KB Toys
From Transformers Wiki
KB Toys (Kay Bee Toys prior to 1981) was a toy store chain operating in the United States of America and its attached territories. For a time, it was the second largest toy retailer in the United States, behind Toys"R"Us. Unlike its primary competitor, KB Toys locations were primarily found in shopping malls, with its "KB Toys Outlet" and "Toy Liquidators" subsidiaries located in outlet centers. As one of the major toy retailers in the U.S., KB Toys had its fair share of exclusives, most notably the entire 1997 Machine Wars line.
KB Toys started liquidating its remaining stores in late 2008, with the last stores closing February 9, 2009. Amazingly, despite the chain having officially changed its name from "Kay Bee Toys" to "KB Toys" as early as 1981, three years before the launch of the original Transformers toyline, many stores never went along with the rebranding during the subsequent 27 years, and still featured "Kay Bee Toys" store signs by the time they ceased operations entirely. What was left of the company was bought by Toys"R"Us,[1] who later operated "Toys"R"Us Express" stores in malls where KB used to be.
With the imminent demise of Toys"R"Us, it was announced in March 2018 that the KB Toys trademark had been acquired by Strategic Marks LLC, and that the brand would make a return in the form of pop-up stores in time for the holiday season.
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KB Toys exclusives
Beast Wars / Beast Machines
In 1999 and again in 2000, KB Toys ran a promotion where customers would receive a free videotape with any Beast Wars or Beast Machines toy purchase. Tapes of "Bad Spark" and "Code of Hero" in a plain white sleeve or "The Reformatting" and "Master of the House" in a full color sleeve were available for the 1999 promotion, while the 2000 promotion featured a tape of "Sparkwar Pt. I: The Strike" along with leftovers of the previous two tapes. In some locations, leftover tapes were sold by themselves.
Machine Wars
Released in 1997, the KB-exclusive Machine Wars line is made up of molds originally slated for Generation 2 and toys previously only available in European markets. It remains one of the oddest little sub-lines in Transformers history.
| Basic | Mega | Ultra |
Robots in Disguise (2001)
The success of Robots in Disguise really boosted the number of Transformers exclusives. While all the 2002 exclusives still featured the original Robots in Disguise packaging design, the 2003 releases instead adopted the overall template also used for Armada packaging (but still retained the Robots in Disguise branding).
Reportedly, the first wave of Spy Changers showed up in some Target stores before they arrived at KB. This does not appear to be a very widespread occurrence, however.
| Spy Changers assortment 1 | Spy Changers assortment 2 (new decos) | Destructicons | Other |
Energon
KB's Energon exclusives were few in number, but kind of important for fans, as they are functionally imports of toys previously only available in Takara's Super Link version of the line.
Combat Class
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Universe (2003)
KB's Universe exclusives mainly ran along the same lines as the Robots in Disguise ones, focusing on the lowest-end price points. In particular, they released four of the five recently-rereleased-in-Japan Micromaster "Sixteam" sets as individually-carded figures, some straight repackages, some in new decos. These toys were released at normal retail in some European countries, albeit in Energon or Cybertron packaging.
Speaking of those lines, KB got in a number of repackaged retail toys from Energon and Cybertron, and even the Classics "Ultimate Battle" two-pack, under the Universe banner, though these were "shared" exclusives with a number of discount chains like Big Lots, Dollar General and Tuesday Morning.
| Micromaster Protectobots | Micromaster Constructicons | Micromaster Railbots | Micromaster Aerialbots | |||
| Deluxes | Cybertron Scouts | Energon Deluxes | Other
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Transformers (2004)
One more round of Spy Changers (at least they're not the same prior six molds this time around) with decos based on major "Generation 1" characters, this time on cards lacking any kind of subline branding.
These were later re-released in Universe packaging through at Dollar General and Family Dollar stores, with a few other toys added to the assortment.
| Spy Changers |
References
External links
- KB Toys at Wikipedia
- KB Toys Company History FundingUniverse.com
