Over the holidays I was talking to fellow AFi staffer Cantina Dan about the “olden days” of collecting and I mentioned my time in the mid 90′s out east and hitting “Hills” department stores as part of my regular run. I never had Hills in the mid-west and they seemed to be a treasure trove of old and new toys I was looking for (and some that I was not looking for). They were great for finding new 5″ Toy Biz Marvel figures, Kenner’s Aliens (and Predator) line and Playmates Star Trek figures as well as full runs of clearance Swamp Thing, Pee Wee’s Playhouse and Nightmare Before Christmas.
I WISH they were still stocked with the vintage toys in these old commercials! I would have very much liked to have walked in and found endcaps of Shogun Warriors, Micronauts and Generation 1 Transformers! I stumbled across these the other day on YouTube and they were just too weird and wonderful not to share.
All the Hills discount stores are gone now. But their memory and their commercials live on!
I fondly look back at the days of Hills, too! I have many memories of standing in front of the Masters of the Universe display in our neighborhood Hills.
I don’t have to watch the videos to remember their slogan! “Hills is where the toys are” I used to love going to Hills stores when I was younger and have fond memories of them being loaded with Star Wars, GI Joe and Transformers to name a few. We had a Hills less than 30 mins. from us growing up and made that a stop every time we went that way.
I’ve posted before about my love for Hills – in fact, it’s pretty common for most people in Pittsburgh to miss Hills, even if they don’t care about toys. When they closed, it was a dark day for me…my mother used to make friends with the teenage girls working in the toy department, and they’d call her when they received new shipments of Ninja Turtles, putting aside the figures that I wanted.
North Jersey must not have had any Hills ’cause I most definitely would’ve remembered those commercials! Wow. Nice job getting the USS Flagg into that first one.
Julius Marx was know the world over for 10 years as the title character in the long running TV cop-on-the-edge show “Hockuly!” Now he writes about and takes pictures of toys and attempts to put all his weird knowledge to work for him. He has been collecting toys his entire life.
I remember Hills! We had quite a few of them in WNY.
I also remember Ames, Gold Circle, and Childworld.
I fondly look back at the days of Hills, too! I have many memories of standing in front of the Masters of the Universe display in our neighborhood Hills.
I don’t have to watch the videos to remember their slogan! “Hills is where the toys are” I used to love going to Hills stores when I was younger and have fond memories of them being loaded with Star Wars, GI Joe and Transformers to name a few. We had a Hills less than 30 mins. from us growing up and made that a stop every time we went that way.
I’ve posted before about my love for Hills – in fact, it’s pretty common for most people in Pittsburgh to miss Hills, even if they don’t care about toys. When they closed, it was a dark day for me…my mother used to make friends with the teenage girls working in the toy department, and they’d call her when they received new shipments of Ninja Turtles, putting aside the figures that I wanted.
Those were the days!
North Jersey must not have had any Hills ’cause I most definitely would’ve remembered those commercials! Wow. Nice job getting the USS Flagg into that first one.