Cam Miller fell in love with Johnny’s Toys store the day his father bought him a Star Wars X-wing fighter when he was home with chicken pox in August 1979, just before entering kindergarten.
“After that, Johnny’s was my store for baseball cards, Star Wars figures — whatever. It was such a big part of my life,” says Miller, 50, who creates and produces all the films shown in the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum.
“Johnny’s made me want to become a filmmaker. Johnny’s provided the tools of my imagination when I made my own movies in my backyard with my Star Wars toys. It was a huge part of my childhood.”
When he became friends this summer with Tom Martin, who worked for years at the toy store founded by his father in 1939, Miller decided to make The Magical World of Johnny’s Toys. The 35-minute film is a mix of historic photos, videos, advertisements and comments from people like Miller who shopped at the Covington flagship location, or Johnny’s stores in Greenhills, Western Hills, Norwood, Milford and Forest Park’s Cincinnati Mills shopping mall.
“People came out of the woodwork when I announced [on social media] that I was doing the film,” says the Northern Kentucky native who has made films about the Riverfront Stadium, Crosley Field, old Latonia Race Track, the Covington Blue Sox baseball team, the 1937 flood, and the Bengals’ training camp in Wilmington, Ohio. They’re all on his YouTube page.
Johnny’s Toys for 70 years was the place where kids (and parents) bought Lionel trains, Barbie dolls, Cabbage Patch Kids, G.I Joes, model rockets, baseball equipment, games, puzzles, Pinewood Derby kits, party favors, sleds, and rollerblades.
Darth Vader, Strawberry Shortcake, Batman, Robin and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle made promotional appearances there. (Darth Vader’s appearance coincided with Johnny’s Toys underwriting National Public Radio Playhouse’s Star Wars Marathon on WGUC-FM in May 1981.)
Founder Tom Martin devised a clever marketing scheme to keep kids coming back. Johnny’s Toys mailed a yellow birthday club card to children containing a tiny aluminum key. The key unlocked the door to the prize castle where each kid could pick out a free toy.
“When I got that key in the mail, the only thing I can relate it to is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when he got the golden ticket ... To go to Johnny’s Toys! Oh man!” says Rev. Ashley Beagle, 56, one of the dozen people interviewed by Miller.
The Magical World explains how the toy shop grew out of the Martin family hardware store on Decoursey Avenue in the Latonia area of Covington. Bill Martin bought Miss Mary’s Candy Shop at 3719 Decoursey Ave., and eventually transitioned it into a toy shop after World War II.
When the original Mary’s Candy Show location was expanded in 1968 into Johnny’s “big red building,” the birthday castle was in the front corner of the store. The Covington store moved in 1991 to the Latonia shopping center, and in 2001 to its final location at 4314 Boron Drive. The Decoursey buildings were leveled to become a parking lot near the Latonia Baptist Church and Connley Brothers Funeral Home.
Eventually, competition from Toys"R"Us and the big box stores killed Johnny’s. The Greenhills store closed in 2008 after 32 years, and the new Boron Drive flagship store was “scaled back” and then closed in 2009. Miller’s Magical World includes video of the empty back half of the store shot by then-teenager David Hildebrand on his iPod Touch in spring 2009.
Eventually Amazon and Walmart toppled Toys"R"Us. And local toy store chains went the way of neighborhood movie theaters, full service gas stations, Radio Shack, Blockbuster, Sears, Montgomery Ward, Woolworths, Albers, A&P, home-delivered milk, yesterday’s box scores in the morning newspaper, and, well, the morning paper.
The Boron Drive location, off Howard Litzler Boulevard, operated as the Totter’s Otterville children’s event center until the 2020 pandemic, about 11 years after the store closed. The film includes audio of Nick Clooney welcoming visitors to the Otterville trolley ride.
Miller truly needed some magic to produce the film in three months. He had time before starting his Big Red Machine project in January for the Reds Hall of Fame, and squeezed in the Johnny’s Toy movie. He wrote, shot, directed and edited the film, then he composed and played the soundtrack.
“I wanted to get this out for the holidays,” he says. “This was a personal passion project. And it had to be done in three months. I’ve never had to do a film so fast. It was a blast — but it was tough.”
Miller posted The Magical World of Johnny’s Toys on YouTube after a sold-out Dec. 1 premiere at The Roost coffee shop in Latonia. Several people commented that they found the film very emotional. A second sold-out screening occurs Sunday, Dec. 8, for the Martin family.
In addition to making a movie, Miller also has made a castle. He built a small toy castle in The Roost, 3616 Decoursey Ave., for people to drop off unwrapped new toys by Sunday, Dec. 15.
“I thought it would be neat to do a toy drive in conjunction with the movie. I thought it would be fun if we could put toys into the castle, so I built a replica castle in The Roost,” he says. “And we’ll give them to some Covington charities for Christmas.”
And the Johnny’s Toys magic continues.
