I would like to invite you all to visit a happier time with me; a time where Barbie had bigger boobs and a smaller waist. A time where toy animals were the size of your thumb. A time where an odd amount of toys were intended for bath time and where mechanical toys were less realistic and more maniacal. Come with me as I reminisce about the weirdest toys from my childhood. If you don’t recognize some of these toys, well, my only defense is that I played with toys well past the appropriate age. When most of you were experimenting with makeup, I was hiding in my basement building elaborate estates for my Barbies. Don’t worry, I stopped playing with dolls [by myself] around age 15...
//Tedd Ruxpin
I believe this may have been one of my very first toys. This animatronic daemon read me stories so my parents didn’t have to. His eyes made shifty looks about the room while his mouth moved, clearly not to the words of the story. Was Teddy reading to me, or distracting me with his mouth while he looked around to make sure the coast was clear for stabbing me? I just don’t know.
//Cupcake Dolls
First off, does anyone else find it strange that these dolls didn’t have legs?? I know it was upsetting to me as a child, but I should have been more concerned that toy companies were sending me subliminal messages to eat lots of cupcakes. This doll’s dress flipped up and then her hat was the top of the cupcake. So basically I was told to flip up my skirt and eat a cupcake. Great message to little girls. I have a theory that the cupcake craze of today was kindled by toy companies of yesteryears.
//Shampoodle
This is the first of many bath toys on my list. I can only conclude that either my parents thought I smelled and were trying to get me to bathe more, or pedophiles ran rampant in the toy industry during the 90’s. I had the white shampoodle, She came with a cup and a comb and you used the cup to pour water and soap into her dog tag. Then if you squeezed her tummy, bubbles came out of her head. In what world do you squeeze a puppy and have bubbles come out of her head? I don’t understand the purpose of this toy at all, but I sure loved her.
//Quints
“Quints, Quints, a time for fun! I love taking care of each and everyone one!” These tiny color-coded babies had abnormal amounts of hair for being infants. And where were their mothers? It always upset me when you couldn’t trace the lineage of toys. They weren’t in the Barbie family, so she couldn’t parent them. They were too big for Polly Pocket to intervene, but too small to be my baby. These were the thoughts that plagued me as a child. Also, I bet Octomom had a bunch of these growing up. Still think it was a fun toy for little girls?
//My Buddy/Kid Sister
I didn’t get a kid sister in real life or in my play things. My brother however, did get a my buddy. He also drew a butt crack on said my buddy. He asked that I not call my buddy a “doll” because boys don’t play with dolls…but he was a doll. A terrifying doll that should not to be left alone. They basically took Chuckie and added a happier face and pretended these things weren’t terrifying. You aren’t fooling anyone, Chuckie!
// Little Pretties Kittens and Puppies
I had SO MANY of these! Maybe one in every color. I know I had both of the ones pictured above, but I also recall a white kitten with hot pink hair. Either way, kittens and puppies should definitely not have pig tails or bangs! I am also fairly certain these toys came in some sort of perfume bottle, because that is where pets belong?? I also remember getting some sort of salon that was in the shape of a perfume bottle with all sorts of stuff for doing hair. I actually don’t recall if the perfume salon was an accessory to this toy or another one, but it makes sense in my mind that it went with these guys.
//Puppy Surprise
Probably the most inappropriate of all the toys of my youth. You bought a momma dog not knowing how many puppies she had inside. Then you viciously tore open her Velcro stomach to reveal anywhere from 2-6 puppies. Not okay at all to teach kids to tear open a dog’s tummy to find her babies. It was anatomically inaccurate and creepy! I got 3 puppies in my puppy surprise and my friend Courtney got 6. Want to know why? Because after I got mine, Courtney’s mom’s boyfriend weighed my momma dog, puppies, and the box and came up with an estimate of how much a 6 puppy momma would weigh. He then went to Toys R Us and weighed the boxes until he found one. I was so jealous!! It wasn’t fair that she got 6 puppies while me and my 3 puppies were her control group. The happy ending of this story is that Courtney outgrew all of her toys long before I did and she passed them down to me! That was partially because she was a few years older than me…but my “advanced playing skills” helped lengthen my time to enjoy her toys as well.
//Lil Miss Magic Hair
A) She was dressed like an 80’s hooker. B) Those bangs! If you didn’t have this doll then you’re probably fine. She wasn’t really that cool. She came with this magic brush/wand that had a metal heart at the base of the handle. When you put ice water inside the brush, you could change the colors of her hair. Who knows what kind of chemicals were in here hair to cause that sort of reaction. If I recall, the cold brush made streaks just fine, but I remember the metal heart sucked big time. No matter how you pressed it on her hair, the colorful blob never actually looked like a heart. Also, her shoes did not stay on and were lost in 1.2 days.
//Lil Miss Singing Mermaid
She was probably less fun than her long haired counterpart, although she is another example of a bath toy. When you put batteries in her, she sang out the top of her head. True story. That crown housed a waterproof speaker that had some eerie mermaid song. Supposedly she sang underwater, but for those of us who had her, we know that that muffled noise sounded less like a mermaid singing and more like someone drowning an cast member from Glee. Also, after her first bath those curls never looked the same.
//My Pretty Mermaid
So what was up with our mermaid obsession? It’s like mermaids were the vampires of the 90’s. And seriously with the bath toys! I liked this one because she had pink hair. She did nothing cool though. I guess that is better than being fooled into thinking your mermaid would have underwater singing skills. I guess it was pretty cool that this one’s tail moved; that’s a little more realistic.
//Water Pets
Another bath toy! I had the blue cat and my brother had the red dog…because we believed boys should like dogs and girls should like cats. Our mom loved gender stereotypes. These guys were filled with tiny little beanbag-esqu filler and the fabric was this cold, shiny something. Like a windbreaker. These toys were not cuddly and you had to hang them by that hook on their head so they could dry in the tub. They also became sort of misshapen after too many baths. I guess those beans were not meant to last.
//Rub-a-dub-doggie
You guys, finding the name of this toy was my greatest feat I have accomplished in months! Remember when I
wrote about reenacting the water scene from “My Girl” with bath toys? THESE WERE THEM! Well, the miniature version which I still cannot locate a picture of, but you get the idea. We had A TON of these around our house. These are the big ones which my brother and I had, but we also had many, many of the little ones. I could not for the life of me remember what they were called and it has been haunting me since I thought about them. I asked around and all of my friends had no idea what I was talking about and turns out searching terms like “water dog” “bath toy dog” were way too broad. Then I had a magical moment where I found something that said their name. It sounded familiar so I then performed a search with that and they came up! I was having a particularly bad afternoon so the joy I felt when their pictures popped up was probably equal to what I felt when I actually got these toys as a child. These things were THE BEST! I could take them in the bath, I could take them to the pool, I even took them to Bear Lake. When you were done playing with them in the water, their ears dried out and they became land dwellers once again. Not like that crappy mermaid who lost her curls, or my water pet kitten that lost its shape, or shampoodle who got all mildew inside. I love you rub-a-dub-doggie!
