'Favorite dolls may fade with time - our love for them never will.'

November 16, 2009 1:31 PM

Doll Kind :: Dolls of the 20th Century - A Celebration in Pictures and Histories
posted by anastasiav (20 comments total)

Am I the only person who has a phobia of dolls?

Those of you who enjoy dolls, I wish you nothing but joy of your dolls, but they creep me right the fuck out.
posted by Sidhedevil at 1:43 PM on November 16, 2009 [3 favorites]

Am I the only person who has a phobia of dolls?

A Celebration in Pictures and Histories Horror

I love dolls because they're creepy. Is this worse than having a phobia?
posted by neewom at 1:45 PM on November 16, 2009

Sidhedevil: I am okay with dolls in general, but Dollfies are fucking upsetting. The only thing scarier is the amount of money Dollfie fans spend on these things and how creepily obsessive some of the owners are.
posted by runaway ballista at 1:46 PM on November 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Thanks for this post. The info on Raggedy Ann dolls alone was really interesting. The Gruelle stories and these dolls were a big part of my childhood.
posted by bearwife at 1:49 PM on November 16, 2009

bearwife: mine too. It was actually a search for electronic versions of the original stories that brought me here. Sorry if I creeped folks out - I love these sorts of archives that are put together my people with 'magnificent obsessions'.
posted by anastasiav at 1:57 PM on November 16, 2009

Am I the only person who has a phobia of dolls?

I almost came in about five minutes before you to post "Thanks for the nightmare fuel," but thought that might be too flip. Then I got distracted by something else.
posted by Caduceus at 1:58 PM on November 16, 2009

I work for a really old children's museum, and we have a basement full of weird artifacts from yesteryear. There is an entire room that houses an old doll collection left to us by an elderly woman in her will. It is a dark room, in a dark, gloomy basement and it is filled with old dolls.

You think this post is a nightmare?
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:02 PM on November 16, 2009

I’d like to remind everybody that the movie Poltergeist features a CLOWN DOLL which comes alive and attempts to drag it’s own under the bed. Thank you.
posted by Artw at 2:14 PM on November 16, 2009

Dollfies are fucking upsetting.

*clicks link*

Jesus fucking Christ, what the what?!?!?!?
posted by Artw at 2:14 PM on November 16, 2009

As a kid, I decided that nearsightedness was a small price to pay for NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE THE DOLLS STARING AT ME AAAUUUGH
posted by thomas j wise at 2:26 PM on November 16, 2009

What, no biker pouty doll? because I really wanted to hear the story behind that.
posted by tellurian at 2:41 PM on November 16, 2009

Sorry if I creeped folks out

Not to worry! I seriously wish people who love dolls joy of their dolls.

I just wanted to know if I was alone in my doll-phobia.
posted by Sidhedevil at 2:56 PM on November 16, 2009

My grandmother gave me a Madame Alexander doll when I was about seven. It was probably my mom's idea - she was always wanting me to collect things and to be more of a girly-girl. I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do with it and I have no idea what became of it.

However, remembering the doll made me google Madame Alexander and I found an interesting biography of Beatrice Alexander. This jumped out at me:

Alexander's stance on the suitability of dolls as toys for boys was quite progressive for her time. Although she "would never advocate a mother or father rushing out and buying dolls for boys," she also did not believe that boys would become "effeminate" if they did play with dolls. In fact, she thought dolls could play an important role in fostering boys' natural nurturing instincts. "I don't think a parent should ridicule boys when they show affection for little sister's dolls," she asserted. "After all, the paternal instinct in men is an important as the maternal instinct in women, and it couldn't be good to crush that instinct in a child."

Like the good, modern parent that I like to consider myself, I bought my son a doll when he was a toddler, a boy cabbage patch doll. He turned out to be less interested in dolls than I was. But, I gave him the opportunity.
posted by zinfandel at 3:36 PM on November 16, 2009

Dollfies are fucking upsetting.

I like dollfies (self-link, NSFW, upsettingness turned up to 11)

I had a Raggedy Ann doll when I was little. One night I was trying to crawl into my grandma's lap while she was seated at the kitchen table right beside the dishwasher. Being a clumsy child I fell into the dishwasher and had to have stitches above my left eyebrow (I was wee and unable to say "stitches" - I called them "bitches). My aunt thought it'd be sweet to sew "bitches" above my Raggedy Ann doll's eyebrow too. When I saw the doll I cried and threw her into my expanive and messy closet. I've never seen the doll again. And now I'd kind of like to, just to see if she what kind of job she did on them. Maybe she did such a poor job I was just rejecting it aesthetically. I'll never know.
posted by birdie birdington at 3:44 PM on November 16, 2009

Oh wow. Those Bradley dolls in the 70's were a trip. My sisters and I had those. We abused them something fierce! Freaky big eyes.
posted by jeanmari at 4:14 PM on November 16, 2009

For Brits of a certain age I have only one word... Hamble (brrr)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:15 PM on November 16, 2009

Great post! I had many of the dolls referenced when I was a kid. I really miss the one that weighed about 10 pounds due to the SIX D batteries she required. If you squeezed the doll, her eyes would glow blue in the dark. Fascinating, creepy, and about as cuddly as a mailbox.
posted by pinky at 5:01 PM on November 16, 2009

My mom never let me have any Bradley dolls - I now realize her reason was probably because they look like old-timey prostitutes. I just thought they were dressed "fancy."
posted by queensissy at 5:33 PM on November 16, 2009

When I was a baby I had a Lolly Dolly. She was the best doll that was ever invented and she never left my grubby little clutches for the first 4 or so years of my life. Nearly every childhood picture of me up until I entered kindergarten also contains Lolly Dolly.

I loved her face off, literally. I still have it in a cedar chest at the house here, but the face is so threadbare that I can really only get it out and awww at it occasionally.

I wanted to get one for my daughter when she was a baby but they don't make them anymore. I couldn't remember what she was called since the tag on mine is so worn out and I couldn't find one on eBay or anything like that.

We had to settle for some ugly, inferior doll which my daughter never ended up liking that much. Because it wasn't Lolly Dolly. Who was unspeakably awesome. I remember being like 700 months pregnant and searching everywhere for something similar and then being very mad that Fisher Price stopped making them.

My mom was also given a set of Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls when I was born, but I never liked them much. Even as a kid, I found something about their faces sort of spooky and so I kept them stuffed in the back of the closet under a lot of things. Just looking at them sort of makes me shudder.
posted by howrobotsaremade at 8:00 PM on November 16, 2009

I thought this show was canceled.
posted by albrecht at 8:13 PM on November 16, 2009