[typing]
Greeting and welcome to an LGR Thing here.
Today, I've got something that's absolutely delightful
to me, and maybe to you.
You know, I think this is something that appeals to a lot of ages,
the Toys"R"Us 1993 Toy Catalog.
Either you were a kid back then,
or you might have been a parent and bought your kid some of this stuff.
Or grandparents. I know my grandparents got me some stuff straight out of this one.
And I remember, like, circling things in it, and be like, "I want these!"
But yeah, this, this is great.
Sent to me by my friend Billy Corr,
who was just like, "Dude,
you're gonna get all sorts of nostalgia from this because I know I do."
And you know, absolutely true.
"$491 in coupon savings inside!"
While that is true,
it's mostly the, you know, actual contents of this that are going to be nostalgic for me.
All these coupons,
it's all just of stuff
that is already in the rest of the catalog.
So let's just get straight to it.
Starting with...
Baby Walk 'N Roll!
You know what? [laughs]
It's weird how many things that
even like girls toys and things that just comes back to me in a nostalgic flood
and be like, "Yeah, I remember these weird commercials for this."
It's like a radio-controlled humanoid from Mattel.
I thought it was pretty cool! [laughs]
I was like, dude! He's like a robot!
I want one!
And, uh, yeah, here we go.
So we got our Cabbage Patch Kids–
The Magic Feeding Baby! I remember that. You put like peas into it and stuff and–
I don't remember if it took a dump or what, but it was weird.
The Baby Check Up, yeah. You stick the thermometer in there.
Augh... All these really weird things that I now see at Goodwill quite a lot.
Yeah...
I don't remember–oh, you know, I do remember the Golden Dream Motor Home.
I thought that was cool because it trans-friggin-formed, man!
I just like transforming anything.
My Size Barbie. Those were always weird because they were like
my height at the time!
In 1993, let's see how old I was. I was seven.
So...
prime, prime age for a lot of this stuff.
I do remember wanting, uh... all sorts of these kind of sets.
In fact, I actually did get some of them.
As a kid, I was highly interested in doll houses
and kitchen sets
and even dolls, man.
I just found all that stuff really fascinating.
I liked things were much smaller than they should be.
So it didn't matter if they were for girls or not, I wanted them.
Especially this kind of stuff, man. All these fake foods.
Play food sets! Those were the best!
I had a tea set, too. [laughs]
And kitchen sets.
These were fun.
Easy Bake Oven. I still want one of those.
I don't know why.
Fruit Snack Makers!
Oh, dude!
Those are probably terrible.
These I always found kind of weird. Well, mainly as an adult.
I just find them weird. It's like, "Hey!
Kids! Learn how to cook fries and stuff. It's all you're gonna do as you
grow up and your dreams are crushed."
But yeah. Barney. Barney was a thing.
Definitely a thing. Never was into Barney, but
I do remember these! The 1st Touch Tape Player.
That was interesting.
I think it actually played tapes.
Like legit tapes. I know there was a tape recorder made for kids, too,
that did some more advanced kinds of stuff–
Oh, Big Frank! Dude!
You had gears and stuff, and a little heart that, you know, did stuff, and whatever.
You had to put the monster back together.
He had tools in his head.
[laughs] It's crazy. You know, like, a lot of these I never played with.
But...
I saw them. I wanted them mainly because of Saturday morning cartoon–
in between, you had the ads.
There were ads for all of these. I can remember, like,
the friggin' tunes and stuff that was in the background.
Holy crap! My brother had this.
[tapping] That exact one.
It felt like an old, like windbreaker jacket.
[laughs] It's a jacket dinosaur.
You squeeze and it roared. He'd be like, *pfft*
[high screeching roar]
It sounded really bad.
Probably worse than that.
My apologizes for subjecting you to that impersonation.
Etch A Sketch, who didn't friggin' have one of those? Of course, that was a Magna Doodle.
Off-brand weird crap.
Yeah...
Oh, a friend of mine had one of these.
That drill would go down and you could–
It felt like you were really drilling things, but of course you weren't.
Just plastic.
Look at all this stuff.
Toys"R"Us was such a wonderful place to go as a kid.
Really groomed you for consumerist culture. [laughs]
There's an Etch A Sketch.
Color Etch A Sketch! What rich kid had one of these?
Oh, it was only $15.99.
Dang, I wish I had one. Hmm.
Yeah, man.
Aw, the Color Writer! This thing was neat!
I do think I messed with this in like an art class somewhere. They had one for some reason.
But yeah, you could squeeze out the paints and it would spin and do these psychedelic things.
The patterns would come out of the disc there.
Nickelodeon Power Painter. I think I remember seeing ads–
I definitely remember seeing the Nickelodeon Gak Copier!
In fact, it was my dad, he got like a–
like a Sharpie or something and, you know, or just regular ink pens,
some kind of plastic things that I could draw on, and he was like,
"Here, put your Gak on that. It'll copy it just the same."
And you know what? It did.
[laughs] You could just make your own thing!
Holy crap! The Vac-U-Former!
That I remember wanting because you could make your own cars,
like die-cast Hot Wheels type cars,
in different pieces, put your own stickers on them.
That right there...man. It was when like Need for Speed Underground came out
and I'm like, "Hey! You could finally do this in a game."
'Cause I never had that as a kid.
Wanted it like crazy.
Same with the Creepy Crawlers Workshop.
Although a friend of mine had a similar one.
We played with that. We made like poop monsters.
That pretty much got me in the mood for Spore later in life. [chuckles]
Ahhh...
Yeah, man.
Ah, classic.
LEGO sets.
I still buy sets that look kind of similar to this, just the LEGO City series. I love that series.
Those are still fun to put together.
Never had Kinex.
I did have the Erector Sets, though.
They look more like that. Just like your basic Erector Set by Meccano.
"MECK-ano..."
How are the–I don't care.
Those were fun.
Ah, here we go. Here's some computerized stuff. Now there's what I was thinking of.
That's the tape recorder by Fisher Price.
I remember doing some really weird stuff with that.
And, like eventually, it got, uh...
like filled with, you know, macaroni and cheese and carrots.
It wasn't mine, so I didn't care.
[laughs]
Ahhh...
That looks pretty neat. V-Tech Video Painter.
Looks like you hook it up to a TV and you can like draw and stuff.
Looks like the uDraw tablet from the early-'90s. [laughs]
Oh, these are cool.
All these classic, um... like computerized things for kids.
Really like little 8-bit–or less– computer systems in them.
Some of them are really neat. I find them in Goodwill on occasion, but they're usually covered in like...
feces, and like, you know...
hatred.
So I don't pick them up.
That's a cool friggin' robot.
I've heard of this. It's almost like a Teddy Ruxpin, but with a robot.
[laughs] Which is automatically cooler, in a way.
Unless you had Teddy Ruxpin, which I did, so I'm more nostalgic for Teddy, but, uh...
Deluxe Talkboy! Who the heck didn't want one of those
after seeing "Home Alone 2"?
Or...yeah...man.
But those commercials...
[laughs] "Hi, kids! We're home early!"
Street Fighter II table top game.
That's just Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots with Ryu and Guile. What the heck?
Oh, man...
These Golden Sight–Golden Sight 'n' Sound books. Yeah, those things. [tapping]
Never had one. My brother did, though.
We had one that was like Robin Hood.
You press the things...
I still remember what it sounded– Robin Hood would laugh.
[mimics hearty laugh]
And like the batteries ran down eventually, and Robin Hood was like
[slower, deeper laugh]
[laughs]
That thing was fun.
Eat at Ralph's!
Always thought that looked cool because of the fake like food he'd put in his mouth
or it would come out or something, I don't know.
I just remember seeing the commercials and being like, "I want pizza."
Ahhh... More food things directed at kids. It's great!
Makes me want food now!
As an adult. Now I wanna go to like a pizza place.
Forbidden Bridge!
Definitely had this. This is sort of a board game.
It's one of those gimmicky ones with lots of plastic and moving parts and batteries and
all the pieces would get lost, but it was fun!
My grandma got that for me around... *pfft*
'95, maybe? '94?
That was a lot of fun.
For like the one time I played it on Christmas night.
That was it!
Uh, more Barney stuff...
Tower the Wizard King? That looks sweet.
Huh.
That's cool. Fantasy stuff is always appealing to me from that era.
Yeah.
Dominoes, man. Domino Rally.
Why, you know...
Yeah. I think...
those things were probably just more gimmick than any–
Like, who actually got those
and played it how you were supposed to?
I would just stack up the dominoes and play with those on my own.
These little pinball sets and these little pool tables and stuff.
I always thought those were cool.
The little tents, man. Those are still cool! I would–
[laughs]
I'd get one of those and set 'em up in my living room and just like, you know,
set up my PC in there and order like a pizza.
Mmm.
All these things, rich kids–I didn't have 'em.
Especially like the friggin' Harley-Davidson Thunder Rider. Look at that kid.
He is stylin'. [laughs]
Sunglasses and everything.
Augh....
Wh-wait, what the heck? Whale Teeter Totter.
How is that a whale? That's just–that's like...
like an alligator. Or like a pla–
It's a plastic thing with plastic waves and an eye.
Ah, bikes.
Kids and bikes. Adults and bikes. Bikes are good.
Man, if you had that bike,
it'd get stolen in an instant. [laughs]
Or at least it would in my neighborhood.
Man, when I grew up, everyone of my bikes got stolen.
I had like five of them. They're all gone.
They're all stolen.
Every single one of them, man.
Six years old. Got a bike, got stolen.
Augh, friggin' Big Wheels, Power Wheels, whatever they were.
Barbie Lamborghini?
That is a spoiled kid present if I'd ever seen it–
Well, there's like a Tesla one for kids nowadays.
Ugh.
Inline skates. These color schemes are perfect for 1993.
Like could it be any other year?
No. No it could not.
Maybe 1992. [laughs]
Ah, sports things.
I think I had that exact backboard
and basketball goal. We set it up outside.
It had like the sand
thing at the bottom to keep it from toppling over,
but sometimes it would get windy and just topple over anyway.
Or, I'd try to dunk it, you know, even though I couldn't
and I'd end up like tearing apart the board.
It was really cheap, but it was fun.
[chuckles]
Oh, dude, I remember wanting this thing, the Turbo Scorcher 6x6,
'cause it's got six wheels, dude! What–
What kid wouldn't be like, "It's got six–it's better than your with four."
Look at that. All these: inferior.
I don't care if this one's more expensive,
that one's better because it's got six wheels.
That's just how it works in kid logic.
Yeah, these kind of generic sort of emergency vehicles never really did it for me.
I did have a lot of tractors,
but that's because my family was largely farmers.
Still are.
And they worked at like John Deere dealerships or something...
And I had a ton of John Deere tractors.
That's for sure. I do remember seeing this.
This thing had like...
claws that came out of the truck's wheels.
[laughs]
Yeah, it was silly.
All these commercials, man.
All these commercials coming back to me.
And I'm just gonna go on YouTube after this and look at all the commercials–
Holy crap! Matchbox Motor City Car Wash!
That's still...
so neat to me for some dumb reason
because there's water and like soap in there.
So you'd stick you Matchbox cars in there, they'd go through the car wash,
get scrubbed and cleaned,
and, uh...
And there you go. You'd spin 'em around, they'd air dry off or whatever.
Really, it was just ruining your Matchbox cars so you could, uh...
you know, you'd have to buy new ones.
[laughs] Because... I don't know.
Just somehow putting them through a bunch of soap and water doesn't seem like the greatest idea.
They're die-cast. They would probably be fine, but...
I know when I did that with some of my other ones, like playing outside,
they'd get ruined because the stuff would get inside the axles and wouldn't turn as well.
Criss Cross Crash. That was fun.
Another thing to completely ruin your cars
so you'd have to go and buy more.
It's very clever, very clever here. [laughs]
Or maybe I'm just getting older and more cynical, but that's okay.
Why were the Crash Test Dummies such a thing?
They were though. They really were.
There was like a cartoon show and everything for those guys.
Mighty Max Skull Mountain, oh!
[singing] Mighty Max, Mighty Max!
And all this crap would go in there, and yeah, dude, it looked neat.
Looked like the inside of like Skeletor's lair and stuff.
[laughs]
Yes!
These Jurassic Park toys.
Always wanted some, but you know...
Whatever.
I don't know.
They're all by Kenner, too. I didn't know that Kenner was responsible for the Jurassic Park stuff.
I guess that makes sense,
knowing all the different things that they were involved in as far as at that point licensing everything!
Even friggin' Aliens.
Yeah, nothing like getting a rated R movie and marketing it to kids.
Makes a lot of sense–
Ooh, Starship Enterprise!
I would have loved that, but of course that was never in the cards.
Next Generation transporter?
"Figures disappear and reappear with transporting sound and light effe–"
[laughs]
Dude, Toys"R'"Us had the secret to transporter technology in 1993, and they didn't tell anybody?
They just kept it to themselves to transport
figures, apparently.
Toon Turtles...
I don't remember the Toon Turtles.
I definitely had the–you know, the just normal ones, whatever those were.
They didn't look like that. These look really kinda silly. They looked more like the cartoon.
Yeah, the other ones were cool, man.
Their eyes were whited out and stuff.
Had the Turtle Van–
Ooh, Stretch Armstrong, that was cool.
Those were fun.
[laughs]
Eventually they stretched too much though and didn't go back.
So that was a thing.
Friggin' Megatron tank.
That's still cool. Probably like all collectible and crap right now.
Ah, here we go.
Tiger Electronics handheld games.
I wanted all of them
and I ever got was Baseball but
you know, that's fine.
The Aladdin one looked cool.
Street Fighter II–I mean, I just–
I wanted anything gaming in a portable form.
The weird thing is, these all sucked
and then when I had the option to get like good ones in a Game Boy or something, I didn't!
I would put my money towards PC games instead.
And, you know what, I suppose that was the smarter move.
At least for what I became interested in later in life.
Man.
These expensive Super Nintendo games.
$70 for Street Fighter II Turbo.
$60, Super Mario All-Stars.
$70 for Tecmo Super NBA Basketball!
My goodness!
Still though, $89.99 for a Super Nintendo in 1993. That's not bad. I didn't know they were that cheap.
Dang.
Ahhh. Game Boy.
I was always jealous of that.
Like I said, I wanted the, you know, the Tiger Electronics things,
but Game Boy was obviously better.
Never had a Game Boy. I still have never.
I have one
now, but it's not...
you know, like, I never played anything on it because you can't see a damn thing on that screen.
You can see a little bit better on the color Game Boy. I have played that quite a bit.
And the Game Boy Advance.
That's, that's always fun.
Sega Genesis. Looks like same price as the SNES, which is pretty sweet.
$65 for WWF
Royal Rumble.
Why the heck...
Yeah, these sports, like licensed tie-ins are the most expensive games around.
That's fascinating to me.
It's weird because those are the ones that you find like the most
in like used game stores and Goodwill and whatever,
and yet they were the most expensive.
[laughs]
Or maybe they were just the newest at the time of this printing. I'm not sure.
I never bought console games back then.
You know, I just never even got a console until like the late-'90s.
And it was way old by that point–
Ooh! Sega CD! "New!"
"Play interactive full-motion games with CD quality and–"
awe...
awesome?
"Awsome?" Ha!
They misspelled that.
A-W-S-O-M-E video.
Hmm. "Includes Sewer Shark game CD."
Wow. That's the bargain of the 20th century right there.
Game Gear.
All important rechargeable battery pack.
[laughs] You'd need like five of those for any road trip.
Oh, crap.
Borrowed a Game Gear at one point. It was around, like,
1999?
Had Pole position for it and that was it.
And... [laughs] ...tried it once
with all the batteries in there, and it was like NOPE!
So, rechargeable battery pack and that didn't even last long. It was just a disaster.
It was a fun little thing, though.
Jeez... $49.99 for the, uh...
top loader NES.
Man, if you could go back now and pay– I'd pay like twice that
nowadays for like one complete in box!
I mean, and still be getting a great deal.
Like, these go for quite a bit from last time I checked, anyway.
Yeah, man. Oh, here we go.
That's it.
That's pretty much the end.
Man, this is just an absolute blast.
I *love* these magazines like this. It just makes me happy.
I would love to find more.
In fact, I used to have a lot of the Best Buy catalogs and CompUSA stuff
from the '90s but–
they're packed away somewhere. I've got to find them.
If I ever do find them,
I promise to do some videos on them.
Hopefully you enjoyed this.
And as always, thank you very much for watching.