Single mom Karen runs the show solo as best she can, working at the department store with an unsympathetic boss and saving desperately for her son. "Cabbage Patch was really popular." Lending fuel to the My Buddy fire, however? Not only does child actor Vincent remarkably resemble one, the first title of "Child's Play" was "Blood Buddy."Ĭarina Battrick as Caroline Cross and Chucky in "Chucky" (SYFY)No dads protest a boy playing with dolls in "Child's Play," in large part because there are no dads around. "I wanted to write a dark satire about how marketing affected children," Mancini said in an interview with Mental Floss. Note the pigtails of Kid Sister, the overalls changed to pastel and the theme song pitched higher.īut when I was a kid, hopeful for that clear plastic-fronted box on Christmas morning, "Child's Play" writer Don Mancini was a film student, inspired allegedly not as much by My Buddy as by our plastic overlords themselves, Cabbage Patches. My sister and I both longed for but did not receive Kid Sister (my sister did have a terrifying Cabbage Patch that chewed, and more than a few kids lost hair that way). Yet My Buddy proved so successful, a companion doll was introduced, marketed to that old standby: girls. Yes, a friendship-focused doll can be controversial so better ask Dad. But before going into full production on the toy, the company interviewed parents -particularly fathers - to insure that they did not reject the idea of boys playing with dolls." because 'little boys have a soft side just like little girls,' said Stephen Schwartz, senior vice president of marketing. As The New York Times reported that year, "Hasbro created My Buddy. Hasbro's 1985 doll was created specifically to appeal to boys, that untapped doll market, and to teach boys the importance of friends. No dads protest a boy playing with dolls in "Child's Play," in large part because there are no dads around. That giant body (he's nearly as big as Andy and the scenes of the small boy carrying him are kind of hilarious), those blue overalls and striped shirt - was Chucky based on My Buddy? You just can't buy your toys from back alleys anymore.Īt first glance, Chucky looks familiar. She makes her son Andy's (Alex Vincent) birthday by giving it to him.īut the peddler scavanged the doll from a burned-out toy store where murderer Charles Lee Ray (the legendary Brad Dourif) died, shortly after performing a voodoo spell (stay with me!) to transfer his soul into the doll. The doll for sale looks legitimate, though slightly worse for wear. That is, until her friend happens upon a "peddler" selling a discounted one from a shopping cart in the alley. Single mom Karen (the great Catherine Hicks) can't afford one for her son. How I learned to stop worrying and love Elf on the ShelfĬhucky first blinked out of a cardboard box in 1988's "Child's Play." The hot toy that year in fictionalized Chicago is the Good Guy doll, a large doll with a cloth body, big round plastic face, and shocking red hair. He's a doll but he's also a man, and he's not going to change anything, especially himself. He's got the soul of a dead serial killer, and he crashes with his tiny hammer right into anxieties of the 1980s, especially about gender roles. The gold standard of dolls belonging to boys is Chucky. Talky Tina says way too much to a little girl in "The Twilight Zone." Annabelle first terrorizes orphan girls in "Annabelle: Creation" and later is an unknowing man's gift to his pregnant wife. Stine's "Goosebumps." But many dolls of horror belong to girls. Horror films love to dwell on the doll, from " Poltergeist" to Slappy of R. I never let my mother wash her for fear she would drown. But Santa was no match for my uncle, who worked at Kmart and hid the last doll in the store (I believe in the gun section, where he worked), which is how I found a red-headed doll in a gingham dress waiting for me one winter morning, soon to be so beloved her cloth limbs grew soft with dirt. It was at the height of the Cabbage Patch craze and my parents had warned me that Santa Claus couldn't deliver everything, like an unprecedented, coveted doll.
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