While Millennials cheer Toys R Us comeback, key piece of data reveals dystopian reason for its return
If you came of age in the 80s or 90s, chances are you remember Toys R Us, the international toy retailer with the anthropomorphic giraffe for a mascot and the catchiest jingle in the business.
"I don't wanna grow up, I wanna be a Toys R Us kid."
Well, the truth of the matter is we did grow up, and about a decade ago, millennials aging out of the toy-buying demographic spelled doom for the once-titanic toy store, as Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy in 2017 and closed all of their stores the following year.
Trisha Chaney and Maria Flores restock a display of the Xbox video game "Halo 2" at the Times Square Toys R Us store in New York on Nov. 9, 2004. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg)
But then, just recently, something unexpected happened.
Toys R Us started to make a comeback, first as a part of larger retail stores like Macy's, and then, little by little, as standalone shops in malls and airports.
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Now, Toys R Us is set to open 120 stores across the country this holiday season, bringing its total number of standalone U.S. stores to 160.
Hang on just a second, though. Did you read the last part of that post?
"As toy sales surge among adult shoppers," reads like there are a bunch of losers in their 30s and 40s pacing up and down the aisles of their local toy stores while shoving kids out of the way for the last Funko Pop.
But surely that's not the case here, right? This is just a bunch of older Millennials with kids of their own passing on their love of toys and games to the next generation.
Right?
Yep, I knew it.
It looks like the only reason Toys R Us is making a comeback is because a bunch of 90s kids who are now old enough to have kids of their own took that aforementioned jingle a little too literally.
I know you "wanna be a Toys R Us kid," but you're 36 years old. It's time to let someone a little younger have a crack at the LEGO Star Wars set.
A large R2-D2 LEGO kit makes the perfect display. (Amazon)
I don't know what it is with my generation and having a serious case of arrested development, but they're almost allergic to acting their age.
Listen, I'm not saying you're not allowed to have some of the same hobbies you had when you were 13.
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Hell, I will still hop on the Xbox to blow off a little steam or watch movies and TV shows from my youth.
But I also haven't been spending chunks of my salary on toys and video games for most of my adult life, and I donated all my Pokemon cards to kids at the summer camp I used to work at back in college.
If I have bought a toy in the past two years, it was for my son, and that's the disheartening thing about these numbers.
Pokémon and Topps trading cards are seen in a vending machine on Sept. 29, 2025, in Houston, Texas. (Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty)
Instead of passing the "kid hobbies" torch, Millennials are just hoarding it to themselves.
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Nostalgia is a powerful agent, one that I have been known to write about frequently, but there's a fine line between showing reverence for "the good old days" and outright refusing to live in the present.
It's a ton of fun to see my son's eyes light up whenever he opens the package to a Spider-Man figure or a Bluey plushy, but I couldn't imagine someone with a beard and a car payment getting the same satisfaction from that.
It all feels weird and a little dystopian.
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I'll be excited to take my son to Toys R Us when one opens near me, just as my dad did when I was a kid, but the joy will be vicarious.
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