Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, well I should say Merry Christmas and welcome to
Speaker 2: the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Cherry's here too,
Speaker 2: and we bid you good tidings. You're decking your halls
Speaker 2: and giving you lots of joy on this festive day.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we're decking your halls if you give us content,
Speaker 1: of course to do so. Sure we would never deck halls.
Speaker 1: Just willy nilly, No, I mean, oh, we're good guys.
Speaker 2: That's right. Wow, this got odd very quickly.
Speaker 1: This is our annual sort of toy episode, and we've
Speaker 1: covered some specific dolls in the past, notably Cabbage Patch Kids,
Speaker 1: and you had the brainstorm like what about just dolls?
Speaker 1: What the heck is up with those weird little things.
Speaker 2: I sat up in the middle of the night one
Speaker 2: night and went dolls, right, and he.
Speaker 1: Was like, that's what happened, and she was holding a
Speaker 1: chatty Cathy.
Speaker 2: That's right. Oh, I can't wait to get to that part.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Yeah, we're talking about dolls themselves, and
Speaker 2: it is a pretty broad category. But actually it's a
Speaker 2: little more specific than I realized. Chuck and One of
Speaker 2: the things that right off the bat that I had
Speaker 2: no idea about is that there's almost no specific definition
Speaker 2: of dolls. No one can can make an actual set definition.
Speaker 2: The reason why is because you're like, well what about this?
Speaker 2: Well what about that? Anytime you try to alter the
Speaker 2: definition to please everybody, it's the best example of how
Speaker 2: you can please some people some of the time, but
Speaker 2: not everybody ever.
Speaker 1: That old saying, yeah, that old saying. The definition that
Speaker 1: we agreed on was a doll is a toy, and
Speaker 1: we all know what a doll looks like. It's like
Speaker 1: a model of usually a human type figure.
Speaker 2: I saw that it has to be human to be
Speaker 2: considered a doll.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's a baby, sometimes it's a grown up. It's
Speaker 1: not an action figure. We kind of covered that difference
Speaker 1: in our Gi Joe episode. But what a dolls specifically
Speaker 1: is beyond just looking like a human is it aids
Speaker 1: in kids development. There have been plenty and plenty of
Speaker 1: studies over the years that have reinforced the fact that
Speaker 1: dolls teach kids a lot of things, a lot of
Speaker 1: great things, empathy and patience and recognizing emotions, among many
Speaker 1: other things.
Speaker 2: Yes, so just real quick that excludes. That definition excludes
Speaker 2: things like puppets like you said, action figure statuettes, but
Speaker 2: it also, I think, very weirdly excludes animal dolls like
Speaker 2: stuffed animals. Okay, okay. And then one other thing I
Speaker 2: would add to the definition is that they have to
Speaker 2: be in some way, shape or form huggable.
Speaker 1: Okay. It So, recognizing emotions is a big one for kids,
Speaker 1: as long as holding onto dolls like reckon, because a
Speaker 1: lot of times the kid will be like the surrogate
Speaker 1: for what the kid might be feeling. You know, Chatty
Speaker 1: Kathy is feeling bored or angry, and that means the
Speaker 1: kid's not comfortable saying that to the parents, so they
Speaker 1: talk through the doll, but not in a creepy way.
Speaker 2: Is Chatty Kathy your go to doll?
Speaker 1: M so far, I'll move on to Betsy Wetsy soon enough.
Speaker 2: Chatty Kathy is pretty fun to say.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Another thing this is also I think a playroom Collective
Speaker 2: laid out some good examples and these are some of
Speaker 2: the ones that they said. Another one is practicing caregiving,
Speaker 2: where it can be anything from changing the doll's diapers
Speaker 2: to comforting the doll when it's sad or scared, and
Speaker 2: that teaches emotional availability, teaches problem solving, and then it
Speaker 2: also requires perspective taking, because just because the doll is
Speaker 2: scared or sad doesn't mean the kid feels it way
Speaker 2: right right then, so that means that the kid is
Speaker 2: learning how to put themselves in other people's shoes and
Speaker 2: understand how other people can feel differently than how you
Speaker 2: can at the time, and it helps with empathy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they can put themselves in their tiny, little one
Speaker 1: inch shiny pat and leather shoe. That's right, that chatty
Speaker 1: Kathy has right. If you you know, want to talk
Speaker 1: about traditional gender roles, we're going to talk a lot
Speaker 1: about that. Because dolls have long been associated with girlhood.
Speaker 1: That wasn't always the case. It started by like the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties. By the turn of the century, toys were
Speaker 1: kind of marketed, you know, to boys and girls equally.
Speaker 1: But in the nineteen forties they were like, hey, we
Speaker 1: could probably sell a lot more stuff if we really
Speaker 1: market one thing to girls and one thing to boys.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, we're buying twice as
Speaker 1: much stuff.
Speaker 2: In that nuts. That's that's apparently where gender toys came from.
Speaker 2: Totally Around that same time, too, pink became the color
Speaker 2: for girls and blue for boys. And it didn't come
Speaker 2: from nowhere. We've talked about it before, but it used
Speaker 2: to be the opposite where pink was for boys and
Speaker 2: blue for girls because pink it was a red tone,
Speaker 2: and red tones were considered too harsh for girls at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: That's right. I never thought of pink being a red tone,
Speaker 1: but it totally is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, you can't deny it, Chuck.
Speaker 1: There was a study in twenty seventeen that more than
Speaker 1: this is interesting, more than three quarters of the people
Speaker 1: that were surveyed said it was really good to encourage
Speaker 1: girls to play with like boys, toys or do boy things,
Speaker 1: and it went up to eighty percent for women and
Speaker 1: millennials saying that, but when it came to boys only
Speaker 1: sixty four percent. So there are far fewer families saying,
Speaker 1: you know, William, you should play with your doll reference
Speaker 1: to Free to Be You and Me, the great song
Speaker 1: William Wants a Doll, And there are way way more
Speaker 1: families telling their girls like, you should go play with
Speaker 1: trucks or rough house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go jump off that dirt pile.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that clearly means we have a long way
Speaker 2: to go still, but there, you know, there are a
Speaker 2: lot of dolls that have made headway in empowering girls,
Speaker 2: showing that women can take like male of jobs and
Speaker 2: male dominated feels like Barbie has a million different careers,
Speaker 2: a lot of them like engineering and science and technology.
Speaker 2: She's been to space, for God's sake, And I think
Speaker 2: American girl dolls, there's one girl at least who has
Speaker 2: a backstory where she has lesbian aunts who live in Australia.
Speaker 2: Randomly enough, and then of course, Chuck, we couldn't possibly
Speaker 2: talk about how Earring magic Kin was in a groundbreaking doll.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Earring magic Ken came out nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: You take one look at Earring magic Ken and it's
Speaker 1: pretty clear that it's a queer coded doll. He has
Speaker 1: his diamond stud earring in one ear. He's wearing a
Speaker 1: purple mesh crop top. There was some controversy surrounding the
Speaker 1: necklace he wore that I won't even get into because
Speaker 1: this is a Christmas episode, but you can look it
Speaker 1: up if you wants. Saw that too, and of course
Speaker 1: Mittel was like, that's preposterous. This is a kid's story,
Speaker 1: but it was very hot in the gay community, selling
Speaker 1: out all over the place. Maybe the hottest selling well,
Speaker 1: definitely the hottest selling kin doll of all time, maybe
Speaker 1: the best selling of all time. Mattel won't say, but
Speaker 1: it's sold for six months like any ordinary sort of
Speaker 1: special release Barbie, and evidently sold like hotcakes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one other feature that was often overlooked. He
Speaker 2: had a pull cord that made him talk, and the
Speaker 2: only thing he said is the boys are out tonight.
Speaker 2: So Chuck, I say we move on to the history
Speaker 2: of dolls. You want to talk about that, or even
Speaker 2: where the word doll came from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is something I didn't know. It's a doll
Speaker 1: was a nickname for Dorothy. I always thought dot was
Speaker 1: the only nickname for Dorothy. But apparently dating back to
Speaker 1: like at least the sixteenth century, that was a weird
Speaker 1: thing happening when people would substitute l's for rs. So
Speaker 1: Harold could be how Mary could be moll or Molly
Speaker 1: and Dorothy could be doll.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was a bigger tren than slap bracelets is today.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: So the earliest use of the word doll goes back
Speaker 2: to the fifteen hundreds, and it was a pet name
Speaker 2: for a girlfriend or spouse. Right, You didn't just have
Speaker 2: to be named Dorothy and that be your nickname.
Speaker 1: It was extended, give me a doll, yeah, doll face for.
Speaker 2: Ye exactly right. So you're like, it's a term of
Speaker 2: endearment for a girlfriend or a spouse. A century later
Speaker 2: it became an insult for a loose woman. So everybody
Speaker 2: got dumped apparently. And then by around seventeen hundred it
Speaker 2: was finally used to describe a child's toy, to say,
Speaker 2: this is a doll, and people are like, well, wait
Speaker 2: a minute, what about stuffed animals? What about marionettes?
Speaker 1: Then someone said, you think a puppet is a doll?
Speaker 2: Yeah? They said, had a psychle? Are you?
Speaker 1: So many people think that they're going to have to
Speaker 1: explain that on a one day.
Speaker 2: They're like, you think a hot dog is a sandwich?
Speaker 1: Why is that doll got strings coming out of it? Well?
Speaker 1: Speaking of strings, yeah, there's some strings in these dolls.
Speaker 1: Ancient dolls Egyptian paddle dolls that date back to the
Speaker 1: Middle Kingdom like two thousand to eighteen hundred BCE. They
Speaker 1: were a flat piece of wood, so they weren't, you know,
Speaker 1: human shaped as far as three dimension three dimensionality goes,
Speaker 1: but they were cut like a woman's torso, and they
Speaker 1: had tattoo like designs and hair made out of bead strings.
Speaker 1: But archaeologists are like, this isn't really a doll doll.
Speaker 1: I think it was more like a percussion instrument for
Speaker 1: like religious rituals. You could shake that thing.
Speaker 2: They do think in the ancient world that dolls played
Speaker 2: dual roles. One was for rituals like you were just describing,
Speaker 2: and then also that they were for play in the
Speaker 2: same way that dolls can develop children today. They were
Speaker 2: used to kind of indoctrinate kids into culture and society.
Speaker 2: And they're basing that in part on how there's still
Speaker 2: dolls like that around today, like the a Kua Ba
Speaker 2: of the Fonte and Acan people of Ghana. They have
Speaker 2: ritual dolls that kids also play with at the same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the dolls in ancient Rome were definitely sort
Speaker 1: of the early barbies because they were not baby dolls.
Speaker 1: They were dolls that looked like grown up Roman women,
Speaker 1: and the girls who played with them were like it
Speaker 1: was just like having a barbie. It was like here
Speaker 1: is what we think. The idealized image of a Roman
Speaker 1: woman is a wife and a mother, and here go
Speaker 1: play with this thing and try and look like that
Speaker 1: one day.
Speaker 2: So even before the Romans, they found dolls in Greek burials,
Speaker 2: and the reason why they found them is because girls
Speaker 2: would play with dolls. When they got married, they would consecrate,
Speaker 2: they would sacrifice essentially the dolls to Artemis in exchange
Speaker 2: for fertility in their marriage, and then if they never
Speaker 2: got married, they were buried with their dolls. Isn't that bittersweet?
Speaker 1: Mmm? Kind of just bitter? Okay, I'm looking for the sweet.
Speaker 1: I guess you're buried with your toy that you loved.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a sweet part, for sure. It's like the
Speaker 2: newgat of that situation.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll take it. All right. We promised talk
Speaker 1: of Aerosmith, and they're a great, great, great song rag Doll.
Speaker 1: I thought the same thing too, coming up and see me.
Speaker 2: That's a new version of an old singing.
Speaker 1: Oh, I guess that song's okay. That was late Aerosmith.
Speaker 1: They put out a bunch of songs like that for
Speaker 1: a while.
Speaker 2: Oh, I can't imagine how bad the subtext.
Speaker 1: Is though, Oh, sure. I never really thought about that,
Speaker 1: but you're right, I think yeah, I don't know if
Speaker 1: there is an Aerosmith song where there wasn't a sexual subtext,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't.
Speaker 2: Think so either they were really into sex.
Speaker 1: Oh no, that loving an elevator song that was just
Speaker 1: anging about elevators going up and down.
Speaker 2: That's right, sponsored by the Otis Corporation.
Speaker 1: That's right. Oh man, I'm glad you could call that up.
Speaker 1: Rag dolls not Aerosmith, but you know, the little floppy
Speaker 1: dolls made out of fabric and not you know, hard
Speaker 1: dolls that you can bang against the wall. They have
Speaker 1: been around for a long long time, since the ancient world.
Speaker 1: But because they were made out of things like you know,
Speaker 1: cloth and linen and cotton and things like that, they
Speaker 1: would disappear before our very eyes over thousands of years.
Speaker 1: So there's not a ton of examples of those, but
Speaker 1: there are some, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: But it also raises the question like how long have
Speaker 2: humans been playing with dolls? We have no idea for
Speaker 2: that very reason, because almost certainly dolls would have been
Speaker 2: made out of perishable materials very early on. But yeah,
Speaker 2: the oldest we found is two thousand years old. Chuck.
Speaker 2: It was found in a trash pile in Egypt, and
Speaker 2: it was linen stuff with some papyrus. I had some
Speaker 2: paint on it at one point, but now all that's left.
Speaker 2: There's a single bead that was once attached to its hair.
Speaker 2: So but it's two thousand years old, so give it
Speaker 2: a break, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, sure of course.
Speaker 2: Well what about in North America, there's a doll that
Speaker 2: says I'm the oldest, and everyone says, yes, you are.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. There is a rag doll, the oldest
Speaker 1: rag doll in North America. It belonged to a little
Speaker 1: girl who was blind named clarissas Field from Massachusetts. And
Speaker 1: the girl, the actual girl, was born in seventeen sixty five.
Speaker 1: And I think this is a great deep cut band name.
Speaker 1: She named her doll Bangwell Putt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a great band name for sure.
Speaker 1: Because no one will know what it is except for
Speaker 1: the rare stuff. You should know a listener and then
Speaker 1: be like, bruh, you named your band Bangwell Butt after
Speaker 1: the oldest rag doll.
Speaker 2: Or Visitors to the Pacomattock Valley Memorial Association in Deerfield,
Speaker 2: mass which is where it's kept now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess they would know that, but they're the
Speaker 1: I guess you could call it creepy looking. I didn't
Speaker 1: find it that creepy. But this dog, this dog, this
Speaker 1: doll has no facial features. There's just a blank face.
Speaker 1: But there are ten individually sewn fingers and thumbs, which
Speaker 1: might be a reason that young Clarissa, like I mentioned,
Speaker 1: she was blind and it might have sort of indicated
Speaker 1: the importance of touch for her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that the no face rag doll may
Speaker 2: have actually evolved out of the tradition from corn husk dolls,
Speaker 2: which didn't have faces, because some of the northeastern North
Speaker 2: America tribes had legends about why the corn goddess removed
Speaker 2: the face of the corn husk doll because she was
Speaker 2: getting too vain. So that's why cornhust dolls don't have
Speaker 2: a face, and that's possibly why rag doll dolls don't
Speaker 2: have a face either, Like bangwill putt.
Speaker 1: Like Bangwell put would to be clear, no facial features.
Speaker 1: There's a face, but there's no eyes, nose, or mouth
Speaker 1: or you know, eyebrows, all the things that make a face.
Speaker 1: What about eyelashes, No eyelashes, no pimples, no freckles, pores,
Speaker 1: no frinkles, no wrinkles, no pores. What else is on
Speaker 1: the face. I'm looking at my face.
Speaker 2: Um nose, hair, beard.
Speaker 1: Nose, hair, mustache. All right, I think we covered it.
Speaker 2: Okay, I know for a fact we left something like
Speaker 2: the mouth out, something super glaring.
Speaker 1: Oh, I said mouth, and inside the mouth everything counts
Speaker 1: his mouth. So don't come at me with teeth and
Speaker 1: tongue exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you said that chuck.
Speaker 1: That should be on the shirt. Don't come at me
Speaker 1: with teeth and tongue. It's the stuff you should know. Whey, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what about Victorian dolls.
Speaker 2: Well, this is where really where doll obsessions I think
Speaker 2: kind of starting to take off, because up to this
Speaker 2: point rag dolls, like you got to be a pretty
Speaker 2: niche collector to be collecting like eighteenth century rag dolls.
Speaker 2: Victorian dolls is where people are like, give me all
Speaker 2: of these. And one of the reasons why is because
Speaker 2: doll making became a real art by the fifteenth century,
Speaker 2: and the seat of it originally was Germany. They had
Speaker 2: doc and mockers, which are doll makers, and they were
Speaker 2: for aristocratic families who were the only ones that could
Speaker 2: afford these things because they were works of art.
Speaker 1: Yeah, works of art that very key Lee looked like them.
Speaker 1: They really showed their sort of obsession with their own
Speaker 1: selves and their own class. They were made from porcelain,
Speaker 1: and not because that was just some superior material. They
Speaker 1: were literally made from porcelain because they thought that represented
Speaker 1: the ideal skin tone, that porcelain white. They were dressed
Speaker 1: very fashionably obviously, they had human hair wigs, apparently from
Speaker 1: the hair of working class girls. And they were true
Speaker 1: status symbols.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you would be painted with them a portrait.
Speaker 2: That's pretty big status symbol at.
Speaker 1: The time, right, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: So one of my favorite things Dave helped us with this.
Speaker 2: Think big head tip to Dave and Merry Christmas Day.
Speaker 2: And apparently around the time of Prince Albert's death he
Speaker 2: was trapped in a can. He died in eighteen sixty one.
Speaker 2: It's Queen Victoria's husband. By the way, like funerals in
Speaker 2: mourning like became all the rage we often associate like
Speaker 2: mourning and death stuff and memento mariy with Victorians and
Speaker 2: this is why, and so dolls were not immune to
Speaker 2: this trend. And little girls were given death kits to
Speaker 2: use with their dolls.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like here's your doll, and here's your little
Speaker 1: baby coffin and your little outfit that you should wear,
Speaker 1: and they would you know, when you play doll, you
Speaker 1: play all kinds of facets of life. And that's one
Speaker 1: of the things about dolls that you'll see over and
Speaker 1: over is you know, whether you're pretending to be a
Speaker 1: you know, cooking dinner in your home, or you're doing
Speaker 1: other household things, or you're you know, now your mourning
Speaker 1: because somebody has died, so you're sort of acting out
Speaker 1: and these things that you would do later as adults,
Speaker 1: which again is another sort of important facet of dolls.
Speaker 2: But today it's like, if your kid is acting out
Speaker 2: a funeral with their doll, it would be eye catching,
Speaker 2: attention grabbing, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you might sign them up for therapy
Speaker 1: or something, when in fact I think it's a pretty
Speaker 1: normal thing.
Speaker 2: I think it is too, but it would definitely make
Speaker 2: you stop and say, like, hey, what you doing with
Speaker 2: your doll right now? Yeah, for sure, Like you wouldn't
Speaker 2: just pass the room and see it and just walk
Speaker 2: off shaking your head and laughing and be like my kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you do the darnest things.
Speaker 2: I want to hear though, if anybody has a kid
Speaker 2: and they've ever found their kid performing a funeral for
Speaker 2: their doll, I want to hear about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'd be a good listener mail.
Speaker 2: So, dollhouses also really kind of came around at this
Speaker 2: time too, like the dollhouse, as we think about it, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that was thanks to the Victorians. And that's why
Speaker 2: dollhouses are always very nice and big, because they were
Speaker 2: basically what the Victorian aristocracy thought that houses should look
Speaker 2: like at the time. And again, remember you said that
Speaker 2: Victorian girls were being trained to how to behave in
Speaker 2: society through their dolls. Same thing with the dollhouse too.
Speaker 2: It's like, here's the scullery, here's the bathroom with indoor plumbing,
Speaker 2: Like these are all the things you need to demand
Speaker 2: and expect when you grow up and get married.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ring this bell if you're hungry.
Speaker 2: Hey.
Speaker 1: So, you know, we talked a little bit about the
Speaker 1: complicated history of race and facial features when it comes
Speaker 1: to race and skin tone and stuff like that with dolls,
Speaker 1: and so we have a whole kind of robust section
Speaker 1: here on the history of black dolls, because it's a
Speaker 1: pretty complex story. Yeah, as far as race and self
Speaker 1: image goes. And the first one we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about it is called the topsy Turvy doll. It's a
Speaker 1: really good example because it was a doll that had
Speaker 1: two heads. It had a long skirt to conceal sort
Speaker 1: of one side. One head was white, one head was black.
Speaker 1: And you know, depending on which way you held the doll,
Speaker 1: you were playing with a white doll or a black doll.
Speaker 1: And people, you know, there isn't text that says exactly
Speaker 1: why this thing was invented, but everyone pretty much agrees,
Speaker 1: like scholars that have studied this thing, is that it
Speaker 1: originated in the Antebellum South. They were made by enslaved
Speaker 1: black women as dolls for their daughters, and the idea is, hey,
Speaker 1: we have to take care of the white kids during
Speaker 1: the day, and then we have to take care of
Speaker 1: our own children at night. And if dolls are to
Speaker 1: represent what you are to be doing when you grow
Speaker 1: up or maybe you know later on in your life,
Speaker 1: then you need a two headed doll to care for
Speaker 1: the white doll in the day and the black doll
Speaker 1: at night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not the worst of how the whole thing started.
Speaker 2: The Jim Crow South, the Jim Crow era saw the
Speaker 2: rise of a lot of very racist dolls that were
Speaker 2: available you could buy from catalogs like Montgomery Ward, which
Speaker 2: is not surprising. But the thing to understand about that
Speaker 2: is that this helped lay the groundwork for reinforcing social
Speaker 2: norms about the inferiority of black people in America and
Speaker 2: the superiority of white people in America. And it wasn't like, hey, kid,
Speaker 2: don't forget black people are inferior, White people superior. It
Speaker 2: was much more subtle and much more pervasive than that
Speaker 2: through dolls. Like the black dolls were not particularly cute,
Speaker 2: they were sometimes ugly. They certainly weren't accurate representations of
Speaker 2: black people or black kids. White dolls were. They were
Speaker 2: very pretty. There are collector's items. They were gorgeous. In
Speaker 2: a lot of cases. They were the doll that you wanted,
Speaker 2: and that sent the signal to black kids being raised
Speaker 2: in America at the time, like, if you're black, you
Speaker 2: should feel pretty much about yourself how you feel about
Speaker 2: this doll, and you should feel about white people how
Speaker 2: you feel about this doll.
Speaker 1: Very pretty huh Yeah, exactly. I mean, it makes it
Speaker 1: all the more nefarious, I think, because these are children,
Speaker 1: Like the more sublid it is, the more nefarious it is.
Speaker 1: And this culminated in the nineteen forties with what was
Speaker 1: called the Doll Tests from Maimy and Kenneth Clark. It
Speaker 1: was pretty groundbreaking experiments where they traveled all over America
Speaker 1: and they would give little black kids two dolls that
Speaker 1: were identical to one another except for the skin tone,
Speaker 1: and then they would ask him a lot of questions
Speaker 1: like give me the doll that's a nice doll, give
Speaker 1: me the doll that you think is a nice color.
Speaker 1: And overwhelmingly the positive traits from these little black kids
Speaker 1: were assigned to white dolls, and the negative traits were
Speaker 1: assigned to black dolls. And the saddest part about all
Speaker 1: this is when they ask kids, give me the doll
Speaker 1: that looks like you, A lot of these little kids
Speaker 1: would were ashamed to admit that they look like the
Speaker 1: black doll, and they would like start crying and run
Speaker 1: from the room because they couldn't even admit it. So
Speaker 1: this was brutal.
Speaker 2: It is brutal, But it also was this groundbreaking research
Speaker 2: that the Clarks created.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: And it was so groundbreaking and so convincing that the
Speaker 2: NAACP came to them and said, hey, can we use
Speaker 2: this in these cases. They had five cases going on
Speaker 2: that eventually got attached into the Brown versus Board of
Speaker 2: Education case that the Supreme Court eventually heard that was
Speaker 2: successful with the Nino decision to overturn segregation in public schools.
Speaker 2: That's how convincing these doll tests were that they were
Speaker 2: cited in some of these cases. And Kenneth Clark testified
Speaker 2: at some of the cases as well and wrote up
Speaker 2: the social science testimony that the Supreme Court considered in
Speaker 2: the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty amazing result from that study. Sarah Lee Creech
Speaker 1: was a doll maker. I guess who created the Sarah
Speaker 1: Lee doll in nineteen fifty one, and that was the
Speaker 1: very first realistic black baby doll produced in the US.
Speaker 1: But not to be outdone during the Black Power movement,
Speaker 1: Baby Nancy came along and that was kind of in
Speaker 1: the middle of the sixty five Watts riots. It was
Speaker 1: a black owned company called Shindana Toys and it was
Speaker 1: the very first doll with realistic afrocentric features. It was
Speaker 1: not like, hey, let's run a run of white dolls
Speaker 1: and then just change the skin tone and color them brown.
Speaker 1: This Baby Nancy was a little black baby doll, and
Speaker 1: it was a really hot selling doll in La and beyond.
Speaker 1: I think the production couldn't keep up that year because
Speaker 1: they were such a hot sellers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a great success for sure. And the
Speaker 2: Sarah Lee doll. Again, this was the first like semi
Speaker 2: accurate doll, but there was still a lot of features
Speaker 2: that weren't quite what black children look like. The Baby
Speaker 2: Nancy was like unmistakably had cute, tight little curls, and
Speaker 2: it was like, this is the first like legitimate African
Speaker 2: American doll anyone's ever made. Yea, I thought that was
Speaker 2: pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing, very cute doll. Actually, So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not into dolls because you know, I played with trucks, okay,
Speaker 1: but if I played with dolls, Baby Nancy might be
Speaker 1: my doll.
Speaker 2: I can't remember. Did you have a cabbage patch?
Speaker 1: I did, sort of. We bought a bunch of them
Speaker 1: when they were handmade by the original Xavier Robert.
Speaker 2: Sky creepy pantyhose dolls, right.
Speaker 1: And they assigned a couple of them to me as mine.
Speaker 1: But they were never like in my room, and it's
Speaker 1: not like it's like, oh, don't put that in my room.
Speaker 1: I don't know why they did that. It was weird.
Speaker 1: They were like, here's Scott's two and your two and
Speaker 1: here's Michelle's.
Speaker 2: And don't touch them.
Speaker 1: I know, I think they're worth a little bit of money. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure I do remember mine as a little boy
Speaker 1: and a girl and it's their shirts and I guess
Speaker 1: the doll whatever they were my little TV star or
Speaker 1: something like that, so that I don't even know what
Speaker 1: that means.
Speaker 2: Let's say, hey, let's move along to paper dolls or
Speaker 2: do you want to take a break. Now, let's take.
Speaker 1: A break, and I'm going to look up and see
Speaker 1: how much those Xabier Roberts dolls are worth of mine,
Speaker 1: and I'll see if I can list them on eBay
Speaker 1: and I'll be right back.
Speaker 2: Okay, we promised talk about paper dolls, and what kind
Speaker 2: of grinch scrooges would we be if we just didn't
Speaker 2: deliver on that.
Speaker 1: That's right?
Speaker 2: So yeah, paper dolls were this trend from like the
Speaker 2: Apex was from eighteen ninety to nineteen twenty. But I
Speaker 2: mean you could find them pretty easily into the nineteen
Speaker 2: seventies and they're still around today in different forms. But
Speaker 2: they were like, think about this, what trend can you
Speaker 2: think of? Chuck? That lasted for thirty years? This is
Speaker 2: a huge, huge trend.
Speaker 1: Grunge, No grunge.
Speaker 2: I will say it was ten years.
Speaker 1: Tops pet rocks.
Speaker 2: Pet Rocks is maybe two.
Speaker 1: That's it. I got nothing else.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's what I'm saying. That's how massive a trend.
Speaker 2: Paper dolls were from the late nineteenth century to the
Speaker 2: early twentieth hotpants, okay, daisy dukes. They've been huge since
Speaker 2: the seventies, definitely.
Speaker 1: So paper doll is a doll that you cut out.
Speaker 1: And the fun thing about paper dolls was, and I
Speaker 1: guess is if you're still into them, is they would
Speaker 1: come with different outfits and things, and you would cut
Speaker 1: out the different outfits and put them over the doll.
Speaker 1: And that was the fun of it is you could
Speaker 1: change the clothes, but it wasn't real clothes because it
Speaker 1: was just sort of free because it came in the
Speaker 1: magazine or newspaper or whatever.
Speaker 2: But that was the only fun of it. Don't even
Speaker 2: try to have any other fun, just put the outfits
Speaker 2: on and sit there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of it.
Speaker 2: But luckily there was a bunch of new outfits and
Speaker 2: they were always coming because this whole thing was basically
Speaker 2: a way to get people to go buy your newspaper
Speaker 2: or your magazine. Yeah, in some cases buy your product,
Speaker 2: like Pillsbury products. You would get a set of these
Speaker 2: collectible paper dolls and new outfits, and for thirty years
Speaker 2: people would go buy Pillsbury everything because they had the
Speaker 2: best paper dolls.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this still continues. I just realized that. At one point,
Speaker 1: my friend Meredith, who worked in the fashion industry, got
Speaker 1: Ruby for Christmas. A little it's like a little fashion kit,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like paper dolls, except they're already
Speaker 1: it's magnetized and they're pre cut. But the whole is
Speaker 1: that you can put together all these different outfits and
Speaker 1: like kind of learn about fashion. So it's not that
Speaker 1: different than paper dolls.
Speaker 2: No, this is plastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she sheap enjoyed that for a while.
Speaker 2: Oh good, who was that they gave her that present?
Speaker 1: My friend mereth or Anti Meredith. She and Ruby are
Speaker 1: big buds. Meredith, Yeah, I think you met Meredith. Maybe
Speaker 1: all right, yeah, you have it at New York Live Shows.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, great pick Meredith. Yeah, So I say we
Speaker 2: move on to famous dolls of the twentieth century, Chuck,
Speaker 2: this is the part I've been waiting for. The well
Speaker 2: reason we did this episode.
Speaker 1: You got to start, and we're not gonna spend too
Speaker 1: much time on QP Doll, except to mention that the
Speaker 1: QP doll was kind of the first big doll of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century in nineteen twelve.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, and the Great Mayo two by the way.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I tried the QP Mayo because he you
Speaker 1: what'd you think? It was great? It's not going to
Speaker 1: replace Dukes for me, but very good.
Speaker 2: Mayo, it shouldn't. You can love both, Yeah, I do.
Speaker 2: I think Keupy was huge, so huge that it took
Speaker 2: Mickey Mouse to topple them him her it.
Speaker 1: I think Mickey Mouse isn't it no, no, cupie, they're both its, okay,
Speaker 1: so yeah, well Mickey Mouse isn't now a mouse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's in it. He's living in that gutter with
Speaker 1: a clown, okay, in the sewer gutter.
Speaker 2: So along after that, I think KEP Doll was. I mean,
Speaker 2: I know Steamboat Willie came out in the twenties. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure when it was actually Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse right,
Speaker 2: so kep Doll was on top for a while. But
Speaker 2: even if Mickey Mouse hadn't to come along, Raggedy Ann
Speaker 2: would have eventually come and pulled a little CuPy doll
Speaker 2: by her little couple of hairs on the top of
Speaker 2: her head down from the top spot and take took
Speaker 2: it over.
Speaker 1: That's right. Raggedy Ann and her little brother Raggedy Andy
Speaker 1: were big hits. I had Raggedy Ann and Andy when
Speaker 1: I was little. It was a children's book from cartoonist
Speaker 1: Johnny Gruel. He made it for his daughter. It's very
Speaker 1: Sweet Dolls came out a couple of years later, in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty. But they had movie appearances, they had a
Speaker 1: TV show, they had a Broadway musical in the eighties.
Speaker 2: What was it about.
Speaker 1: I don't really know. Raggedy Ann, I guess okay, it
Speaker 1: was called it was called it might have been called
Speaker 1: Raggedy Ann, rag Doll or something rag Doll. I didn't
Speaker 1: look too much into it. I don't think it ran
Speaker 1: too long.
Speaker 2: Aerosmith did the score.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure they did the book too.
Speaker 2: So one other thing about Raggedy ann You know Annabelle
Speaker 2: from the Conjuring series.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I never saw that, but I know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about.
Speaker 2: You never saw the Conjuring. Oh oh, you're gonna like it, dude.
Speaker 2: It's one of those very few modern, like good ghost movies.
Speaker 2: It's all right, good, like like goose pimple stuff. Good.
Speaker 1: I'm going to conjure up some goose pimples for myself then,
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: And the Conjuring too, was okay, but the first one's
Speaker 2: very good. I would be very surprised if you don't
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 1: They'll check it out. Most of my doll scary movies
Speaker 1: have been Child's Play and Meghan.
Speaker 2: Okay, Child's Place coming up, don't worry about it. Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: Megan was pretty good too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Megan was fun. It wasn't so scary.
Speaker 2: No, it's no conjuring for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So now we're coming to Betsy Wetzy. Just wait for
Speaker 2: your chatty, Kathy. Let's talk about Betsy Wetzy first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Betsy Wetsy was well, let's just say this, Betsy
Speaker 1: Wetsy could drink, bet you drink you under the table
Speaker 1: could peepee herself. Betsy Wetsy could cry, so I'd say
Speaker 1: real human tears, but no cry fake tears. Yeah. This
Speaker 1: was from a company called Ideal in nineteen thirty seven.
Speaker 1: An Ideal got sued a few times because they had
Speaker 1: other dolls out there that could cry and that could
Speaker 1: pee themselves and drink. But apparently Idea was like, but
Speaker 1: can they do all of that?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, Betsy West. It was a huge smash hit.
Speaker 2: I think she was most popular in the fifties, but
Speaker 2: you could find her on the shelves through the eighties
Speaker 2: and you would give her a little bottle. She had
Speaker 2: a tube running through her, so the bottle of whatever,
Speaker 2: hopefully water if you were a parent, and not actual milk,
Speaker 2: would go through her little tube and come out the
Speaker 2: other end, and then you would get to change your
Speaker 2: diaper or maybe give her a bath or something like that.
Speaker 2: And what must start all over again?
Speaker 1: That's right, not to be undone. In the early nineties,
Speaker 1: Magic Potty Baby came out, and I think I remember
Speaker 1: this actually because this was a It didn't peep here itself,
Speaker 1: but there was a toilet that came with it, and
Speaker 1: it was all about toilet training, of course, but the
Speaker 1: toilet would fill up with this you know, fake yellow liquor.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't fake. It was a real yellow liquid. I
Speaker 1: guess fake urine. I hope it was fake urine. And
Speaker 1: every tasted it, and the doll would sit on it
Speaker 1: and then you would flesh it and it would disappear
Speaker 1: back in too. That it's a temporary holding tank.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're like, oh, that sounds kind of weird.
Speaker 2: Go watch the ad for Magic Potty Baby, and for
Speaker 2: some reason, it's just it's even more bizarre when you
Speaker 2: see it in person. Yeah, I agreed, Okay, Chuck, I
Speaker 2: think now it's time for Chatty Kathy, which I didn't
Speaker 2: realize was a follow up a year after Barbie came out.
Speaker 2: And this was a Ruth Handler joint too.
Speaker 1: That's right. This was a Mattel product along with Barbie.
Speaker 1: And you know Chatty Kathy. It was chatty and talked
Speaker 1: so you would pull a string and there were I
Speaker 1: think eleven initial phrases, I hurt myself, please brush my hair.
Speaker 2: That was a great Chatty Kathy.
Speaker 1: That was it. That was Chatty Kathy.
Speaker 2: Chatty Kathy. Get This was not the first doll to
Speaker 2: talk as far back as Thomas Edison and I think
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety he tried his hand at one and he
Speaker 2: had different dolls that said a few different things. But
Speaker 2: we turned up a clip of the doll that read,
Speaker 2: I guess the Lord's Prayer, and I chuck, we have
Speaker 2: to share it because I haven't laughed out loud in
Speaker 2: a really long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't play clips a lot, so I think
Speaker 1: we're probably legally okay to play this clip. So Jerry,
Speaker 1: can you run that? So? Wow?
Speaker 2: Like, imagine that coming out of a doll you're holding
Speaker 2: and it's dark, like there's no light in your room
Speaker 2: because it's nighttime, and your doll starts saying that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Or imagine as you're just in a dark room
Speaker 1: and hear that and you turn on your Edison and
Speaker 1: that's the only thing in.
Speaker 2: There, right, it's just sitting in the rocking chair looking
Speaker 2: at you, rocking slightly back and forth. Or even worse,
Speaker 2: it's sitting in the wicker wheelchair in the for some reason,
Speaker 2: staring at you your biggest fear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, pretty good stuff.
Speaker 2: I agree, So Chatty Kathy back to her, she was
Speaker 2: actually an inspiration for a very famous Twilight Zone episode
Speaker 2: Living Doll. Do you remember that one?
Speaker 1: I don't remember that, but I did watch the clip.
Speaker 2: It's good. So this was Talky Tina, and this is
Speaker 2: like three years after Chatty Kathy came out, very clearly
Speaker 2: Chatty Kathy. Yeah, and she has this kind of protective
Speaker 2: feeling around her kid and doesn't like the kid's parents.
Speaker 2: And at one point they pull the doll's cord and
Speaker 2: she says, my name is Talki Tina, and I'm beginning
Speaker 2: to hate you. It's a really good Twilight Zone episode,
Speaker 2: which I can't really think of a bad Twilight its
Speaker 2: own episode, but this one is particularly good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was good.
Speaker 2: I found two other things about or one other thing
Speaker 2: I guess about Chatty Kathy. Did you see the voice
Speaker 2: thing I sent?
Speaker 1: I did not, so.
Speaker 2: June Faraday, who was the voice of Rocket Jay Squirrel
Speaker 2: on Rocky and Bullwinkle, and Cindy Lee who on The
Speaker 2: Grinch Christmas Special. She was the first voice of Chatty Kathy,
Speaker 2: all right, and then they re released Chatty Kathy in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy and the voice was Maureen McCormick, who played
Speaker 2: Marsha on The Brady bunch Ow. So Marsha Marsha Trivia Masters.
Speaker 2: If you're looking for a new question, Yeah, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1: Yeah that no one will know unless they listen to
Speaker 1: stuff you should know.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we should talk about Polly Pocket for a minute,
Speaker 1: because that was a miniature doll. It was a British
Speaker 1: and winter named Chris Wiggs who built a mini dollhouse
Speaker 1: for his daughter out of a makeup compact in the
Speaker 1: early eighties, and Mattel was like, this thing's great, and
Speaker 1: they licensed Polly Pocket as a doll in the early
Speaker 1: nineties and all of a sudden, many toys were a
Speaker 1: big craze. And we mentioned this because you may see
Speaker 1: a movie coming to a theater screen near you because
Speaker 1: Barbie was such a big hit. Obviously, Bye Witherspoon and
Speaker 1: her production company has optioned this away. I don't know
Speaker 1: about Away from Lena Dunham, but Lena Dunnan was originally
Speaker 1: attached a few years ago and is no longer attached,
Speaker 1: And so they're trying to make Polly Pocket into a
Speaker 1: movie starring Lily Collins, Phil Collins's daughter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what about American girl dolls? Did you know about
Speaker 2: the origin of them? They came from an elementary school
Speaker 2: teacher in Wisconsin named Pleasant Rowland, which is a great name.
Speaker 1: That's a Jerry's nickname. Yea, yeah, Jerry pleasant Roland.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But pleasant Roland wanted to teach kids about history,
Speaker 2: I guess, specifically girls. And she started releasing them in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six, these American girl dolls. And at first
Speaker 2: they were just mail order and they were of two
Speaker 2: sixty five bucks and nineteen eighty six dollars. It's just
Speaker 2: like one hundred thousand dollars today, I'm guessing. But they
Speaker 2: were a big seller right off the bat, and eventually
Speaker 2: you could find them in stores.
Speaker 1: Too, yeah, like their own stores. Uh yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: their flagship stores. And I just encourage anyone that has dollophobia,
Speaker 1: which we'll get to in a minute, to dare walk
Speaker 1: by or through an American girl doll store.
Speaker 2: That is quite a dare.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's not a dare actually, because that's not
Speaker 1: funny if you have a real feel like that.
Speaker 2: Rih, I was looking that up. We'll talk about it
Speaker 2: in a second, but it is some real deal stuff.
Speaker 2: It does not sound pleasant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, American girl dolls look sort of
Speaker 1: real but that ain't nothing like what's coming out of
Speaker 1: FAO Shorts and companies like Reborn and companies like Ashton Drake,
Speaker 1: because they are making these realistic baby dolls. We finally,
Speaker 1: on this last trip to New York on fall break,
Speaker 1: I'd always wanted to go to Fao Shorts in New
Speaker 1: York City, and we'd did. We took a trip through
Speaker 1: Fao Schwartz and I recommended, I mean, it's very, very busy,
Speaker 1: so don't go in there if you have any sort
Speaker 1: of fear of crowds, because that is one of the
Speaker 1: most packed places I've ever been in. But eventually we
Speaker 1: wandered over to where they had their baby, like real
Speaker 1: baby doll display, and I held one of these things, man,
Speaker 1: and it is very surreal and weird because it seems
Speaker 1: like a real baby.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like down to like the little veins in their temples,
Speaker 2: the little capillaries, and the smell it did the one
Speaker 2: you hold smell of like talcum or anything. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They smell and look like babies, like full stop.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And they even have weight to them too, like heft.
Speaker 2: So they're so realistic that these things are. This is
Speaker 2: what is often used as like a movie prop for
Speaker 2: like a long shot or something like that, not.
Speaker 1: A close up, for close up if you're Bradley Cooper.
Speaker 1: And a Clint Eatwood movie.
Speaker 2: Oh really, which one?
Speaker 1: The American sniper is very famous scene where he's clearly
Speaker 1: holding a fake baby.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that it.
Speaker 1: Check it out on YouTube. It's hysterical, okay.
Speaker 2: But people collect these things. I mean, they are essentially
Speaker 2: like works of art. They're usually made individually, they're not
Speaker 2: mass produced. Some of them I've seen referred to as
Speaker 2: museum quality pieces, so they can run hundreds of dollars,
Speaker 2: probably more than that for some of them. But there's
Speaker 2: other things that people do with them too. There's role
Speaker 2: playing just for fun, treating them as if they're alive,
Speaker 2: because again, they look a lot like a live baby
Speaker 2: or infant. Some people use them to fill an emotional void,
Speaker 2: and then apparently they're also useful for Alzheimer's patients patients
Speaker 2: and dementia patients. And when I first saw this, I
Speaker 2: was like, that sounds pretty mean. Actually they don't tell
Speaker 2: the patient that this is a real baby. They're like, here,
Speaker 2: hold this doll. But the doll is so lifelike that
Speaker 2: it can trigger memories. And pleasant emotions in Alzheimer's patients
Speaker 2: who now remember raising their own kids. We're taking care
Speaker 2: of their own kids. And then also just the feel
Speaker 2: of holding a baby can have all sorts of positive
Speaker 2: benefits for people with Alzheimer's and dementia too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I look that up. I mean, it's sort of
Speaker 1: pluses and minuses. It can definitely help reduce dementia, cause
Speaker 1: agitation and stuff like that, all in a non pharma
Speaker 1: pharmacological way, which can be good. But there are critics
Speaker 1: that say, like, you gotta be real careful how you
Speaker 1: do this, because it can also reduce dignity and give
Speaker 1: the impression and like a reinforced like viewing people with
Speaker 1: dementia like their children. So you just gotta do it
Speaker 1: the right way, is what I've read.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's I'm sure there's myriad wrong ways to do
Speaker 2: it to you.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: So that was a great, great call out, Chuck. Yeah,
Speaker 2: do you remember my buddy.
Speaker 1: My buddy and me. Mm hmm bye buddy, keep my buddy,
Speaker 1: my buddy, my buddy and me something like that.
Speaker 2: That was close close enough.
Speaker 1: That was the uh what do you call that? But
Speaker 1: you got a song?
Speaker 2: An earworm? Earworm no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: The jingle, Yeah, that was the jingle Everyone's screaming jingle.
Speaker 1: It was very infectious. I still remember it for the
Speaker 1: most part all these years later. That was the inspiration
Speaker 1: for Chucky from Child's Play, but that was adult that
Speaker 1: came out in nineteen eighty five. That was kind of
Speaker 1: during the Cabbage Patch kid craze. They were like, hey,
Speaker 1: what about a doll this made specifically for boys and
Speaker 1: listen to this. Hasbro Senior vice president of marketing, Steven
Speaker 1: Schwartz in nineteen eighty five told the Boston Globe this,
Speaker 1: my buddy is positioned as macho like. It's soft macho
Speaker 1: but still macho. Like we show them climbing trees, riding
Speaker 1: their bikes. We didn't position it like a girl doll,
Speaker 1: like soft and sweet. It's macho, but soft macho. Right.
Speaker 2: He was wearing all these medallions with his chest there
Speaker 2: poking through.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that was thanks to our friends at Mental Flaws
Speaker 2: who turned up that quote, which is priceless. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I should have read it in a Boston accent, but well.
Speaker 2: No, I think you got it.
Speaker 1: It was just an opportunity that was Philly, right. Well,
Speaker 1: that was for the Boston Globe. But I don't know. Ah,
Speaker 1: you mean my accent. No, no, no, no, that Philly
Speaker 1: accent's much different.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, you didn't say yeans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he would go out after and have a hagy.
Speaker 2: So, like you said, he was the role for the
Speaker 2: model for Chucky from Child's play.
Speaker 1: That's what they say that They did never confirm that.
Speaker 2: It's pretty It's pretty close like Talkie Tina Chucky. Yeah,
Speaker 2: these things are close enough to just draw some assumptions here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 2: So we talked about fear of dolls, and I'm glad
Speaker 2: you already kind of touched on the fact that this
Speaker 2: is quite serious. This is a genuine phobia. I know,
Speaker 2: to people who don't have it, it can sound like, well,
Speaker 2: a fear of dolls. It almost sounds like something you
Speaker 2: could make a movie out of. If you have a
Speaker 2: fear of dolls, pettiophobia, like, you can get a full
Speaker 2: blown panic attack. You may avoid places where you think
Speaker 2: there may be dolls. It's not just dolls, it can
Speaker 2: be mannequins too. There's all sorts of reasons that you
Speaker 2: can have pettiophobia, but one of the causes behind it
Speaker 2: are possible causes behind it is having like a traumatic
Speaker 2: experience with a doll, or say like with a ventriloquist
Speaker 2: dummy or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just didn't land correctly, and now you're traumatized
Speaker 2: for the rest of your life without serious counseling because
Speaker 2: you have this fear of dolls.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. You know you used to publish when
Speaker 1: we were doing like image lists on the old house
Speaker 1: stuffworks dot com days, your list of scary looking toys.
Speaker 1: That thing is just gone, isn't it not on the
Speaker 1: webiny No, oh, that's probably good. But a lot of
Speaker 1: these things are creepy looking, and a lot of them
Speaker 1: are dolls, and you know they didn't mean to make
Speaker 1: them creepy looking. I think this just, you know, some
Speaker 1: decision is made, like like little Miss No Name in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, Margaret Keane's big eyes was a big deal,
Speaker 1: so were like, why don't we make a doll with
Speaker 1: those big, giant eyes, and they did and it's terrifying.
Speaker 2: She is terrifying again unintentionally. I think also part of it,
Speaker 2: she has like like shadow under her eyes. She's supposed
Speaker 2: to be kind of gaunt because she's a panhandling child
Speaker 2: who wears a burlap sack and has a tear running
Speaker 2: down her cheek and unintentionally miss name.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's awful, it.
Speaker 2: Is awful, but this was like a serious like release
Speaker 2: of a doll in nineteen sixty five. So yeah, there's
Speaker 2: there's and there's plenty you can come up with. I
Speaker 2: would I would suggest to go looking up terrifying dolls,
Speaker 2: knockoff dolls or knockoff toois is always a little fun
Speaker 2: rabbit hole to go down, But they're not inherently creepy,
Speaker 2: is the thing. And the reason we know that is
Speaker 2: because there's kids out there who will play with what
Speaker 2: older people will consider a creepy all, but the kid
Speaker 2: doesn't think of it that way. So if you ever
Speaker 2: see a kid legitimately playing with a creepy doll, do
Speaker 2: not go up to that kid and be like, that
Speaker 2: doll's really creepy, because that's how humans start to think
Speaker 2: of things as creepy. And if they don't think of
Speaker 2: their doll as creepy, it is not your place to
Speaker 2: tell that kid that doll is creepy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: There's an Instagram account of a mom who has been
Speaker 2: documenting her daughter Briar with her doll Creepy Chloe, and
Speaker 2: Creepy Chloe definitely lives up to her name, but Briar
Speaker 2: plays with her like she is any other doll. It's
Speaker 2: very cute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just resist the urge.
Speaker 2: Parents, Yes, if you want to know, if you want
Speaker 2: to know, yeah, I can't you see Briar like growing
Speaker 2: up and sitting in her dorm smoking pot one day
Speaker 2: and be like, no, I understand why my mom always
Speaker 2: threw her hand over her mouth and walked out of
Speaker 2: the room when I was playing with Creepy Chloe.
Speaker 1: Or why didn't she ever tell me? It might be
Speaker 1: the other right way of thinking about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so just real quick, The thing that usually explains
Speaker 2: why we're creeped out by dolls is the on Canny Valley.
Speaker 2: We won't get into that because it's pretty deep, but
Speaker 2: we did do an episode on the Uncanny Valley. You
Speaker 2: can go find it's a good one. Yeah, you can
Speaker 2: find it on stuff youshould know dot com. By the way,
Speaker 2: that's right, You got anything else on dolls or Christmas or.
Speaker 1: Anything like that, buddy, Nothing.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad we did this one.
Speaker 1: I too.
Speaker 2: Thank you for coming in from home this morning. On
Speaker 2: Christmas morning to do this. That's right.
Speaker 1: All my gifts are still waiting. I told them, just
Speaker 1: not touching them, okay, and the one that's ticking, and
Speaker 1: I'll be right back.
Speaker 2: Well, hopefully your orange rolls aren't cold or anything like that.
Speaker 2: So let's go home. Let's go to our homes, not
Speaker 2: our shared home. Yeah that's something else. Yeah, that's for
Speaker 2: New Year's and we'll wish everybody a merry Christmas.
Speaker 1: Huh. Yeah. I hope everyone has a great holiday, and
Speaker 1: I hope you're with ones you love, and if you're
Speaker 1: spending Christmas in a lesson ideal way, we are always
Speaker 1: thinking about you.
Speaker 2: For very nice Chuck, And I don't think we'll do listener.
Speaker 1: Mail huh nah, nuts to that, as you say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, if you want to say Merry Christmas or
Speaker 2: Happy New Year, or happy Holidays or anything hi, whatever,
Speaker 2: you can send it via email to stuff Podcasts at
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.