Fri 4/1- Sun 4/3
The smell of youth can be found not on the young, but instead from your old toys stashed in the attic collecting dust. If you want to remember what Saturday mornings smelled like sitting in your pajamas bouncing between The Wonder Twins and Bugs Bunny, just get out your old hot wheels or Star Wars figures and take a whiff. You’ll hanker for a hunka cheese and think back to wondering which goofy skits Channel 43’s Superhost would be running that day.
Whether you’re a baby boomer, Gen Xer or millennial, reliving the time capsule of your youth is as simple as walking into Coventry’s Big Fun shop for a walk down memory lane. The collectables store, which has become iconic in its own right, plans on celebrating its 25th year with an anniversary weekend that includes discounts (25 percent off Friday, 15 percent Saturday and 10 percent Sunday), free cake, giveaways and special guests.
CoolCleveland talked to Big Fun owner Steve Presser about his magical store.
Wow, a quarter of a century of Big Fun. Who knew?
Right. It’s been 25 years and not that it was planned that way, but we opened officially on April 1, 1991. It’s been a long road. I have to tell you, I had hair back then. It’s a bit overwhelming to be open that long.
How did you conceive the idea for Big Fun?
I’ll take you back to 1982. My girlfriend then and my wife now had friends in Chicago. We went to visit them. They knew I collected toys and said we have to go to this one store called Goodies. I walk into Goodies, it’s about 300 square feet, and it was so overwhelming that I literally had to sit down. As a collector, you find crappy toys at house sales, flea markets. They’re busted up and used. This store had what we call the new old stock, all original items in their original boxes as if they had just got taken out of the shipping crate or box years ago. And the best part of if it was if I was paying $20 for a used tin toy, the store had it mint as new old stock for $10. I was just blown away. We went to visit our friends in Chicago twice a year for so many years. The guy who owned the store was Ted Frankel, who was from Shaker Heights.
So how do you go from being just a consumer to a store owner?
One day I called up Ted and said I was interested in opening up a store. He said he’d love to help. In fact, he named my store Big Fun. So I started accumulating quantities of new old stuff, warehouse stock and unusual items with the anticipation of opening up this store. This is the late ’80s. I live in Coventry and found this great little spot that’s now Jimmy John’s. We set up a pop-up store across the street in November 1990 just to get people through the holidays and then April Fools Day 1991 we opened.
Looking back, why do you think Big Fun has lasted for 25 years?
Because I’m crazy [laughs]. No, you know what, it’s a special place. I always mention Ted because he’s like my mentor. He has a phrase and I grabbed it and used it many times: “You come shopping and you leave smiling.” That’s what Big Fun is about. This is a very important point. For 24 years, people asked me what I do and I say, “I own this cool toy store and award-winning gift shop in Cleveland.” And about nine months ago I finally came to the realization what I do: I make people happy. Big Fun really is a place you come in when you’re having a crappy day and things aren’t going your way. You can revert back to your childhood and leave all of your worries outside. You walk into Big Fun. It’s the safe place. That’s important. We all have woes in our life and it’s nice to escape those. And for many people, that means buying collectables from their childhood.
As a Gen Xer, my collectables as a kid were Star Wars figures. What was your collection hobby?
I was born in 1957, and I felt like I had the golden era of TV for collectables. From 1964 to 1966 you had great TV shows like The Addams Family, The Munsters, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Lost in Space. So that era of toy collecting. You have to understand toy collecting is basically pop culture. And each generation theoretically had their cartoon character shows on Saturday morning that we’ve all come to realize were 30-minute commercials to engage the kiddies to buy stuff.
Are you concerned one day you’ll run out of collectables?
No, because nostalgia never goes out of style. Right now we have the ‘90s stuff like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Pokémon items that had their day 20 years ago and now they’re coming back. So the next thing will be the 2000s and then 2010s and so forth. It’s a continuum that keeps on going and lucky for me, it’s a wonderful thing. Also, we’ve become more diversified. We were doing pro-Cleveland stuff long before anyone else. We have a good rock ’n’ roll section now, and a strong baby section. We added books and really cool retro candy. We’ve always been strong in joke and gag stuff. The biggest thing that’s happened to our store recently is we have this huge Lego display. Legos have become really popular. We do a very big secondary market, buy and sell Legos.
Finally, can Big Fun last another 25 years?
Truth be told, it’s becoming really difficult for brick-and-mortar stores. Just in the past week, two stores announced they’re closing. It’s not pretty. The bigger picture is the community needs to support local independent businesses. Do I have 25 more years in me? I’m hyper enough to last another 50 years. The question is, am I stupid enough or if the public is smart enough or nice enough to support local businesses? Local business is the fabric of our community.