PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — While thousands of people prepare for “Black Friday,” which starts in just a few hours at some stores, others have already braved a bit of shopping madness.

KDKA-TV’s John Shumway ventured out on the day that’s become known as “Brown Thursday.”

Long before sunrise, shoppers gathered on the Kmart doorstep — some arriving six hours before opening, all with high hopes expectations

“Because we wanted to get an electronic devise,” one shopper said.

“I’m trying to get TVs for my boys,” another shopper said.

One shopper, Dave Balbach of McCandless, was a man on a mission – dispatched by his wife.

“Why isn’t she here?” Shumway asked.

“She’s in bed,” Balbach said. “What can I say?”

But some early birds found pay dirt.

“It’s a successful one,” one shopper said. “Had to get a car for all the nephews.”

The boxes dwarfing the shopping carts were a sign of the victors in the quest for the cherished limited doorbusters.

“I did great,” one woman said. “I got a $99 television.”

“Got everything we came for, for the most part,” Toyatta Allen of Troy Hill said.

However, the trip to the store on “Brown Thursday” didn’t turn out as many deals for some shoppers.

“No, to be quite honest with you, no,” John Woodcook of Glenshaw said. “We come for the TV and they were all gone.”

With every retailer trying to get your holiday dollars early, Kmart knows the drawing power value of the doorbusters, so they’re doing it three times.

“We’re doing another that start at 8 p.m. tonight and another that starts at 5 a.m. tomorrow,” Kmart McIntyre Square Mike Divoky said.

The moral of the story seems to be that some people leave happy some don’t — and even arriving six hours early for doorbuster specials is not always a guarantee.

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