Toys R Us founder dies, days after chain told of shutdown
NEWYORK » Charles P. Lazarus, the World War II veteran who founded Toys R Us six decades ago and transformed it into an iconic piece of Americana, died Thursday at age 94, a week after the chain announced it was going out of business.
Toys R Us confirmed his death in a statement.
“There have been many sad moments for Toys R Us in recent weeks, and none more heartbreaking than today’s news about the passing of our beloved founder, Charles Lazarus,” the company said.
Lazarus, who stepped down as CEO of Toys R Us in 1994, transformed the toy industry with a business model that became one of the first retail category killers — big stores so devoted to one thing and have such an impressive selection that they drive smaller competitors out of business.
More recently, Toys R Us found itself unable to survive the trends of the digital age, namely competition from the likes of Amazon, discounters like Walmart and mobile games. No longer able to bear the weight of its heavy debt load, the company announced last week that it would close or sell its 735 stores across the country, including its Babies R Us stores.
For decades, Toys R Us drove trends in child’s play, becoming a launchpad for what became some of the industry’s hottest toys.
Lazarus, the son of a bicycle store owner, modeled his business after the selfservice supermarkets that were becoming popular in the 1950s, stacking merchandise high to give shoppers the feeling it had an infinite number of toys. The stores created a magical feeling for children roam- ing aisles filled with Barbies, bikes and other toys laid out in front of them.
The chain has its roots in Children’s Bargain Town, the baby furniture store that Lazarus opened 1948 in his hometown of Washington, D.C. He began selling toys after a couple of years when customers began asking for them, and he quickly concluded that, in the baby-boom years, toys were a more lucrative business than furniture.
He opened his first store in 1957, dedicated to toys only, calling it Toys R Us — the “R” spelled backward to give the impression that a child wrote it. Customers could grab shopping carts to fill up themselves,.
In 1965, Geoffrey the giraffe became the company’s mascot, appearing in his first TV commercial in 1973. By the 1980s and early ’90s, Toys R Us dominated the toy-store business and its jingle, “I’m a Toys R Us kid” became an anthem for children across the country.
Lazarus loomed large over his industry at the heyday of his company, personally traveling to the annual Toy Fair in Manhattan. Thousands of buyers from around the world attend but back then, it was Lazarus whom manufacturers were most anxious to impress, said Marc Rosenberg, a veteran toy marketer and founder of SkyBluePink Concepts.
Rosenberg said Lazarus understood that the success of Toy R Us stemmed from creating a “circus-like atmosphere to keep kids wanting to come back every week.”
Lazarus, born on Oct. 4, 1923, was inducted into the Toy Industry Association’s Hall of Fame in 1990.