Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Troll Dolls (No Zs allowed!)

Troll Dolls were actually introduced and reached their biggest peak of popularity back in the mid-60s, but they were resurrected in the 90s and I would bet that most of us had one or two of those creepy little things stowed away somewhere. The biggest change in the 90s-remixed dolls was that the manufacturers tried to market this toy towards boys.

That’s right, boys and girls—this was My Little Pony for boys.

Some of them had clothes. Some of them had personas (wizard, ninja, etc.). Some had…gems in the middle of their belly. Some were just NEKKID. And all of them had brightly colored hair that stuck straight up and ugly, ugly faces.


The Troll Dolls didn’t actually do anything, despite manufacturers trying to convince us that they were actually totally cool! Needless to say, the attempt to make them popular amongst boys (including endeavors such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Trolls—BLASPHAMY I SAY!) was at best marginally successful.


The positives of Troll Dolls? There was a wide variety, of different characters, colors (well, hair color at least—like My Little Pony, the hair seemed to be the most defining feature of the toy), and sizes ranging from pencil-topper size to over a foot tall. This made them a good collector item for those who were so inclined to do so (ie: not me). There were the ‘rare’ Trolls and also, for those of us who just liked to twist and twirl and try to braid the hair (ie: me), the smaller, dirt-cheap variety.

The negatives? Trolls Dolls were UGLY with a capital U, and didn’t really do anything. At least My Little Pony was ridiculously, sickeningly adorable.

The Troll Dolls franchise lives on today in an animated series called Trollz (the Z makes it trendy!!) which makes me immensely grateful that during my childhood, as unimpressive as this particular toy line was, at the very least their name was spelled correctly.

Fun fact: Some people incorrectly refer to these dolls are Kewpie Dolls. They are not Kewpie Dolls. These are Kewpie Dolls:

It is at least equally as creepy (in my opinion more so), so I can understand the confusion.  

3 comments:

  1. Um... That Kewpie-Satan thing is waaaay creepy...

    Anyway, Troll Dolls were pretty cool if you were into collecting them, but as toys they really were pretty dumb. Awesome hair, though.

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  2. I personally loved the troll dolls. Found them cute in their own little way. I collected them when I was like eight and had two whole shoe boxes. They sucked as this buht I did love collecting them. :) Loved ' em!

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  3. My first troll had long, silky pink hair, and my brother's troll was likewise, with light blue hair. I have never seen any more like these. The troll dolls that came afterward had the fuzzy hair (uncombable) that was replicated in the 1990's resurrection of these toys. I still have a collection of the 1960's fuzzy haired ones. And I still find them cute. Mainly because my mom made the cutest hand-crocheted outfits for them from fine balls of cotton.

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