Despite shopping there on occasion - and feeling dirty every time I do - I'm not exactly a huge Wal-Mart fan. That being said, good, fuck Toys 'R' Sucks. Fuck those cocksucking bastards straight to hell. And fuck FAO 'Spensive, too. I'm glad those dickheads are in the toilet. I've got your exclusives right here, bitch!
Not to get all reminiscent on your ass (and since I've never done it before), but when I was a kid things were fucking great. We had two major toy stores where I lived - Lionel Playworld and Children's Palace. God, that was fucking sweet. Then the 'R' Sucks came into town and put everyone else out of business.
Everyone except for KB Toys, but I never really counted them. As a kid, you'd wander into KB Scalper knowing full well you weren't getting anything there because their prices were much higher than the other chains. That wasn't really relevant to you, but it was relevant to your parents. It was and is a browser's store, and I can't imagine how they're still in business all these years later.
But yeah, just give me a time machine and about a hundred grand in cash printed in the early 80s and set me loose in Playworld or Children's palace. And, oh, man, I'd better stop thinking about this entirely because the thought is just too good.
In the end, though, I don't really care all that much once my initial need for spite has been met. I don't really care because the major retailers have virtually no decent toys. The only mass-market stuff I've bought in recent months have been some of the new Ninja Turtles figures (the Turtles themselves are pretty cool, but some of the other characters leave a lot to be desired) and Unicron (only to find out that there's a slightly better Takara version).
Mass-market American Toys are in such bad shape these days, and kids today don't even know how bad they've got it. Nothing but a bunch of lame-ass, low quality shit. Yeah, yeah, I know - this is just another boo-hoo, my generation was so much cooler rant. Only in this case, our generation was so much fucking cooler when it came to the toys we had. What out there today rivals M.A.S.K.? Or Transformers? I submit that there is nothing. I say all of this and furthermore stand by all of this knowing full well that I come from the days of things like Rock Lords. I will take Rock Lords over Power Rangers any day.
Oh, and don't give me any shit that Transformers are still alive and well. With the exception of Unicron (who isn't all that great, I might add, but it's about time Unicron was made into a toy), the Transformers Hasbro puts out today are total fucking shit. I knew it was all over with Beast Wars and "Optimus Primal" (ugh), but since then we've had Robots in Disguise, Armada, and now Energon. I just look at figures like this tank they call "Megatron" and say to myself "Um, that's not Megatron. Megatron is not a god damn tank." And where are the die-cast parts? They're mostly if not entirely plastic. Fuck all that shit, Silent Bob.
Furthermore, don't give me any shit about the Generation 1 re-releases that Hasbro has been putting out and are widely available at 'R' Sucks. Fuck those things, too. They're as close as you're gonna get to the quality of yore, but they're not quite there. There are subtle differences, like colored plastic missiles instead of chrome ones, the cut-down smokestacks on Optimus Prime and Robert Stack (I can't even remember the name of the toy anymore, just that Robert Stack did his voice in Transformers: The movie), etc. Just a sign of these shitty times.
In the end, the only one putting out good Transformers is Takara - a Japanese company who I believe manufactured/marketed the Japanese market version of the Transformers back in the 80s (and possibly before that). The TFs they make today are the fucking shit - good quality, and just like the ones we had as kids. These are the real deal. They don't rival the 80s TFs because they basically are the 80s TFs. Yeah, they're expensive, but fuck it. That's why I have a job.
Oh, yeah, and we need to make special mention of Lego. God, why hast thou forsaken us? Why why why why why why why? Lego, god fucking damn it. I mean you stupid. Fuck. Hold on a sec, I'll get a coherent thought together here in a second.
Phew, okay. Here we go.
Legos used to be fucking cool. Now they mostly suck ass. There's been some decent Star Wars sets, a couple of trains, and the space shuttle. That's about it, though. Otherwise, we've got shit like Bionicle. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT GARBAGE?????. I remember the first time I saw an ad for Bionicle. It was during the "pre-show entertainment" (which looks suspiciously like a bunch of shitty advertisements that leave me nowhere near entertained) for a movie. All I could do was yell out in the crowded theater "LEGO WHY MUST YOU CONTINUE RAPING MY CHILDHOOD DREAMS?!?!"
Then there's the Lego sports series. What the hell? Whose fucking idea was this? Yeah, there's what I need, a bunch of Lego people with useless short legs and basically claws for hands trying to play ball or shoot a puck. Great idea, assholes. Great idea.
Oh, and thanks for ending cool lines like the castle series or the pirate series. Holy hell were those fucking great. And now they're gone.
I knew things were ending for Lego when the "number of pieces" started going down, and the number of pre-fabbed pieces (i.e. ones that you don't build out or bricks) started going up. You could have huge fucking sets that consisted of about three bricks and the rest pre-fabs. That should stir up a lot of imagination with kids. But then when I look at the other shit that's popular with children these days, I know they have no imaginations to begin with.
These are just two of many examples as to how pissed I am at toys these days. Two examples that would eat away at my very soul if I had one.
It's not just boys toys, either. You can call me queer for a lot of different things, but I was never exactly into girls' toys. Sure, there are some gray areas, like the 9" and 12" Star Trek figures which are basically dolls and Dead or Alive: Xtreme Barbie Doll Dressup. As a general rule, though, I didn't go for the My Little Ponies or Strawberry Shortcake.
However, I have it on authority from a female friend that girls' toys aren't' doing too well, either. Modern stuff is crap. Even when they re-make stuff from the past, they still fuck it up. The hooves are too big, the faces are all wrong. Shit like that. And that pretty much sums it up.
As a side note, this female friend (who is also ETP's wife), ETP, and I wandered through Toys 'R' Sucks's girls' toys one day. This isn't something I normally do, since I typically just selfishly drag people, women or otherwise, though the shit I want to look at. Anyway, looking at the current crop of toys for girls, all the while hearing about old school toys for girls really helped me understand how it is that women turn out so fucked up.
So, yeah, it's fun to see 'R' Sucks get theirs for ruining greats like Playworld, but it doesn't matter. I don't really care about the big chains because I know that they have next to nothing interesting. Until I can find something along the lines of Onegai Twins figures at Wal-Mart, I'm just going to peruse all those toy aisles for the sole purpose of making myself depressed. Also, even if TRU, Wal-Mart, and their ilk were to all go under, which they won't, it still wouldn't bring back the good ol' days.
On second thought, I don't want to see any of the stuff I'm collecting these days on the pegs at Target or 'R' Sucks. That would mean they've gone mass-market, which means they will ruin all the fun of these toys as they pump out nothing but poorly painted plastic crap.
In the end, there's just no fun or life in today's toys, things are made from low-quality materials that are done up with shitty paint jobs, and if I want anything decent I'm gonna have to import it from the Japanese.
Anyway, this post should give you just a little idea as to why I've spent so much money buying back my childhood on bloody eBay. Also, I'm sure that you're asking yourself one big question at this point: "How is it, again, that this kid doesn't have a girlfriend?"
Yeah, the toy collecting thing and the misogynistic comments will do that.
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