Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Freeze on that price tag for a second, because ninety nine ninety nine was not picked for the sake of a catchy commercial. The NES Action Set launched in November 1988 at one hundred forty nine ninety nine, bundling the console, two controllers, an orange Zapper light gun, and the combination Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt cartridge. By 1989 it was showing up in print ads at exactly the price you see here, Sears included. Child World was simply matching the going rate.
And Child World fighting on price was not a small thing for this company. It started in Massachusetts back in 1962, grew into Toys R Us's single biggest rival, and eventually ran a hundred and eighty two stores pulling in around eight hundred and thirty million dollars a year. Part of how it got there was buying up the Children's Palace chain and its castle shaped storefronts, then opening new Child World locations as close to an existing Toys R Us as it could manage.
That line about new low prices and never being undersold was not just bravado either. It was survival. By the end of fiscal 1990, Child World was more than a hundred ninety million dollars short, squeezed by a recession, a weak holiday season, and a parent company choking its cash flow. A turnaround attempt failed. A buyout fell apart. In January 1992 the chain closed twenty six stores, and by April it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with more than half its remaining locations gone within months. A last ditch merger with rival chain Lionel Kiddie City collapsed that summer, and Child World was fully liquidated by September 1992.
So this commercial catches Child World at the exact moment it was fighting hardest for your Nintendo purchase, using the very price war strategy that helped finish the company off a few years later. The console sold here went on to define a childhood for millions of kids. The store selling it did not get to stick around for many more of them. Did you ever actually shop at a Child World?
Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#nesactionset #nintendoentertainmentsystem #nes #childworld #retailhistory #toysrus #dockhunt #supermariobros #vintagecommercial #retrogaming #retrogames #80sgaming #90skids #videogamenostalgia #gameforestgf #youtubeshorts #gaming
Freeze on that price tag for a second, because ninety nine ninety nine was not picked for the sake of a catchy commercial. The NES Action Set launched in November 1988 at one hundred forty nine ninety nine, bundling the console, two controllers, an orange Zapper light gun, and the combination Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt cartridge. By 1989 it was showing up in print ads at exactly the price you see here, Sears included. Child World was simply matching the going rate.
And Child World fighting on price was not a small thing for this company. It started in Massachusetts back in 1962, grew into Toys R Us's single biggest rival, and eventually ran a hundred and eighty two stores pulling in around eight hundred and thirty million dollars a year. Part of how it got there was buying up the Children's Palace chain and its castle shaped storefronts, then opening new Child World locations as close to an existing Toys R Us as it could manage.
That line about new low prices and never being undersold was not just bravado either. It was survival. By the end of fiscal 1990, Child World was more than a hundred ninety million dollars short, squeezed by a recession, a weak holiday season, and a parent company choking its cash flow. A turnaround attempt failed. A buyout fell apart. In January 1992 the chain closed twenty six stores, and by April it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with more than half its remaining locations gone within months. A last ditch merger with rival chain Lionel Kiddie City collapsed that summer, and Child World was fully liquidated by September 1992.
So this commercial catches Child World at the exact moment it was fighting hardest for your Nintendo purchase, using the very price war strategy that helped finish the company off a few years later. The console sold here went on to define a childhood for millions of kids. The store selling it did not get to stick around for many more of them. Did you ever actually shop at a Child World?
Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#nesactionset #nintendoentertainmentsystem #nes #childworld #retailhistory #toysrus #dockhunt #supermariobros #vintagecommercial #retrogaming #retrogames #80sgaming #90skids #videogamenostalgia #gameforestgf #youtubeshorts #gaming
