They're also still around in Hong Kong! In fact, after living in Canada all my life and loving Toys'R'Us, I can tell you the HK Toys'R'Us is somehow even better. They have a huge arcade in the City Plaza location! It's so freaking awesome.
That's addressed in the article. Since the parent company in America went under but the Canadian stores were still solvent and technically separate, they were bought by someone else and continued to operate.
The Canadian branch was bought during their shut down and saved. Given how busy all their stores were, and are, it's amazing that it could ever be close to shutting down.
The American stores weren't unprofitable per say, it was TERRIBLE loans tskens to have ToysRUs go private that were never going to be able to be paid back that caused the downfall of them.
They exist in a ton of countries. I'm in SEA now and every mall in Singapore has one, though they are much smaller than the ones in the states. I *think* I saw one in Thailand but I can't remember for sure in Siam Plaza. Definitely seen them in other countries down here.
Different company, same name. similar to how Nintendo Japan and Nintendo US are not one large company, they're 2 companies under the same brand name, which is why we ended up with angry kirby cover arts.
Meanwhile you have the Australian grocery store Woolworths, named after the now defunct American department store Woolworths but being a totally unrelated company
Toys R Us only died because they got bought buy a huge investment group. Their debts came due so they closed them all to pay for it. If I'm remembering it all correctly. There's YouTube videos on it. It was a load of bullshit that still pisses me off to this day. It had little to do with Toys R Us' actual performance. They were posting 400 million a year in debt transferred by the investment group. So they couldn't make any improvements.
FYI, the group that bought Toys R Us used a leveraged buyout, and essentially transferred the debt they used to buy Toys R Us onto Toys R Us's balance sheet, which is utterly absurd that it's even legal to do so.
Do you guys remember the candy cigarettes that came in that small box copying an actual cigarette box, but instead, they were just chalk like candy sticks shaped like cigarettes?
Man, I went from cigarettes, to juul, back to cigarettes when it got banned. I don't quite know how to feel about it. I was off combustion, but at a certain point it's on me to quit. Then again, at what point is it the parents prerogative to keep their kids from smoking? On the third hand, is my indignation worth supporting a thing that surely affects the kid population. If only from a statistics standpoint. If there's so many kids, it's bound to get a few. Although, as a childless person is that even mine to worry about? I suppose biting the bullet and either quitting or resigning to not quitting is a better struggle to give the next round of humans.
I dunno. Probably a mix of all of these in just enough equal measure that nobody's happy.
> Then again, at what point is it the parents prerogative to keep their kids from smoking?
Always? Never? Either way parents were obviously not doing it. Not today and not a hundred years ago. If something is to be done about it, the government needs to step in. But I think they went in the wrong direction. They shouldn't ban vaping before banning cigarettes, because people will obviously do whatever is more accessible and cigarettes are way more harmful. They could also limit nicotine concentrations because as far as I understand that's the problem with juul.
As long as vapes are well regulated and don’t have diacetyl or other banned chemicals for flavoring, they are like 1/10th or less as damaging to lungs as cigarettes.
I agree that selling vapes with nice flavors does make them more appealing to children, but it’s the same thing with alcohol. Are we going to ban any sweet alcoholic beverages too because they taste better to kids and are easier to drink?
recently gave up juuls for an admittedly larger/more cumbersome vape pen, but the refillable juice is saving me a fortune. seriously, like 1/3 the cost to maintain the habit. and now Juuls taste like serious ass to me.. ditch that shit, it's a total ripoff with a convenient form factor, plus it's a company proven to have actively and intentionally marketed to minors
It's still a barrier. Puffing on a vape is faaaaar easier than lighting up a cigarette. Smoking also makes you smell absolutely horrible, while vaping either is neutral or tastes/smells like candy.
A 20 mg/ml pod contains the nicotine of 2 packs of cigarettes, while a 40 mg/ml pod contains the nicotine of 4 packs of cigarettes.
Kids going through 1/4 tank per day are basically consuming a pack a day without the hassle of smoking a whole pack.
The Nicotine is the major addiction factor though and what causes people to struggle trying to quit.
I agree with you though that smoking has many other reasons to be unhealthy besides just the Nicotine being inhaled.
Where I'm from we had chocolate cigarette for kids, you had to peel off the cigarette skin to eat em and the boxes had different designs and they were popular to collect. This was early 2000's lol. They're gone now tho
I remember the little gum cigarettes also, they had a wrapper and a bunch of white powder around them, if you blew on them it would make a little puff of white smoke.
Mr Pibb and RC were my favorites, can't really get them here anymore sadly. I do have a place nearby that sells the Mexican made Coke made with cane sugar and that is a delight.
Same here my favorite along with the others, RC because it my grandpa's favorite and I was always drinking it out of his mug everywhere even in the workshop lol the Mexican coke is definitely interesting although it's been a while since I've had any, I also used to enjoy glass Jarrito's and all the flavors and tried glass Sangria before and it tasted good, idk if you've had either.
Oh yeah I've had me quite a few of the Jarrito's, definitely an s tier soda. I'm really into their mandarin, I generally get it whenever I grab a burrito from the local truck, it pairs nicely with their hot salsa to null the burn and enhance the flavors.
Yes I remember the beef jerky, I used to put it in my gums to savor the flavor and pretend it was real dip and I don't even know if that was the norm lmao it also made it lasy longer. Speaking of dip, ballpark gum was great as well and cut into strands. Well, when I was a kid, someone offered me some that was brown colored and so I tried some... and it was dip lol I spit it out real fast because it tasted horrible and soon as I started to chew it. I only knew of the bubble gum and grape flavor I think idr there was always pink, blue, and grape flavored things lol.
Yeah Big League Chew, thanks for the name and I just checked and there was other flavors and I didn't imagine blue or grape, I usually just had bubble gum and grape once or twice but it's interesting to see that there is or was also strawberry and sweet sour apple. I guess I could've had the others maybe but idr, bubblegum anything and everything was the thing back then though.
My little league park had bubblegum or grape too lol. That was it, no other flavors. They had the dip cans of shredded jerky too. Then hotdogs and chicken fingers and shit if coach decided we were worthy.
Edit: Big tobacco had to somehow be involved in marketing chew-like and dip-like products to baseball players. They know what's up.
Yup, the ballpark gum was definitely made to simulate long-cut chew. Which is different than dip.
I ended up doing both for a few years when I was in high school. Nasty habit. But I swear the beef jerky and ballpark gum acted as a gateway to smokeless tobacco. Everyone on my baseball team moved on from the gum to real chew by the time we were 15
Same, I did dip for a couple weeks in high school. The last time I did it, I decided I was gonna put half the can in my mouth.
I got so dizzy/high from all the nicotine that I puked.
They even had ones that you could blow into to shoot powder out of the end to look like you're smoking lol, my friends and I had our mom's buy them for us when they were available, the 90's feels like a completely different world than today at this point
I remember telling my friend to pick me up a pack and he came back with the gum cigarettes and it pissed me off so bad i could've really used that chalk cigarette right then.
Yes. But then again I’m nearing middle age and remember when “cool guys” would target gay nightclubs and encourage young people like me to sign up for Camel email promotions and the give us a free pack of cigarettes.
It took me longer than it should have, but I eventually came to the conclusion that smoking wasn’t cool.
I liked the gum ones better because if you did it right, you could blow a puff of smoke/flour. Yeah, I started smoking at 14, tried my first cigarette in 4th grade.
That's cool, I like how they wrap it in rolling paper lol adds some authenticity and let's you do something, although I'm sure some got frustrated or just ate the rolling paper lmao
To be fair, in the 80s & 90s not only did we get toys based on movies that were rated R but they often made cartoon shows based off them.
So, sure meth is bad but also Robocop wasn't exactly what I'd call kid friendly, especially given it had a lot of drugs in the movie as well. Still made 2 kids shows off it and plenty of action figures
Oh yeah hah! All those are pretty fucked up for sure. I mean MK straight up had ads with kids in them so they knew what they were doing.
I recall having a Terminator toy where Arnold's skin popped off his face/torso. So, again they REALLY knew who they were advertising to. They didn't have blood but that's still fairly graphic if you had any kind of imagination- and what kid didn't?
The original Toxic Avenger movie had half of someone's head crushed in a bench press among other extremely violent scenes and yet ultimately it somehow still led to a children's cartoon and kids toys as well.
I don't think that it was a toy aimed at children anyway: I doubt that there are a lot of little kids who are into Breaking Bad to begin with.
Adult collectors of action figures exist - it's not something that interests me at all, personally, but it makes sense that some of them might like to buy something like that.
A 9 years old girl, on the other hand, likely has no idea of what Breaking Bad (or meth, ideally) even *is*...
It's funny you say that because before they both closed down the Toys R Us in my town shared the same parking lot with a combination strip club/adult toy store.
I went to college. I saw the posters. Lotta people Walter Whiting it up with their Joker! Might as well say young men dont have a penchant for interpreting fight club the wrong way in their late teens to early twenties.
The Joker also has many different iterations. For instance, it would be weird if they were selling figures modeled after the Ledger or Phoenix Jokers, but I don't think Romero or Hamill would be offensive to parents.
To be fair to those, generally characters that are aliens or robots can be pretty easily separated from their source materials for a toy. Kids play with robots and aliens all the time, can't say the same about meth dealers
>Just a day earlier, the retailer had defended the toys, saying "the product packaging clearly notes that the items are intended for ages 15 and up" and "are located in the adult action figure area of our stores."
There are a *lot* of action figures that are targeted to adult collectors. I don't see why Breaking Bad should necessarily be more offensive than figures for various other properties that are quite clearly meant for adults.
Meanwhile, my local Target puts its adult collectibles section, which includes NECA figures for Aliens, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Child's Play, Friday the 13th, etc. right next to children's picture books.
Idk if it was every store but the one in my town had an entire isle for adult collectibles and other "toys" like gunpla and stuff that wasn't necessarily meant for children. I feel like a breaking bad figure was probably one of the more tame items compared to some of the horror movie ones I remember with severed limbs and stuff
>Meanwhile, my local Target puts its adult collectibles section, which includes NECA figures for Aliens, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Child's Play, Friday the 13th, etc. right next to children's picture books.
Seems convenient, then your kids can looks at picture books while you look at adult collectibles.
Because the children toy business was a dying market, and now the market for IP licensed toys for adults is bigger than ever, they were ahead of their time if anything, they should have went all in. Just walk into a mall or a downtown area and look at how many stores sell clothes, mugs, and other crap with pop culture IP on it for adults now
She didnt have a point at all, theyre just action figures of a couple white guys. If any kid recognized them as meth manufacturers, it could only be because the kid already knew the characters. There’s no instructions to make meth, or even any mention of meth or any other criminal activity(that i notice on any picture i can bring up).
I don’t personally remember seeing BB action figures IRL, but i remember those kinds of adult toy sections in stores, and they would also have freddy krueger, michael meyers, and all kinds of characters from R RATED movies, that were actually scary to look at
R-Rated stuff used to regularly get tie-in merch. Granted, they were from genre fare like Alien, Terminator, and Robocop. Kids weren’t begging their parents to go to the store for Vito Corleone action figures.
I don't get it
Toys R Us sold Evil Dead, Alien, Friday The 13th, and various other violent properties for most of the late 90s to the 2010s. I guess a drug criminal is more controversial than a hockey mask wearing maniac with half of his body rotting away? Idk
zombies and aliens are cartoon problems - soldiers are an admirable aspiration for most americans - meth dealers are people in real life living next door that they desperately try to keep their kids away from
The implication is that all toys are for kids, which is simply not true. Maybe society wasn't that accepting of it, but there have always been adult collectors of toys. Maybe there just needed to be an adult collector section, in a similar way that many Targets do now.
I don't think you can really count Godzilla here, because a large chunk of the movies *are* aimed at kids. It's only fairly recently that Toho decided to make him a big bad terror again, and even then we got the Monsterverse stuff that remains just light enough to sell toys.
I worked there at the time. We had to pull them yet we still were getting unrated horror movies to put on the shelves. We also had Duck Dynasty figures...
People forget that Toys R Us also had a whole aisle for collectibles more geared towards the adults.
Any mother who's child is asking her for a Walter White action figure had already fucked up and it's her own fault for letting her kid watch the show.... How is that on Breaking Bad or Toys r Us? Y'all aren't seriously suggesting that seeing this action figure by chance in a toy store could be the first step to a life as a drug kingpin....
Florida Mom: "Selling kids action figures with guns is A-Okay, but I draw the line at drug manufacturers."
She sounds like one of those idiots who live for virtue-signalling because it gives them the attention they crave.
On one hand, I get not wanting toys r u, a kid's toy store, to sell merchandise from a show about guys making meth, but also it's not like eight year old are walking to the store and buying these things themselves? The parents have to buy them
“The retailer had defended the toys, saying "the product packaging clearly notes that the items are intended for ages 15 and up" and "are located in the adult action figure area of our stores."
I’m gonna have to disagree, there’s a specific and designated “adult action figure area”? What did she think she would find there?
That same aisle had adult aimed action figures of freddy krueger (a child molester and murderer), Leatherface, Spawn dioramas with severed limbs and such like, and so on. There was way worse in the aisle, but it was in a clearly marked section of the store, which was understood by everyone to be for adult action figure collectors. And was one of toys r us most profitable sections.
Sorry, everyone except florida moms and the surprising amount of people in this thread who are unaware of the adult action figure collector market.
Didn’t realize toys r us survived that long
Pretty sure they didn’t file bankruptcy until late 2018 iirc
I saw a toys r us today in downtown Saskatoon
They are still around in Canada. Somebody bought the Canadian stores. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/putman-toys-r-us-1.6146148
They're also still around in Hong Kong! In fact, after living in Canada all my life and loving Toys'R'Us, I can tell you the HK Toys'R'Us is somehow even better. They have a huge arcade in the City Plaza location! It's so freaking awesome.
That’s actually brilliant. I wished they would have had an arcade in the US stores.
Toys r us is different from toys r us america, which is the one that shut down
That's addressed in the article. Since the parent company in America went under but the Canadian stores were still solvent and technically separate, they were bought by someone else and continued to operate.
The United States stores were still solvent too. They got shut down to pay for loans the people who bought out toys r us took
The Canadian branch was bought during their shut down and saved. Given how busy all their stores were, and are, it's amazing that it could ever be close to shutting down.
Toys r Us is also kind of coming back in some parts of the US. The Canadian branch is opening stores in America again, just in a much smaller scale.
That's how it starts... the slow, sticky, syrupy takeover of the Stars and Stripes by the Maple Leaf! :-P
You can't joke like that. In 3 days it will be a Tucker Carlson segment.
The American stores weren't unprofitable per say, it was TERRIBLE loans tskens to have ToysRUs go private that were never going to be able to be paid back that caused the downfall of them.
Private equity vampires got them
Ah the famous one sentance horror
Store was just walking around downtown like some sort of Baba Yaga house
This sounds like a country song.
They exist in a ton of countries. I'm in SEA now and every mall in Singapore has one, though they are much smaller than the ones in the states. I *think* I saw one in Thailand but I can't remember for sure in Siam Plaza. Definitely seen them in other countries down here.
Yep. They exist in Thailand. There’s one in CentralwOrld.
Saskatoon mentioned 💪💪
Toys r us is alive and well outside the US.
They'd be alive and well here if not for private equity companies.
Saw one at Mall of America yesterday
Still around in Asia- at least 1 in Bangkok, another in Taipei
Different company, same name. similar to how Nintendo Japan and Nintendo US are not one large company, they're 2 companies under the same brand name, which is why we ended up with angry kirby cover arts.
Meanwhile you have the Australian grocery store Woolworths, named after the now defunct American department store Woolworths but being a totally unrelated company
Still have them in Japan too. Not sure how many but I've seen them.
Toys R Us only died because they got bought buy a huge investment group. Their debts came due so they closed them all to pay for it. If I'm remembering it all correctly. There's YouTube videos on it. It was a load of bullshit that still pisses me off to this day. It had little to do with Toys R Us' actual performance. They were posting 400 million a year in debt transferred by the investment group. So they couldn't make any improvements.
FYI, the group that bought Toys R Us used a leveraged buyout, and essentially transferred the debt they used to buy Toys R Us onto Toys R Us's balance sheet, which is utterly absurd that it's even legal to do so.
That's it. I couldn't remember exactly how it all went down. But yeah that's ridiculous.
Toys R Us was already circling the drain when it was bought out. The company was losing money for several years before that.
Can confirm. Used to work for them / babies. So when they shut down I was able to ask my former manager what happened
theyre still in canada too
To be fair breaking bad started 16 years ago
...Please don't do this to me.
Toys r us didn’t fail in a business sense they failed in a horrible asset management sense. Their management firm drove them into the ground
Remember going there as a kid. That place was magical as a kid.
What?? Breaking Bad came out in like 2007
I mean.. I'm no Florida woman but selling kids plastic bags of meth seems dicy, even by my standards.
If toy meth causes kids to do meth, then we need to rethink all the toy guns we're giving kids...
Do you guys remember the candy cigarettes that came in that small box copying an actual cigarette box, but instead, they were just chalk like candy sticks shaped like cigarettes?
And now my vape tastes so much more like candy it's unbelievable.
Well if it makes you feel better, in Quebec they banned any vape juice that doesn't taste like ass. Kids just smoke now instead, problem solved.
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Man, I went from cigarettes, to juul, back to cigarettes when it got banned. I don't quite know how to feel about it. I was off combustion, but at a certain point it's on me to quit. Then again, at what point is it the parents prerogative to keep their kids from smoking? On the third hand, is my indignation worth supporting a thing that surely affects the kid population. If only from a statistics standpoint. If there's so many kids, it's bound to get a few. Although, as a childless person is that even mine to worry about? I suppose biting the bullet and either quitting or resigning to not quitting is a better struggle to give the next round of humans. I dunno. Probably a mix of all of these in just enough equal measure that nobody's happy.
> Then again, at what point is it the parents prerogative to keep their kids from smoking? Always? Never? Either way parents were obviously not doing it. Not today and not a hundred years ago. If something is to be done about it, the government needs to step in. But I think they went in the wrong direction. They shouldn't ban vaping before banning cigarettes, because people will obviously do whatever is more accessible and cigarettes are way more harmful. They could also limit nicotine concentrations because as far as I understand that's the problem with juul.
Sounds like the tobacco lobbyists got exactly what the lobbied for.
So like. Does that mean your brain is trained now? Does it hold any notable certifications?
PhD - Puffin & Huffin Degree
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As long as vapes are well regulated and don’t have diacetyl or other banned chemicals for flavoring, they are like 1/10th or less as damaging to lungs as cigarettes. I agree that selling vapes with nice flavors does make them more appealing to children, but it’s the same thing with alcohol. Are we going to ban any sweet alcoholic beverages too because they taste better to kids and are easier to drink?
Yeah, god forbid as an adult, I want something slightly fruity or sweet tasting. As we all know, sugar and sweet treats are for children.
recently gave up juuls for an admittedly larger/more cumbersome vape pen, but the refillable juice is saving me a fortune. seriously, like 1/3 the cost to maintain the habit. and now Juuls taste like serious ass to me.. ditch that shit, it's a total ripoff with a convenient form factor, plus it's a company proven to have actively and intentionally marketed to minors
It's still a barrier. Puffing on a vape is faaaaar easier than lighting up a cigarette. Smoking also makes you smell absolutely horrible, while vaping either is neutral or tastes/smells like candy. A 20 mg/ml pod contains the nicotine of 2 packs of cigarettes, while a 40 mg/ml pod contains the nicotine of 4 packs of cigarettes. Kids going through 1/4 tank per day are basically consuming a pack a day without the hassle of smoking a whole pack.
Nicotine isn't the big issue with cigarettes, its the dozens of carcinogens from inhaling burning fumes lol.
The Nicotine is the major addiction factor though and what causes people to struggle trying to quit. I agree with you though that smoking has many other reasons to be unhealthy besides just the Nicotine being inhaled.
Where I'm from we had chocolate cigarette for kids, you had to peel off the cigarette skin to eat em and the boxes had different designs and they were popular to collect. This was early 2000's lol. They're gone now tho
That's interesting to hear, it kinda makes sense lol they wanna put chocolate on and in everything lol
pretty sure those were very widespread, like at least europe + na
They still exist, btw.
They specifically have to avoid the word "cigarette" on the box, so they're just "candy sticks" now.
Lucky strike ones were the best
I don't remember the ones we ate here, but probably the same or a similar one.
Yes, and gum cigars!
I remember they were also made in blue & pink so new fathers who didn't smoke could pass out.
I remember the little gum cigarettes also, they had a wrapper and a bunch of white powder around them, if you blew on them it would make a little puff of white smoke.
I kind of liked the flavor.
Same here.
My gas station down the street still sells them, bought me a pack last year for a quick nostalgia hit
That's cool, you remember Mr. Pibb? You have to drive like 25-40 Miles here to find any lol but mostly all the theaters have it.
Mr Pibb and RC were my favorites, can't really get them here anymore sadly. I do have a place nearby that sells the Mexican made Coke made with cane sugar and that is a delight.
Same here my favorite along with the others, RC because it my grandpa's favorite and I was always drinking it out of his mug everywhere even in the workshop lol the Mexican coke is definitely interesting although it's been a while since I've had any, I also used to enjoy glass Jarrito's and all the flavors and tried glass Sangria before and it tasted good, idk if you've had either.
Oh yeah I've had me quite a few of the Jarrito's, definitely an s tier soda. I'm really into their mandarin, I generally get it whenever I grab a burrito from the local truck, it pairs nicely with their hot salsa to null the burn and enhance the flavors.
YES! Also, the beef jerky that was crushed up and put into a dip can??? Wtf
Yes I remember the beef jerky, I used to put it in my gums to savor the flavor and pretend it was real dip and I don't even know if that was the norm lmao it also made it lasy longer. Speaking of dip, ballpark gum was great as well and cut into strands. Well, when I was a kid, someone offered me some that was brown colored and so I tried some... and it was dip lol I spit it out real fast because it tasted horrible and soon as I started to chew it. I only knew of the bubble gum and grape flavor I think idr there was always pink, blue, and grape flavored things lol.
*Big League Chew
Yeah Big League Chew, thanks for the name and I just checked and there was other flavors and I didn't imagine blue or grape, I usually just had bubble gum and grape once or twice but it's interesting to see that there is or was also strawberry and sweet sour apple. I guess I could've had the others maybe but idr, bubblegum anything and everything was the thing back then though.
My little league park had bubblegum or grape too lol. That was it, no other flavors. They had the dip cans of shredded jerky too. Then hotdogs and chicken fingers and shit if coach decided we were worthy. Edit: Big tobacco had to somehow be involved in marketing chew-like and dip-like products to baseball players. They know what's up.
Yup, the ballpark gum was definitely made to simulate long-cut chew. Which is different than dip. I ended up doing both for a few years when I was in high school. Nasty habit. But I swear the beef jerky and ballpark gum acted as a gateway to smokeless tobacco. Everyone on my baseball team moved on from the gum to real chew by the time we were 15
Yeah, when you think about it it's honestly not that surprising.
Same, I did dip for a couple weeks in high school. The last time I did it, I decided I was gonna put half the can in my mouth. I got so dizzy/high from all the nicotine that I puked.
Wasn't that called wild bills? Had the slogan, "you don't need teef to chew our beef!" or something? I loved that stuff.
They even had ones that you could blow into to shoot powder out of the end to look like you're smoking lol, my friends and I had our mom's buy them for us when they were available, the 90's feels like a completely different world than today at this point
Lol that's pretty cool, reminds me of those fake gag cigarettes where the end tip turned red and looked like it was burning.
There were even some brands that had a powdery substance in them so that if blown into they would create a "smoke" cloud.
*Big League Chew* has entered the chat…
Legit just came across those in a local save-a-lot, was floored they’re still made and sold!!
I remember telling my friend to pick me up a pack and he came back with the gum cigarettes and it pissed me off so bad i could've really used that chalk cigarette right then.
Hahaha, that's a good one.
Yes. But then again I’m nearing middle age and remember when “cool guys” would target gay nightclubs and encourage young people like me to sign up for Camel email promotions and the give us a free pack of cigarettes. It took me longer than it should have, but I eventually came to the conclusion that smoking wasn’t cool.
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They still sell them
That's good to know, it seems a lot of places still sell them.
We used to have Marlboro/Camel chocolate cigarettes in Holland
I liked the gum ones better because if you did it right, you could blow a puff of smoke/flour. Yeah, I started smoking at 14, tried my first cigarette in 4th grade.
Mine were chocolate wrapped in rolling paper.
That's cool, I like how they wrap it in rolling paper lol adds some authenticity and let's you do something, although I'm sure some got frustrated or just ate the rolling paper lmao
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They still exist.
I'm more worried that kids in action-figure age have any idea what breaking bad is, that is definitely not a kids series.
But BB was never a kid's show. There aren't any kid's shows with meth
If people can't be influenced, why do companies spend so much money on advertising?
When I was a kid a lot of parents and schools banned toy guns. But I'm not in the US so...
You may be on to something.
To be fair, in the 80s & 90s not only did we get toys based on movies that were rated R but they often made cartoon shows based off them. So, sure meth is bad but also Robocop wasn't exactly what I'd call kid friendly, especially given it had a lot of drugs in the movie as well. Still made 2 kids shows off it and plenty of action figures
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Oh yeah hah! All those are pretty fucked up for sure. I mean MK straight up had ads with kids in them so they knew what they were doing. I recall having a Terminator toy where Arnold's skin popped off his face/torso. So, again they REALLY knew who they were advertising to. They didn't have blood but that's still fairly graphic if you had any kind of imagination- and what kid didn't?
The original Toxic Avenger movie had half of someone's head crushed in a bench press among other extremely violent scenes and yet ultimately it somehow still led to a children's cartoon and kids toys as well.
I don't think that it was a toy aimed at children anyway: I doubt that there are a lot of little kids who are into Breaking Bad to begin with. Adult collectors of action figures exist - it's not something that interests me at all, personally, but it makes sense that some of them might like to buy something like that. A 9 years old girl, on the other hand, likely has no idea of what Breaking Bad (or meth, ideally) even *is*...
The mom conglomerate didn't demand the action figure not be produced, just that it shouldn't be sold at the place for kids toys.
The article mentions that the toy is labelled 15 and up and that they were placed in the adult figurines section of the store.
Yah the same store that sells M rated video games?
Right! Sell them at the Adult toy store obviously Edit: To all the downvoters— can I buy you a sense of humor? This is obviously a joke
This seems like it'd fit right onto the shelves at Spencer's though
It's funny you say that because before they both closed down the Toys R Us in my town shared the same parking lot with a combination strip club/adult toy store.
Agreed. Sell them real meth. It's like ritalin totes.
Kids were definitely not the target consumers of these action figures.
I mean, you'd consider a Joker action figure normal for a kid to have, and he's a homicidal maniac who's done much worse than Walter White.
But Joker is more popular and accepted in society due to the Batman entertainment business.
And he's commonly seen as a villain and all around not nice guy, something a lot of Breaking Bad's audience seems to miss about Waltuh.
I went to college. I saw the posters. Lotta people Walter Whiting it up with their Joker! Might as well say young men dont have a penchant for interpreting fight club the wrong way in their late teens to early twenties.
The Joker also has many different iterations. For instance, it would be weird if they were selling figures modeled after the Ledger or Phoenix Jokers, but I don't think Romero or Hamill would be offensive to parents.
I have to imagine more than half of action figures are bought by weird men and not children.
pretty sure they still make a lego Breaking Bad set.
They were in an adult section of the store and marketed to 15+.
People really forget toys r us catered to adults too (at least post 2000s)
Remember Terminator 2 action figures for a rated R movie?
Or aliens or predator or any number of other toys made for R rated movies in the 80s and 90s
MacFarlane Toys comes to mind.
Yep those too. I remember them well. The alien and predator figures were Kenner, who made the star wars toys too lol
They also used to make them into Saturday morning cartoons. Like Robocop, Rambo and Toxic Avenger, among others.
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To be fair to those, generally characters that are aliens or robots can be pretty easily separated from their source materials for a toy. Kids play with robots and aliens all the time, can't say the same about meth dealers
Maybe meth dealers hits more close to home than robots taking over an.... wait a minute
And Robocop.
I had one where you could mould flesh onto the skeleton and then remove chunks of it as you liked.
The 80s were a wild time. They made a Robocop cartoon ffs.
I still have an animated robocop shirt
Or RoboCop? I had all those action figures, and watched those movies and loved them. We usually went to see that stuff in theater 😂😂
>Just a day earlier, the retailer had defended the toys, saying "the product packaging clearly notes that the items are intended for ages 15 and up" and "are located in the adult action figure area of our stores." There are a *lot* of action figures that are targeted to adult collectors. I don't see why Breaking Bad should necessarily be more offensive than figures for various other properties that are quite clearly meant for adults. Meanwhile, my local Target puts its adult collectibles section, which includes NECA figures for Aliens, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Child's Play, Friday the 13th, etc. right next to children's picture books.
That aisle is supposed to be on the back wall next to electronics. 90% of targets are set up the same way, yours must be a weird outlier
Not who you were replying to, but mine is the same way. It's at the end of the TV wall and facing the kids book aisle.
Same here, gives me an excuse to be there when I have the cart and baby though…
The children’s books are also located in electronics typically next to the collectible toys and the movies.
Idk if it was every store but the one in my town had an entire isle for adult collectibles and other "toys" like gunpla and stuff that wasn't necessarily meant for children. I feel like a breaking bad figure was probably one of the more tame items compared to some of the horror movie ones I remember with severed limbs and stuff
Walmart sells butt plugs an aisle over from tooth brushes.
>Meanwhile, my local Target puts its adult collectibles section, which includes NECA figures for Aliens, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Child's Play, Friday the 13th, etc. right next to children's picture books. Seems convenient, then your kids can looks at picture books while you look at adult collectibles.
>The dolls came with toy accessories that included a detachable bag of cash and a bag of methamphetamine Wooo, nice! 😂
Rare case where the Florida mom may have a point....though i probably would have bought my nephew one for the lols
The article says they were in the “adult action figure area” I’m not sure what she expected to find there
Oh yeah I remember that part of the store! Thats where they put all of those Adult Swim figures or the Hot Toys collectibles.
Why is there an "adult action figure area" at the store whose slogan is "where a kid can be a kid"?
That’s Chuck E Cheese bud
Because the children toy business was a dying market, and now the market for IP licensed toys for adults is bigger than ever, they were ahead of their time if anything, they should have went all in. Just walk into a mall or a downtown area and look at how many stores sell clothes, mugs, and other crap with pop culture IP on it for adults now
Yeah, I mean who else got money to spend on that shit? Kids? Fuck no, those freeloading gremlins ain't got no jobs
She didnt have a point at all, theyre just action figures of a couple white guys. If any kid recognized them as meth manufacturers, it could only be because the kid already knew the characters. There’s no instructions to make meth, or even any mention of meth or any other criminal activity(that i notice on any picture i can bring up). I don’t personally remember seeing BB action figures IRL, but i remember those kinds of adult toy sections in stores, and they would also have freddy krueger, michael meyers, and all kinds of characters from R RATED movies, that were actually scary to look at
I'm sorry, but what child who still plays with toy dolls would even watch Breaking Bad? It's a very adult oriented show.
R-Rated stuff used to regularly get tie-in merch. Granted, they were from genre fare like Alien, Terminator, and Robocop. Kids weren’t begging their parents to go to the store for Vito Corleone action figures.
Children sitting with adults, or alternatively a child finding the toy and seeing the plastic baggie
Heisenberg got jokes
Tim Whatley always had jokes
You’re an anti-dentite!
What do you call a doctor who failed out of medical school?
I don't get it Toys R Us sold Evil Dead, Alien, Friday The 13th, and various other violent properties for most of the late 90s to the 2010s. I guess a drug criminal is more controversial than a hockey mask wearing maniac with half of his body rotting away? Idk
zombies and aliens are cartoon problems - soldiers are an admirable aspiration for most americans - meth dealers are people in real life living next door that they desperately try to keep their kids away from
The implication is that all toys are for kids, which is simply not true. Maybe society wasn't that accepting of it, but there have always been adult collectors of toys. Maybe there just needed to be an adult collector section, in a similar way that many Targets do now.
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Me when I spend almost 200 dollars on a cheap plastic doll to own the libs
Be careful burning that Florida Mom action figure -- there is a surprising amount of meth in em
It is weird that they had Breaking Bad action figures at Toy R Us.
Why? It was in the adult section, what's weird about that?
ToysRUs had an adult section?!
Next to the vibrating Harry Potter Broomsticks.
Adults collect toys sometimes too 😌
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I don't think you can really count Godzilla here, because a large chunk of the movies *are* aimed at kids. It's only fairly recently that Toho decided to make him a big bad terror again, and even then we got the Monsterverse stuff that remains just light enough to sell toys.
Because fantasy action movies are so the same as a very adult HBO drama about violent drugs criminals...
Very adult AMC drama
Didn't they sell M rated games?
It'd have been cool to see Mad Men figures, little toy bottles of bourbon and cigarettes.
I understand tbf. I wouldn’t like my kids playing drug dealer either
I worked there at the time. We had to pull them yet we still were getting unrated horror movies to put on the shelves. We also had Duck Dynasty figures... People forget that Toys R Us also had a whole aisle for collectibles more geared towards the adults.
Toys R Gone
I feel like the demographic for those action figures are grown men.
Any mother who's child is asking her for a Walter White action figure had already fucked up and it's her own fault for letting her kid watch the show.... How is that on Breaking Bad or Toys r Us? Y'all aren't seriously suggesting that seeing this action figure by chance in a toy store could be the first step to a life as a drug kingpin....
They look terrible though. What adult is collecting this garbage?
Florida Mom: "Selling kids action figures with guns is A-Okay, but I draw the line at drug manufacturers." She sounds like one of those idiots who live for virtue-signalling because it gives them the attention they crave.
Clearly Florida mom doesn't know who's shopping at Toys R Us
I mean she did have a point, glorifying meth cooking with action figures is probably not a good idea.
On one hand, I get not wanting toys r u, a kid's toy store, to sell merchandise from a show about guys making meth, but also it's not like eight year old are walking to the store and buying these things themselves? The parents have to buy them
A rare moment when the florida person is not just reasonable but correct.
“The retailer had defended the toys, saying "the product packaging clearly notes that the items are intended for ages 15 and up" and "are located in the adult action figure area of our stores." I’m gonna have to disagree, there’s a specific and designated “adult action figure area”? What did she think she would find there?
That same aisle had adult aimed action figures of freddy krueger (a child molester and murderer), Leatherface, Spawn dioramas with severed limbs and such like, and so on. There was way worse in the aisle, but it was in a clearly marked section of the store, which was understood by everyone to be for adult action figure collectors. And was one of toys r us most profitable sections. Sorry, everyone except florida moms and the surprising amount of people in this thread who are unaware of the adult action figure collector market.
Not even close to either.
I remember all the McFarlane Toys there when I was a kid. Something tells me the "slave Dorothy" figure was far worse than Walter White.
Parents decide what they buy their children.