys were birthday or Christmas gifts, and my family rarely stopped in mall toy stores. Kay-Bee wasn’t “known” to me until my teens. In typical delinquent fashion, my delinquent friends and I used to steal the little penguins off the motorized slide. You know the kind. The penguins start at the bottom of a ladder, ride a little belt up to the top and then roll down a twisty plastic slide. Kay-Bee always had these set up in front of the store because they were colorful and the movement caught potential shopper’s eyes. While we never bothered stealing anything else, the wee penguins were irresistible. We couldn’t help ourselves; every trip to the mall we’d kidnap one or two of them, eventually building a nice little army. I’m not sure what happened to the rest, but the single red penguin that survived lived in my broken stove one memorable summer long ago. Heat Penguin, I hardly knew ye.
DisThunder had this to say about Kay-Bee:
“When it comes to Kay-Bee, I have tons of memories stretching waaaay back into childhood, but you wanna know what I think of almost instantly? The mid-’90s. Between the golden age of toys and the silver age resurgence of the early 2000s, the ’90s were still a fascinating time for toys and comics, and a great decade to get your driver’s license. Even at 16, I still dabbled in the dark arts of toys and comic books, though in my day, you kinda kept that on the low, instead of flying your freak flag full-mast like these damn kids today. So it was pretty normal to finish practice and head down to the mall about a mile or so away from school.
It’s pretty difficult to talk about Kay-Bee and not talk about “the mall.” Symbiotic a pair as their ever was, watching the overall decline of the classic mall in the US over the last decade makes me think that losing all those Kay-Bees really was the canary in the coal mine. But back in the ’90s, Kay-Bee was the main reason for hitting the mall. Whether it was to grab a bunch of cheap figures whose prices ended in 3s to get the discount, or scoring a bunch of N64 games at half price, there was always something you didn’t need, but could easily justify. Kay-Bee was also very gifted in rolling over old stock, so it was always wild to find some Kenner Terminator figures you hadn’t seen in at least a couple years pop back up on sale. They also seemed to get a little bit of everything, so there were lots of smaller lines that didn’t get Toys ‘R’ Us traction that you could easily pick up there — the early McFarlane figures were a great example, and that continued up to the beginning of Marvel Legends.
Probably the best part about the whole Kay-Bee/mall experience in that middle decade is that it was just one of many stops you could make. The mall I’m talking about (Cottonwood Mall, may she rest in pieces) also had a Suncoast, Sam Goody, a local toy shop called Hammond’s (still kicking, BTW), as well as a comic shop, and the old time and money waster standby — the arcade. So even if there wasn’t anything I had to have at one, I could always round out the stops and find at least a little something. And even though gas was cheap, the less you wasted on it, the better.
Kay-Bee also really was the first of my “toy hunting” spots, and it created parts of that bizarre ritual I still carry out today. Simply put, if you can work the freeway, you can find most of the malls in Utah. And at the time, if you found the mall, you found Kay-Bee — at its heyday I think only one of the malls along the I-15/215 corridor didn’t have one. And, again, at 16, finding the mall in the next town over was a little adventure all its own. Now, it’s more expensive, less adventurous (but maybe more dangerous?), and leaves you cranky when you’re done.
Naturally, I blame the distinct lack of Kay-Bee stores.
What are your Toy Store Memories? Discuss ’em on the Fwoosh forums!
If you liked this article check out Toy Aisle Memories: Hills Department Store