Geoffrey the Giraffe, the original model for the Toys R Us mascot, tragically gave his life rescuing civilians during the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. The image for the mascot was changed out of respect, as the company didn't want to posthumously use his image. The company has since struggled to find a suitable replacement.
I find it weird that the closed down Toys R Us that is not too far from me hasn't been sold to anyone still. It still has the sign up and everything. I thought maybe they were gonna start remodeling when a fence went up around it about a year ago, but I am pretty sure it was put up to keep tweakers out since the area is crawling with them after dark.
It (and the store next door) is the only thing that I have ever seen go from working operations to shut down without becoming something else soon after. It just seems like a gigantic waste of space. Especially since the Osh Hardware next door is exactly the same; closed down but left unused and unsold.
Toys R Us closing down was not really a natural bankruptcy. It was cannibalized by vulture capitalists via a leveraged buyout that made it financially responsible for its own purchase which was a debt it was unable to pay. Conjecture here but this was probably done exclusively for its real estate. The ownership of the land on paper is probably inflating some portfolio more than it would be worth to actually sell it so it sits unoccupied.
Damn, this brought back a memory. I was squarely in the their target demographic in '99 and I hated the new design. Not that Mom ever shopped there anyway. I was aware of the '01 redesign, but was too teenager to care. Not having kids of my own, I never even noticed the current version.
For 34 years they slowly increased cartoon fidelity until they went whole hog and decided a realistic animal was great. Then in 2007 they had massive budget issues and could only afford a 50-polygon render.
