GettyAs Toys ‘R’ Us closed it’s doors for the final time an anonymous good samaritan bought $1 million worth of toys to donate them to charity.
The toy store chain, which was the place of childhood dreams, filed for bankruptcy and now sadly no longer exists.
But some absolute legend bought a load of toys to donate, and that’s a nice ending.
Rene Johnpiere/FacebookThe staff at the Raleigh store in the US, told CBS 17 they spent their last day boxing up the toys for the mystery buyer.
Some of the last-minute shoppers had stopped by the store on Friday (June 29) to find locked doors and a closed sign in the window.
When they were told about the mystery buyer, they thought it was brilliant.
One said:
Oh, that’s so nice. I’m happy to hear that.
Another added’ ‘That’s great. I’d like to know who it is.’
And somebody else thought it ‘could be Bill Gates’, or ‘Amazon’.
On Friday night (June 29), all 700 Toys ‘R’ Us locations in the US closed their doors for good, leaving thousands of workers without jobs.
The day liquidation sales began, Toys ‘R’ Us founder Charles Lazarus died aged 94. Lazarus founded the company in 1957, building the first supermarket solely for toys.
The toy store tweeted a tribute to their late boss:
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.
He visited us in New Jersey just last year and we will forever be grateful for his positive energy, passion for the customer and love for children everywhere.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Charles’ family and loved ones.
While we all thought the stalwart store would be with us for generations to come… others didn’t, there was a select group of omnipotent animated scriptwriters who apparently saw it coming.
The Simpsons – of course – predicted the closures before the company themselves, according to fans of the show on Twitter.
In the episode, titled Marge vs Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and Teens, and Gays a group of childless adults set out destroying every child-friendly thing in the fictional town of Springfield.
Simpson’s really predicted Toys R Us closing too pic.twitter.com/5IjrXumrcC
— JWepp (@JWepp) March 20, 2018
The group trashes ball pits, burn ‘children at play’ signs and deface Toys R Us by turning the logo’s backward ‘R’ to the proper direction as kids stand outside the store in tears.
You can watch the destruction go down in this clip:
While the episode didn’t directly refer to the store’s financial crisis, some viewers have taken the tear down as yet another accurate prediction from the writers.
It aired in 2004, a whole 14 years before the sad news broke stating Toys ‘R’ Us had gone into liquidation, announcing last week in a bankruptcy filing that it was closing all of its US stores as part of a liquidation.
Well, it certainly is an end of an era, isn’t it?
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