Animation & Cartoon Character Dolls: 1970 - 2019

For more animated characters see also Disney character dolls and Simpsons Sears Canadian Winnie the Pooh Puppets.

Hanna-Barbera Characters, 8 inch figures by R Dakin company, 1970 -71

Here is Baby Puss (the Flintstone's cat), Bam Bam (Barny and Betty's baby) and Dino (Fred Flintstone's pet dinosaur). Dino is from 1970 and is 7.5 inches tall. The rubber for his muzzle has darkened over time, it used to be a light brownish or pinkish in colour. It was left unpainted as the colour of the plastic was the colour of his face. I have no idea why they made Dino's body blue??? Bam Bam is from 1970 and is missing a white bone that was attached to his costume, and he came with a brown wooden club (both were made out of plastic). The Baby Puss figure is from 1971 and is much harder to find than the other two. Other characters that were made as part of this series are Fred, Barny, Pebbles and Hoppy. For some reason Wilma and Betty weren't made for this set, which is a shame as it leaves the collection incomplete. Below is a side view.

Each of the figures have a jointed neck, limbs (with the exception of Dino's hind legs), and tail...if they have one! Dino's white collar is a separate loose ring of plastic with "Dino" printed on it in silver letters, which on this particular figure have faded. 

Hanna-Barbera Characters, 7 inch figures (unknown manufacturer), 1980 - 1982

This series of figures are souvenirs from Canada's Wonderland theme park, made in the style of the 1970's Dakin figures, shown above. However, these figures are somewhat smaller than the Dakin figures. They were also apparently sold at the King's Island theme park as well, as there was a "Hanna-Barbera land" at the park. Shown here left to right are Scooby-Doo (1980), Huckleberry Hound (1982), Yogi Bear (1980), Fred Flintstone (1980), Barney Rubble (1980), and Dino (1982). Yogi and Fred are the tallest at 6 and 3/4 inches tall, just shy of 7 inches. Huckleberry Hound is the shortest at 5 and 3/4 inches tall. Although Huckleberry usually wears a hat the figure was sold without one. A figure of Scrappy-Doo was also made as part of this set in 1982 (shown below). Unfortunately, the Scrappy-Doo figure is quite large as it was not made in scale with the other characters in the series. 

Side view of the figures, shown above and below. Yogi's legs are not articulated, while all of the other character's legs are (they spin around). Scooby, Dino and Huckleberry have jointed tails. This is by far the coolest Scooby-Doo action figure that I've ever scene. For a cheaply made, inexpensive souvenir item it was actually really well done. Huckleberry's arms have a limited motion moving forward as his bow tie gets in the way. The figure also does not stand up very well as the feet were not sculpted at the right angle, leaving the figure tilted back just a little bit too far to stay balanced. It's a really nice looking figure though.

The Dino figure has nicely detailed spots on his back, and unlike the original Dakin figure his hind legs are movable, though they have limited motion. I find his pointed claws and tail are quite sharp for a kid's toy, which I suspect might be why there is a second version of this figure (shown below). It's just as challenging to find as the first one. This version does not have any jointed limbs, or a jointed tail, only the neck is jointed and it's the same head sculpt as used for the first figure. (There isn't a slot for coins or a plug on the bottom of the figure, so it isn't a penny bank.) I'm just assuming that the above jointed figure was made first, though I really have no idea if one came first, or if they were both made at the same time.  Unfortunately I did not save the web address of where I found the images, the photos may have been found on e-bay.

I noticed a variation for the Fred Flintstone figure as well. He can be found with the beard area of his face painted either tan-pink or blue-grey, as shown above. The grey version also has very thick black lines around the edge as compared to the other which has thin lines. The pink version was likely sold at Canada's Wonderland theme park, as I bought if from a seller in Ontario, whereas the grey version came from a seller in the United States, so it's likely from the King's Island theme park.

Image found at this site

Here is an image of the Scrappy-Doo figure from this set next to the Scooby-Doo figure. It's really a shame that Scrappy wasn't made in scale with Scooby-Doo, not even close. None the less, it's a really cool figure. Below is another view.

Image found at this site

Penny Banks, 1980

Penny Banks of Scooby-Doo, Yogi Bear and Fred Flintstone were also made at the same time as the above figures, and are very similar, using the same rubber heads. They each had a jointed neck with a one piece molded body that served as the penny bank. These were also sold at Canada's Wonderland on the very same shelf right next to the figures. The Scooby bank depicts him seated. I recall seeing them in the gift shop on the shelf (which was glass!) when my family went to the park in the mid 1980's.

 

Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, and Fred Flintstone Penny Banks, made between 1980-82.

Sold at Canada's Wonderland and King's Island theme parks.

The image of the Yogi Bear Bank was found at this site and is valued at $60.

The image of the Scooby-Doo Bank was found at this site and is valued at $25.

The image of the Fred Flintstone bank was found at this site. and is valued at $25.

I have no idea how these sites came up with the values, in my view the $60 for Yogi is excessive. Rather, $25 each seems more reasonable to me.

Days Inn Flintstones Plush Toys, 8 inches, Strottman International, 1994

These plush toys of Dino and Fred Flintstone were sold at Days Inn hotels in 1994, as part of an extensive marketing promotion by the hotel chain during the 1990's that involved a variety of Flintstones toys being produced. Fred was also featured in a Days Inn TV commercial with celebrity weatherman Willard Scott. Large standee style signs featuring the characters were used in each hotel to decorate the lobbies. The goal was to attract families with kids to the hotels. 

A plush toy of Pebbles was also made as part of the above plush toy series. All three of the characters in the set were made the same way, with a plastic sculpted head and a plush body. The Dino plush toy has an extremely well sculpted head as compared with other Dino figures that had previously been made (see comparison below). The plush toy even has spots printed on back which is nice detail to see.

Here's a look at all three of the Dino's in my collection side by side. 

The 1994 Days Inn Dino plush toy has the nicest, most accurate head sculpt.

The Smurfs, 6.5 inch plush doll by Ganz Bros., 1983

Here is the villain Gargamel and his cat Azreal from the popular Smurfs books and animated series. The cat is sewn onto Gargamel's body and the pair were sold together. Often the cat is missing from this doll as kids would snip the stitching holding it onto Gargamel to play with them separately. This Gargamel is missing his single tooth (a small white square) that was glued inside the mouth. A larger sized plush Gargamel was also made along with a larger plush Azreal, but these were sold separately. Ganz Bros made a wide variety of various sized Smurf plush toys throughout the 1980s. Below is a side view.

Inspector Gadget, 12 inch doll by Galoob, 1983

Here is a very sought after action figure/doll of Inspector Gadget made in 1983. This figure was not available in stores for long and, although not rare, is still a hard to find item. Galoob did quite an amazing job on this toy! Gadget has several functions including a pop up neck, a missile hand, a pop out hand, and spring loaded feet. He also comes with a "robot arm", hammer, umbrella, hand cuffs and parts for his hat helicopter.

Here he is with his feet and neck pushed back into place. This specific doll was purchased at Toy City which used to be at Westgate Mall, here in Ottawa, ON. My mom bought it for me, I think it was a birthday present. I recall that I had kept the box for a while but eventually it got thrown out which is too bad. This doll mint in the box is worth $200 to $250. Luckily I didn't loose any of the pieces for mine, so it's still worth at least $100. I certainly would never sell it for less than that, if I ever did sell it, which I wouldn't! :)

Robot arm with umbrella.

Robot arm with hammer.

Helicopter blades and handles

Here's Gadget without his jacket, which is quite detailed. There are two plastic snaps inside the jacket to keep it closed, and no less than TEN white buttons sewn on! The belt has Velcro at the end to keep it closed, and a small plastic belt buckle for detail. 

Here is the back view without his coat to show the small light blue buttons that control the action features. When the head/neck is in the down position it's quite loose, which is how the toy was made. You have to press in the small button on his back and hold it in, and then press down on the head, and then release the button to set the spring loaded neck feature. Then press the button again and Gadget's head/neck pops up. Gadget's hands work the same way only the right hand is a missile that shoots out. Both hands are jointed at the fingers allowing for the hand to be open or closed. This is a very awesome and well made figure!

Alvin and the Chipmunks, 8 inch doll by Ideal, 1983

In the early 1980's the Chipmunks, who first gained popularity in the 1950s, made a comeback with a brand new Saturday morning cartoon TV series titled "Alvin and the Chipmunks". Ideal produced an assortment of toys based on the new series including plush toys, wind up figures and an extensive collection of PVC figures. Additionally, in 1983 Ideal produced a playset called "The Chipmunks on Tour Van" to be used with the PVC figures. Included with the playset was an 8 inch doll of the Chipmunks manger Dave Seville, shown above next to the Mego Spider-Man for size comparison. The Dave doll is 8 and 3/8 inches tall, while the Spidey doll is 7 and 7/8 inches.

 

Here is a closer view of Dave's face with a nice smile. This is a rare thing for poor Dave who often lost his temper trying to get his lead chipmunk Alvin to co-operate. I guess Ideal figured that a smiling Dave doll would go over better with parents than an angry Dave doll. To my knowledge this is the only time the character of Dave Seville was marketed as a toy.

Granted, this is a very bizarre photo! The purpose of it is to show that in order to make their Dave doll, Ideal simply reused the child-size doll body that was originally created by Gabriel for their popular Lone Ranger series of dolls, produced from 1973 to at least 1978. The Dave doll uses the body for Gabriel's Dan Reid and Little Bear dolls, though the latter was a different colour of plastic. As I don't have either of those dolls, shown next to Dave is the 10 inch doll of the Lone Ranger's villain Butch from the same series, which has the same type of doll body. The pant leg on the Dave doll is too narrow to take off over his shoes, which are attached, and Butch's boots are a tad difficult to get off, so the pants for both dolls couldn't be removed for the photo.

 

The Dave doll body wasn't the only recycled toy in "The Chipmunks on Tour Van" playset, as the tour van was previously part of Ideal's line of dolls and toys based on stunt driver Evel Knievel, produced in the mid 1970's. For that series the van was called the "Evel Knievel Scramble Van". An illustration of the toy is seen in a comic book ad on this page of the blog:

http://mikeysdolls.blogspot.ca/p/celebrit-and-other-dolls.html

 

In 1984, the year after the Dave doll was first offered, Ideal produced a series of Chipmunk dolls that were marketed as "Poseable Play Pals". These are slightly taller than the Chipmunks PVC figures. There were 10 dolls in the collection, each sold separately:

Alvin
Simon
Theodore
Brittany
Jeanette
Eleanor
Uncle Harry
Alvin in Concert
Simon in Concert
Theodore in Concert

According to Wikipedia, Dave Seville was the stage name of Ross Bagdasarian, the creator of the Chipmunks, who was a singer and entertainer (see link below). The cartoon character version of Dave, which the doll is based on, doesn't look very much like the real-life Dave.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_and_the_Chipmunks
 

Get Along Gang, 6 inch and 12 inch dolls by Tomy Toys, 1984

The Get Along Gang is probably best known for their cartoon series from the mid 1980s. They made their debut as greeting card characters created by American Greetings and later gained enough popularity for a 13 episode animated series. Although I didn't watch the TV show I've always liked the rockin' theme song that was created by Mike Piccirillo. In fact, this is one of my favourite TV theme songs. It's a very upbeat and uplifting tune that I find myself humming from time to time out of habit, and have been doing so since the 80's! 

Shown above is Montgomery "Good News" Moose, the leader of the Get Along Gang. This doll is 6 inches tall including his antlers, and has a removable fabric shirt. I was never into the Get Along Gang as a kid but I always liked Montgomery Moose and was glad to find this one second hand in the early 1990s. These 6 inch dolls are often found missing their fabric outfits, so it's lucky when a loose figure turns up complete like this one. The back view shows that Velcro was used to close the back of the shirt.

The funny thing about the design for Montgomery is that he has a dog's nose. A real moose doesn't have a black nose at the end of its mussel, as seen above, it just has nostrils. Though for a cartoon character it does look more aesthetic to add the black nose, in fact it's such an expected design style for animation that Montgomery would look quite odd without it. 

 

Another interesting thing about the design of Montgomery Moose is that his sweater bears a striking similarity to the one worn by "Moose" on the popular 1970's TV Ontario children's show Cucumber. The program originally aired in the mid 1970's and continued to be shown as reruns through to the mid 1980's. As such, Moose and Beaver (shown above) were among TVO's star characters for a full decade! TVO's Moose wore a green shirt with a yellow "M" and stripes on the arms, while Montgomery's shirt is blue with the same yellow details (though only one stripe on each arm instead of two). In fact, the "M" on Montgomery's sweater is presented using the same style of font as the sweater worn by TV Ontario's "Moose". According to Wikipedia the Get Along Gang was created in 1983 which, regardless if it was intentional or not, makes this a very clear case of copyright infringement! Both characters also happen to live in a clubhouse and hang out with a beaver. Considering the millions that were likely made from the licencing of the Get Along Gang, I wonder if TVO ever attempted any legal action in this regard? The pilot for the animated series was also produced by a Canadian company, just sayin'!

Montgomery's head, arms and legs are made out of soft rubber-like plastic, while the torso section is a harder, solid plastic. Rather than painting the upper torso brown to match the arms and head, the entire torso section was left yellow which looks bizarre when the shirt is removed. Originally there were six figures in the 6 inch collection, with the other five being Bingo "Bet it all" Beaver, Woolma Lamb, Dotty Dog, Zipper Cat and Portia Porcupine. Three more female characters were added to the series before it was discontinued, including Lolly Squirrel, Bernice Bear, and Flora Fox. I would not think that a fox and lamb would "get along" very well, or a cat and dog, but I guess finding a way to do so is what the characters were meant to teach kids.

The three male characters (Montgomery, Bingo, and Zipper) all share the same torso and legs which have sculpted on pants and shoes that don't come off. The female characters have the same bodies as well, which allow for all of their clothes and shoes to be removable. The shoes are often missing from loose figures. Three of the female characters (Dotty, Lolly, and Flora) have painted on socks. Bingo has a plastic beaver tail attached to his backside, and Zipper has a cat tail, which makes the tail-less Montgomery unique from the other two male figures. For the ladies only two of the six dolls have tails, Flora has a plastic fox tail and Lolly has a squirrel tail. All nine dolls in the set have the same arms. Even though these dolls are jointed at the hips so that they can be posed in a sitting position, due to the shape of the bodies and legs, the figures are not balanced to sit upright on their own. Instead they need to lean against something.

Okay, I guess you can tell by now that I like these 6 inch dolls and want to collect them all! LOL! :) In the least, I'd like to add Bingo and Zipper to my collection!

This 6 inch doll series was very well made with the exception of Woolma Lamb. She is wearing a completely different outfit from all of her other appearances, including the other toy lines that were produced at the same time as this doll, which is quite odd. The Woolma doll is dressed in a yellow long sleeve shirt with navy blue tights and yellow shoes rather than the yellow dress she is supposed to be wearing. This is the only time any of the Get Along Gang characters was marketed wearing an outfit that did not match with the continuity of their specific design. My guess as to why the clothes were changed is that Woolma's body is supposed to be covered in fluffy wool, like a lamb, but the plastic doll body is just flat and smooth. Rather than have to sculpt a new body just for this one character, her clothes were likely changed to cover her body up instead.

 

A playset for the 6 inch doll collection was also made, called the Super Soda Shoppe (shown above). It's not bad for a playset as it looks to have been well made, however the gang always hung out in their Clubhouse Caboose which would have been a nicer playset for this series. Unfortunately the caboose was only made as a playset in scale for the series of PVC figures which were much smaller (shown below). I suspect that Tomy Toys didn't want to create confusion in the market by having two Clubhouse Caboose playsets available in different sizes at the same time, though this would have been easy enough to remedy simply by showing the actual PVC figures or 6 inch dolls on the box with the playset! To me this seems like a missed opportunity to sell additional Get Along Gang product. In all, the PVC series had 22 figures with two playsets: a Clubhouse Caboose and the larger Haunted Badger Mansion.

Some of the Get Along Gang PVC figures next to the Clubhouse Caboose playset.

 

The figures in the PVC series include two differently posed figures for each of the six main characters, which accounts for 12 of the 22 figures, with the remaining 10 being:

 

Flora Fox (female)

Beatrice Bear (female)

Lolly Squirrel (female)

Braker Turtle (male)

Rocco Rabbit (male)

Rudyard Lion (male)

Hocus Hair (female)

Pocus Possum (male)

 

And two male villains:

Catchum Crocodile

Leland Lizard (Catchum's side kick)

 

In addition to the 6 inch dolls and PVC figures, Tomy Toys simultaneously produced a series of 12 inch plush toys based on the six main Get Along Gang characters. The two villains, Catchum Crocodile and Leland Lizard, were later added to the collection for a total of eight 12 inch dolls. Above is the 12 inch plush toy of Montgomery Moose next to the 6 inch doll. All of the plush toys in this series were sold wearing a pair of blue plastic roller skates with red wheels (shown below), which are missing from the one I have. All of the clothes for the plush toys are removable, in Montgomery's case his shirt, pants, shoes, and the roller skates. The skates fit overtop of the removable shoes. I'm also missing a shoe, so the 6 inch doll is a nice distraction from the bare foot! :)

 

An example of one of the plastic roller skates.

A pair of these skates came with each of the 12 inch plush toys.

 

The bottom of the left shoe for the 12 inch plush toy has a nice vinyl decal showing the style of illustration used on the greeting cards, along with the name of the character. The shoe is stitched onto the plush toy at the back heal, so it doesn't come off unless you snip the stitch first. The right shoe (shown below) doesn't have a decal on the bottom, instead it has a decal on the side that says "The Get Along Gang", making both shoes unique to this toy line. Several different Get Along Gang coffee mugs were also produced with the greeting card style artwork on them.

 

The right shoe with the text logo on the side.

 

In addition to the toys, Marvel Comics produced a series of Get Along Gang comic books under their Star Comics brand that was targeted to younger kids. Volume 1 has just 6 issues, which were published bi-monthly from May 1985 to March 1986. I have issues #3 and #4, shown above. In Europe however, Marvel UK published a weekly comic that lasted 92 issues!

 

Snoopy, 8 inch doll by Another Determined Production, possibly from 1984

 

Here is a very awesome Snoopy doll with moveable arms and legs, fabric ears and tail, and a loose black plastic collar. I found him at a nostalgia show in the 1990's wearing only the green pants shown. I've pictured Snoopy next to the Mego 8 inch Spider-Man for size comparison.

Here is Snoopy without the green pants.

A side view to show the shape of Snoopy's snout and body.

This Snoopy doll has a black spot on his back and a fabric tail.

 

I haven't been able to find any images of this Snoopy doll in original packaging online, so I don't have any "hard evidence" for a date that this doll was made. The bottom of the right foot is marked "© 1958, 1966 United Feature / Syndicate, Inc. / ANOTHER DETERMINED / PRODUCTION/ KOREA" however I'm doubtful that this doll is from 1966, and here's why...

 

There are three other very similar dolls to this one. The easiest way to tell all of these apart is the loose black plastic collar that the Snoopy shown above is wearing. Knickerbocker did an extensive series of dress up dolls in the 1970s called Snoopy and Belle. The dolls for that series have similar fabric ears but do not have a collar, and the bodies are taller and slimmer than this Snoopy. The mouth is also drawn differently, being more of an evenly drawn line, while the above Snoopy has a "sketched" looking mouth.

 

I have also seen a Knickerbocker version with essentially the same body as the doll shown above, but the collar is red plastic, and the head is quite different with the ears being sculpted and painted as part of the head. The nose is also much lower on Snoopy's snout. This doll is marked "©1958, 1966 United Features Synd" on the bottom of the foot with the Knickerbocker logo. It has an older look to the style of the head, so I suspect that it is the original doll that started this line of dress up dolls. The "Determined" company may have just used the body from this earlier Knickerbocker doll and made a new head for it. That's my theory anyway.

 

More recently, in 2015 the Tonner doll company produced similar Snoopy dolls, however the hands are quite different, with the right hand in a fist, plus the eyes are thinner lines, and the mouth has a different "sketched" line shape.

 

According to the website linked below, the "Determined" Snoopy doll series has six different outfits. The doll for each is the same, only the outfit is different. The outfits are: Golfing, Tennis, Baseball, Roller-skating, Sailor, and Cassette player. The green pants on my Snoopy seem to be from the Golfing outfit. Unfortunately there are no photos of the dolls in original packaging, but the author of the blog listed these Snoopy's as being made in 1984. Here is the link:

https://snoopycollection.wordpress.com/2014/08/17/jointed-pvc-collector-dolls/

 

To make this more confusing, the same blog also has a post showing the above Snoopy doll along with a doll of Belle as a Bride and Groom set (so this is the seventh outfit for Snoopy and the second of three Belle dolls, not counting her outfits):

https://snoopycollection.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/snoopy-and-belle-as-groom-and-bride/

 

 

Popeye, 18 inch (estimate) dolls by presents, 1985

 

In the mid 1980's Presents did a remarkable job marketing several collections of larger sized dolls based on comic strip and cartoon characters. The dolls were all made in the same style incorporating plastic heads, hands and shoes with detailed clothes and stuffed bodies. The clothing was made as separate pieces that were sewn in place over top of the doll's body. Buttons, snaps and belts could be undone and the clothing removed, however the feet or hands for these dolls are generally too big to completely remove the clothes. The plastic shoes were flocked to provide a plush effect. Most of the dolls were sold with white metal doll stands which are often missing.

 

Above are three of the dolls from an extensive series based on Popeye. Shown here is Popeye, Olive Oyl, and the baby Swee' Pea. They even gave Popeye some "smoke" in his pipe by gluing some synthetic stuffing to the inside! It's not surprising that this well made doll series became so popular in it's day.

 

Additional dolls in the Popeye series include Brutus (who is essentially the same character as Bluto), Wimpy with a hamburger in his hand, Poopdeck Pappy (Popeye's dad), Sea Hag, and Eugene the Jeep. Pappy is essentially the same as the Popeye doll but with a white flocked beard and a different coloured outfit. The Sea Hag reuses the same hands and feet as Olive Oyl, while Brutus and Wimpy shared the same feet. Eugene the Jeep is the only plush toy in the set and is made with short fake fur.

 

The Popeye series of dolls proved to be so popular that a second smaller sized series of dolls was made using the same format and design as the larger dolls. The smaller series included Popeye, Olive Oyl, Swee' Pea, Brutus and Wimpy. This smaller series was not as well proportioned as the larger set, as some of the heads are too small. Hand puppets of Popeye, Olive Oyl and Swee' Pea were also made using the larger sized doll heads.

 

Conservation tip: When displaying or storing the Sea Hag doll keep her black fabric outfit from contacting the plastic surface of other dolls as the black dye can transfer leaving a stain on the plastic. This happened to the face of a talking doll that I especially liked, which really sucks! As punishment I banished the Sea Hag from my collection and sold her at a nostalgia show! :) Another tip is to store Olive Oyl with a clear baggie over her head to keep her rooted doll hair from getting messy.

 

Presents also made six additional comic strip character dolls series at the same time as their Popeye series, including:

• Archie (Archie, Jughead, Betty, Veronica and Reggie.)
• Beetle Baily (Beetle Baily wearing a grey helmet and Sarge. Several toy companies, such as Sugar Loaf in the late 1990s and Toy Works, have made similar dolls with plastic heads based on Beetle Bailey. These sets include additional characters such as General Halftrack and Miss Buxley.)
• Blondie (Blondie and Dagwood)
• Dennis the Menace (Dennis, Margaret, and Joey. Apparently their dog Ruff was not made as I have yet to find one from this set.)
• Hi and Lois (Hi, Lois, Trixie, and Dawg)
• The Muppets (Kermit the Frog in a tuxedo, and Miss Piggy in a fancy pink evening dress)

 

Quest for Camelot, 12 inch doll by Hasbro, 1997

 

This is Garrett from the 1997 Warner Bros. animated film Quest for Camelot, a movie that I have yet to see. This doll is made in the same style as the Disney fashion dolls produced by Mattel during the same period. Even the soft fabric used for his shirt is the same type of fabric used for the Mattel dolls. I like the look of this doll but there are two major flaws with it. It's cool that Garrett comes with his friend, Ayden the Falcon and a stick for Ayden to sit on. However, the falcon figure does not stay attached to the stick very well.

The other flaw is with Garrett's hair. I bought this doll new from the store when it went on clearance, so I'm the original owner. When I took the doll out of the box I noticed that the doll's hair was cut very unevenly on one side. He's supposed to have long hair, but the left side of his head has short, badly cut hair as compared with the right side. This really ruined the doll for me, which is too bad as it's quite a nice doll otherwise. I like having this guy in my collection, but I've rarely taken it out of the box over the years because of the messed up hair.

Here's a back view of Garrett's uneven hair cut, the result of a production flaw.

Hasbro made Garrett with the same doll body as their New Kids on the Block dolls, only the legs and briefs are coloured blue.

A closer look at the figure of Ayden the falcon.

 

 Here is Garrett in his original box, more or less the way he came packed.

The back of the box shows Garrett in a slightly different coloured costume, and shows other dolls that are available.

The box also has Garrett's background story in three different languages.

 

Kayley is the only other 12 inch doll that was made.

The rest of the dolls in the series are plush toys of the creatures.

 

Maya & Miguel, 13 inch plush doll by Scholastic/SideKicks, 2005

 

Here is a cute boy doll, Miguel, based on the PBS Kids/Scholastic animated series Maya and Miguel which I've never seen or heard of before. This was a very fortunate thrift shop find from Feb 2018 as the doll is in brand new condition with the original tag attached! Although the toy was produced in 2005, more than 12 years ago, it doesn't seem to have been played with very much. The only manufacturing info on the toy says "Scholastic Side Kicks". I'm not clear if "Side Kicks" is a division of the Scholastic company that manufactures toys or a separate toy company altogether. It was always my understanding that scholastic was solely a book publisher, however it's possible that they've branched out into the toy business.

Here is a closer view of the doll to show how the body was made (yes, I took the hang tag off!). I'm always impressed with how they can mass-produced plush dolls that are so complex and yet so well made. It would be quite a challenge to make a doll like this at home on the sewing machine! The doll has a very slim neck with a piece of wire in it to keep the head from flopping down, however the legs and arms are just floppy, without wire, which I think suits this doll nicely. The blue shirt is separate and can be removed. The white undershirt is just a white strip of fabric across the chest that is tacked to the inside of the blue shirt to give the impression that there is an under shirt (I found that disappointing, but understandable for a mass-produced toy). 

The doll has separate legs under the pant legs, but the pants are sewn on at the waist as part of the structure of the doll so they can't be removed (shown above). I really like the cute little ears that they gave this doll, and his big, funny shaped head! The doll also has some nice detail, such as the shape of the hair line and the pockets on the pants. Although the doll's face is simply an illustrated decal applied to the fabric, in this case it works really well and gives this doll some very nice appeal.

Here's a back view of the doll which is quite funny as it has such a big head!

 

Here is what the animated characters look like as shown on the hang tag. To see more visit the PBS website: http://pbskids.org/mayaandmiguel/english/friends/index.html

 

 

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Text and photos © Mike Artelle 2011, 2018