Toys R Us UK - now officially gone

Easily my best ever Hasbro memory was in a TRU - it was in late ‘93, we went in and I went immediately to the WWF aisle, and as I came around the corner I saw a big crowd of parents and kids gathered around masses of pegs carrying the yellow card series 7 figures. I hadn’t heard that they were out yet, and I had no idea that they were changing the cards to yellow - it looked so bright and beautiful; stunning sight     I had been drooling over the Hasbro ad in the April ‘93 WWF Magazine since early March, so to finally see them in person at 9 years old was amazing.

My worst TRU memories came not long after that - the last couple of years of the line I can’t remember finding many (if any) new figures there, just the same LOD figures that were on the pegs for years (I probably bought my LOD there when the stock first came in). Remember that at this time there was no internet so at age 11 or whatever I had no idea what was going on with the line after series 10, which appeared in another store. I was forever going in there hoping to see new series of figures but every time there was just the same LOD figures hanging there and nothing new. It wasn’t until the Jakks figures appeared in the Index catalogue that I realised for sure that the line really was done, around the same time as I got the internet and found-out about series 11 existing and being the end. A year or so later I started collecting MOC Hasbros, so I returned to TRU to buy the LOD MOC, and of course they were gone   Cost me a lot more money to get them MOC from eBay years later 

I visited the other day out of respect, and bought an Elite Sid as my last ever WWE figure bought at TRU. I hadn’t been in there much since the Hasbros ended, but I’m still sad they’re gone. I’ve read opinions about why they have ultimately gone tits-up which don’t surprise me, but the market is still weaker without TRU.