Dolls and Dolls, Guys!

In this special Christmas Day episode, we get cuddly with one of the all-time great holiday gifts, dolls! Where did they come from? Why are the so cute? Why are they sometimes creepy? Why do they tell us to do things we don’t want to with their minds? See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:06Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:16Josh Clark?

  Hey, well, I should say Merry Christmas and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Cherry's here too. And we bid you good tidings. We're decking your halls and giving you lots of joy on this festive day. Yeah.

• 1:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're decking your halls if you give us consent, of course, to do so.

• 1:37Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  We would never deck halls just willy nilly.

• 1:41Josh Clark?

  No, I mean, oh.

• 1:44Speaker 03

  We're good guys.

• 1:45Josh Clark?

  That's right. Wow, this, this got odd very quickly.

• 1:51Speaker 03

  This is our annual sort of toy episode and we've covered some specific dolls in the past, notably Cabbage Patch Kids. And you had the brainstorm, like, what about just dolls? What the heck is up with those weird little things?

• 2:05Josh Clark?

  I sat up in the middle of the night, one night and went dolls. And he was like, what happened?

• 2:13Speaker 03

  And she was holding a Chatty Cathy.

• 2:17Josh Clark?

  That's right. Oh, I can't wait to get to that part. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we're talking about dolls themselves, and it is a pretty broad category, but actually, it's a little more specific than I realized, Chuck. And one of the things that right off the bat that I had no idea about is that there's almost no specific definition of dolls. No one can can make an actual set definition. The reason why is because you're like, well, what about this? Well, what about that? Anytime you try to alter the definition to please everybody, it's it's the best example of how you can please some people some of the time, but not everybody ever. That old saying.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, that old saying. The definition that we agreed on was that a doll is a toy. And we all know what a doll looks like. It's a it's like a model of usually a human type figure.

• 3:10Josh Clark?

  I saw that it has to be human to be considered a doll.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  Sometimes it's a baby. Sometimes it's a grown up. It's not an action figure. We kind of covered that difference in our G I Joe episode. But what a doll specifically is beyond just looking like a human is it aids in kids' development. There have been plenty and plenty of studies over the years that have reinforced the fact that dolls teach kids a lot of things, a lot of great things, empathy and and patience and recognizing emotions among many other things.

• 3:41Josh Clark?

  Yes. So just real quick, that excludes that definition excludes things like puppets. Like you said, action figures, statuettes, but it also, I think, very weirdly excludes animal dolls, like stuffed animals.

• 3:55Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 3:56Josh Clark?

  Okay. And then one other thing I would add to the definition is that they have to be in some way, shape or form, huggable.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 4:04Josh Clark?

  And that's it.

• 4:06Speaker 03

  So recognizing emotions is a big one for kids as long as holding on to dolls like because a lot of times the kid will be like the surrogate for what the kid might be feeling. You know, Chatty Cathy is feeling bored or angry, and that means the kid's not comfortable saying that to the parent. So they talk through the doll, but not in a creepy way.

• 4:27Josh Clark?

  Is Chatty Cathy your go to doll?

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Hmm, so far. I'll move on to Betsy Wetsy soon enough.

• 4:34Josh Clark?

  Chatty Cathy is pretty fun to say.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:36Josh Clark?

  Another thing, this is also, I think Playroom Collective laid out some good examples. And these are some of the ones that they said. Another one is practicing caregiving, where it can be anything from changing the doll's diapers to comforting the doll when it's sad or scared. And that teaches emotional availability, teaches problem solving. And then it also requires perspective taking. Because just because the doll is scared or sad, doesn't mean the kid feels that way, right? Right then? So that means that the kid is learning how to put themselves in other people's shoes and understand how other people can feel differently than how you can at the time. And it helps with empathy.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, they can put themselves in their tiny little one-inch shiny patent leather shoe.

• 5:23Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 5:24Speaker 03

  That Chatty Cathy has.

• 5:25Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  If you, you know, wanna talk about traditional gender roles, we're gonna talk a lot about that because dolls have long been associated with girlhood. That wasn't always the case. It started by like the 1940s. By the turn of the century, toys were kind of marketed, you know, to boys and girls equally. But in the 1940s, they were like, hey, we could probably sell a lot more stuff if we really market one thing to girls and one thing to boys. And then all of a sudden, we're buying twice as much stuff.

• 5:58Josh Clark?

  Isn't that nuts? That's, that's apparently where gendered toys came from.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 6:02Josh Clark?

  Around that same time, too, pink became the color for girls and blue for boys. And it didn't come from nowhere. We've talked about it before, but it used to be the opposite, where pink was for boys and blue for girls, because pink was a red tone and red tones were considered too harsh for girls at the time.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  That's right. I never thought of pink being a red tone, but it totally is.

• 6:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. You can't deny it, Chuck.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  There was a study in 2017 that more than, this is interesting, more than three quarters of the people that were surveyed said it was really good to encourage girls to play with like boys toys or do boy things. But, and it went up to 80% for women and millennials saying that, but when it came to boys, only 64%. So there are far fewer families saying, you know, William, you should play with your doll. Reference to Free to Be You and Me, the great song, William Wants a Doll. And there are way, way more families telling their girls, like, you should go play with trucks or roughhouse.

• 7:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah, go jump off that dirt pile.

• 7:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:05Josh Clark?

  So yeah, that clearly means we have a long way to go still. But there, you know, there are a lot of dolls that have made headway in empowering girls, showing that women can take like male jobs in male dominated fields. Like Barbie has a million different careers, a lot of them like engineering and science and technology. She's been to space for God's sake. And I think American Girl dolls, there's one, one girl at least who has a backstory where she has lesbian aunts who live in Australia randomly enough. And then of course Chuck, we couldn't possibly talk about how Earring Magic Ken wasn't a groundbreaking doll.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, Earring Magic Ken came out in 1993. You take one look at Earring Magic Ken and it's pretty clear that it's a queer coded doll. He has his, his diamond stud earring in one ear. He's wearing a purple mesh crop top. There was some controversy surrounding the necklace he wore that I won't even get into because this is a Christmas episode, but you can look it up if you want.

• 8:11Josh Clark?

  I saw that too.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  And of course Mattel was like, that's preposterous. This is a kid's toy. But it was very hot in the gay community, selling out all over the place. Maybe the hottest selling, well, definitely the hottest selling Ken doll of all time. Maybe the best selling of all time, Mattel won't say, but it sold for six months like any ordinary sort of special release Barbie and evidently sold like hotcakes.

• 8:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And one other feature that was often overlooked, he had a pull cord that made him talk and the only thing he said is, the boys are out tonight.

• 8:47Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, I say we move on to the history of dolls. You want to talk about that or even where the word doll came from?

• 8:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, this is something I didn't know. It's a doll was a nickname for Dorothy. I always thought Dot was the only nickname for Dorothy. But apparently dating back to like at least the 16th century, there was a weird thing happening where people would substitute L's for R's. So Harold could be Hal, Mary could be Mal or Molly, and Dorothy could be Doll.

• 9:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was a bigger trend than slap bracelets is today.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 9:19Josh Clark?

  So the earliest use of the word doll goes back to the 1500s. And it was a pet name for a girlfriend or spouse, right? You didn't just have to be named Dorothy and that be your nickname. It was extended.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Give me a doll.

• 9:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  Doll face.

• 9:34Josh Clark?

  For, yeah, exactly. Right. So you're like, it's a term of endearment for a girlfriend or a spouse. A century later, it became an insult for a loose woman. So everybody got dumped apparently. And then by around 1700, it was finally used to describe a child's toy, to say, this is a doll. And people are like, well, wait a minute. What about stuffed animals? What about marionettes?

• 9:57Speaker 03

  And someone said, you think a puppet is a doll?

• 10:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  They said.

• 10:02Josh Clark?

  What kind of psycho are you?

• 10:03Speaker 03

  So many people think that they're going to have to explain that on a podcast one day.

• 10:07Josh Clark?

  They're like, you think a hot dog is a sandwich?

• 10:09Speaker 03

  Why has that doll got strings coming out of it?

• 10:13Speaker 03

  Well, speaking of strings, uh, yeah, there's some strings in these dolls, ancient dolls, Egyptian paddle dolls that date back to the Middle Kingdom, like 2000 to 1800 BCE. They were a flat piece of wood, so they weren't, you know,

• 10:29Speaker 03

  human shaped as far as three dimension, uh, three dimensionality goes. But they were cut like a woman's torso and they had tattoo like designs and hair made up out of bead strings. But archaeologists are like, this isn't really a doll doll. I think it was more like a percussion instrument for like religious rituals. You could shake that thing.

• 10:50Josh Clark?

  They do think in the ancient world that dolls played dual roles. One was for rituals, like you were just describing, and then also that they were for play. In the same way that dolls can develop children today. They were used to kind of indoctrinate kids into culture and society. And they're basing that in part on how there's still dolls like that around today. Like the Akua Ba of the Fonte and Akon people of Ghana. They have ritual dolls that kids also play with at the same time.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, the dolls in ancient Rome were definitely sort of the early Barbies because they were not baby dolls. They were dolls that looked like grown up Roman women. And the girls who played with them were like, it was, it was just like having a Barbie. It was like, here is what we think the idealized image of a Roman woman is, a wife and a mother. And here, go play with this thing and try and look like that one day.

• 11:44Josh Clark?

  So even before the Romans, they found dolls in Greek burials. And the reason why they found them is because girls would play with dolls. When they got married, they would consecrate, they would sacrifice essentially the dolls to Artemis in exchange for fertility in their marriage. And then if they never got married, they were buried with their dolls.

• 12:08Josh Clark?

  Isn't that bittersweet?

• 12:11Speaker 03

  Kind of just bitter.

• 12:12Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  I'm looking for the sweet. I guess you're buried with your toy that you loved.

• 12:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's the sweet part for sure. It's like the nougat of that situation.

• 12:21Speaker 03

  All right, I'll take it. All right, we promised talk of Aerosmith and their great, great, great song Ragdoll.

• 12:29Josh Clark?

  I thought the same thing, too.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Coming up and see me.

• 12:34Josh Clark?

  That's a new version of an old scene.

• 12:38Speaker 03

  Oh, I guess that song's okay. That was late Aerosmith. They put out a bunch of songs like that for a while.

• 12:43Josh Clark?

  Oh, I can't imagine how bad the subtext is, though.

• 12:47Speaker 03

  Oh, sure. I never really thought about that, but you're right. I think, I don't know if there is an Aerosmith song where there wasn't a sexual subtext.

• 12:54Josh Clark?

  I don't think so either. They were really into sex.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  Oh, no, that Love in an Elevator song. That was just talking about elevators going up and down.

• 13:02Josh Clark?

  That's right. Sponsored by the Otis Corporation.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 13:07Speaker 03

  Oh, man, I'm glad you could call that up. Rag dolls, not Aerosmith, but you know, the little floppy dolls made out of fabric and not, you know, hard dolls that you can bang against the wall. They have been around for a long, long time, since the ancient world, but because they're made out of things like, you know, cloth and linen and cotton and things like that, they would disappear before our very eyes over thousands of years. So there's not a ton of examples of those, but there are some, right?

• 13:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but it also raises the question, like, how long have humans been playing with dolls? We have no idea for that very reason, because almost certainly dolls would have been made out of perishable materials very early on. But yeah, the oldest we found is 2,000 years old, Chuck. It was found in a trash pile in Egypt, and it was linen stuffed with some papyrus, had some paint on it at one point, but now all that's left, there's a single bead that was once attached to its hair. So, but it's 2,000 years old, so give it a break, you know?

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure, of course.

• 14:12Josh Clark?

  But what about in North America? There's a doll that says, I'm the oldest, and everyone says, yes, you are.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  Yes, that's right. There is a rag doll, the oldest rag doll in North America, it belonged to a little girl who was blind named Clarissa Field from Massachusetts. And the girl, the actual girl, was born in 1765. And I think this is a great deep cut band name. She named her doll Bangwell Putt.

• 14:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that is a great band name for sure.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Cause no one will know what it is, except for the rare stuff you should know listener and they'd be like, "Bruh, you named your band Bangwell Putt after the oldest rag doll?"

• 14:46Josh Clark?

  Right. Or visitors to the Paco Madoc Valley Memorial Association in Deerfield, Mass., which is where it's kept now.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess they would know that. But they're the, I guess you could call it creepy looking. I didn't find it that creepy, but this dog, this dog, this doll has no facial features. There's just a blank face. But there are 10 individually sewn fingers and thumbs, which might be a reason that young Clarissa, like I mentioned, she was blind and it might've sort of indicated the importance of touch for her.

• 15:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I saw that the no face rag doll may have actually evolved out of the tradition from corn husk dolls, which didn't have faces because some of the northeastern North America tribes had legends about why the corn goddess removed the face of the corn husk doll because she was getting too vain. That's why corn husk dolls don't have a face and that's possibly why rag dolls don't have a face either, like Bangwell Putt.

• 15:54Speaker 03

  Like Bangwell Putt. And to be clear, no facial features. There's a face, but there's no eyes, nose, or mouth, or, you know, eyebrows. All the things that make a face.

• 16:03Josh Clark?

  What about eyelashes?

• 16:05Speaker 03

  No eyelashes, no pimples, no freckles.

• 16:08Josh Clark?

  Pores?

• 16:09Speaker 03

  No frinkles, no wrinkles, no pores. What else is on the face? I'm looking at my face.

• 16:15Josh Clark?

  Um, nose hair?

• 16:17Speaker 03

  Beard, nose hair, mustache?

• 16:20Speaker 03

  Alright, I think we covered it.

• 16:21Josh Clark?

  Okay. I know for a fact we left something like the mouth out, something super glaring.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  Oh, I said mouth and inside the mouth, everything counts as mouth. So don't come at me with teeth and tongue.

• 16:33Josh Clark?

  Exactly. I'm glad you said that, Chuck.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  That should be on the shirt. Don't come at me with teeth and tongue. It's the Stuff You Should Know way.

• 16:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  What about Victorian dolls?

• 16:44Josh Clark?

  Well, this is where really where doll obsessions, I think, kind of start to take off. Because up to this point rag dolls, like you gotta be a pretty niche collector to be collecting like 18th century rag dolls. Victorian dolls is where people are like, gimme all of these. And one of the reasons why is because doll making became a real art by the 15th century. And the seat of it originally was Germany. They had dachemachers, which are doll makers. And they were for aristocratic families who were the only ones that could afford these things because they were works of art.

• 17:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, works of art that very keenly looked like them. They really showed their sort of obsession with their own selves and their own class. They were made from porcelain and not because that was just some superior material. They were literally made from porcelain because they thought that represented the ideal skin tone, that porcelain white. They were dressed very fashionably, obviously. They had human hair wigs, apparently from the hair of working class girls. And they were true status symbols.

• 17:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like you would, you would be painted with them, a portrait that's pretty big status symbol at the time, right?

• 18:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 18:03Josh Clark?

  So one of my favorite things, so Dave helped us with this. Thank, big head tip to Dave and Merry Christmas, Dave. And apparently around the time of Prince Albert's death, he was trapped in a can. He died in 1861. It's Queen Victoria's husband, by the way. Like funerals and mourning like became all the rage. We often associate like mourning and death stuff and memento mori with Victorians, and this is why. And so dolls were not immune to this trend and little girls were given death kits to use with their dolls.

• 18:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, so like here's your doll and here's your little baby coffin and your little outfit that you should wear. And they would, you know, when you play doll, you play all kinds of facets of life. And that's one of the things about dolls that you'll see over and over is, you know, whether you're pretending to be a. Uh, you know, cooking dinner in your home or you're doing other household things or you're, you know, now you're mourning because somebody has died. So you're sort of acting out and these things that you would do later as adults, which again is another sort of important facet of dolls.

• 19:14Josh Clark?

  But today it's like if your kid is acting out a funeral with their doll, it would be eye catching, attention grabbing, I think.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, you might sign them up for therapy or something when in fact I think it's a pretty normal thing.

• 19:27Josh Clark?

  I think it is too, but it would definitely make you stop and say like, hey, what, what, what you doing with your doll right now?

• 19:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 19:35Josh Clark?

  Like you wouldn't just pass the room and see it and just walk off shaking your head and laughing and be like, my kid.

• 19:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, they do the darnedest things.

• 19:43Josh Clark?

  I want to hear though, if anybody has a kid and they've ever found their kid performing a funeral for their doll, I want to hear about it.

• 19:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, that'd be a good listener mail.

• 19:52Josh Clark?

  So dollhouses also really kind of came around at this time too, like the dollhouse as we think about it.

• 19:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:59Josh Clark?

  And that was thanks to the Victorians and that's why dollhouses are always very nice and big, uh, because they were basically what the Victorian aristocracy thought that houses should look like at the time. And again, remember you said that Victorian girls were being trained to how to behave in society through their dolls. Same thing with the dollhouse too. It's like, here's the scullery, here's the bathroom with indoor plumbing. Like these are all the things you need to demand and expect when you grow up and get married.

• 20:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. Ring this bell if you're hungry.

• 20:31Josh Clark?

  Hi.

• 20:32Speaker 03

  So, you know, we talked a little bit about the complicated history of, um, of race and, and facial features when it comes to race and skin tone and stuff like that with dolls. And so we have a whole kind of robust section here on the history of, uh, black dolls because it's a pretty complex story.

• 20:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 03

  As far as race and self-image goes. And the first, um, one we're going to talk about is called the Topsy Turvy Doll. It's a really good example, um, because it was a doll that had two heads. It had a long skirt to conceal sort of one side. Um, one head was white, one head was black. And, you know, depending on which way you held the doll, you were playing with a white doll or a black doll. And people, you know, there isn't. Text that says exactly why this thing was invented. But everyone pretty much agrees, like scholars that have studied this thing is that it originated in the antebellum South. They were made by enslaved black women as dolls for their daughters. And the idea is, hey, we have to take care of the white kids during the day.

• 21:36Speaker 03

  And then we have to take care of our own children at night. And if dolls are to represent what you are to be doing when you grow up, or maybe later on in your life, then you'd need a two-headed doll to care for the white doll in the day and the black doll at night.

• 21:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah. That's not the worst of how the whole thing started. The Jim Crow South, the Jim Crow era, saw the rise of a lot of very racist dolls that were available. You could buy from catalogs like Montgomery Ward, which is not surprising. But the thing to understand about that is that this helped lay the groundwork for reinforcing social norms about the inferiority of black people in America and the superiority of white people in America. And it wasn't like, hey, kid, don't forget, black people are inferior, white people superior.

• 22:32Josh Clark?

  It was much more subtle and much more pervasive than that through dolls. Like, the black dolls were not particularly cute. They were sometimes ugly. They certainly weren't accurate representations of black people or black kids.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:48Josh Clark?

  White dolls were. They were very pretty. They were collector's items. They were gorgeous in a lot of cases. They were the doll that you wanted. And that sent the signal to black kids being raised in America at the time. Like, if you're black, you should feel pretty much about yourself, how you feel about this doll. And you should feel about white people, how you feel about this doll. Very pretty, huh?

• 23:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. I mean, it makes it all the more nefarious, I think, because these are children.

• 23:12Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  Like, the more subtle it is, the more nefarious it is. And this culminated in the 1940s with what was called the Doll Tests from Mamie and Kenneth Clark. It was a pretty groundbreaking experiments where they traveled all over America, and they would give little black kids two dolls that were identical to one another, except for the skin tone. And then they would ask them a lot of questions, like, "Give me the doll that's a nice doll. Give me the doll that you think is a nice color." And overwhelmingly, the positive traits from these little black kids were assigned to white dolls, and the negative traits were assigned to black dolls. And the saddest part about all this is when they asked kids, "Give me the doll that looks like you",

• 23:54Speaker 03

  a lot of these little kids were ashamed to admit that they looked like the black doll, and they would, like, start crying and run from the room because they couldn't even admit it.

• 24:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So this was-

• 24:06Speaker 03

  Just brutal.

• 24:07Josh Clark?

  It is brutal, but it also was this groundbreaking research that the Clarks created.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 24:13Josh Clark?

  And it was so groundbreaking and so convincing that the NAACP came to them and said, "Hey, can we use this in these cases?" They had five cases going on that eventually got attached into the Brown versus Board of Education case that the Supreme Court eventually heard. That was successful with the 9-0 decision to overturn segregation in public schools. That's how convincing these Doll Tests were, that they were cited in some of these cases, and Kenneth Clark testified at some of the cases as well, and wrote up the social science testimony that the Supreme Court considered in the case.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, pretty amazing result from that study. Sarah Lee Creach was a dollmaker, I guess, who created the Sarah Lee doll in 1951, and that was the very first realistic black baby doll produced in the US. But not to be outdone, during the Black Power Movement, Baby Nancy came along. And that was kind of in the middle of the 65 Watts riots. It was a black owned company called Shindana Toys. And it was the very first doll with realistic Afrocentric features. It was not like, hey, let's, let's run a run of white dolls and then just change the skin tone and color them brown.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  This Baby Nancy was a, you know, a little black baby doll and it was a really hot selling doll in LA and beyond. I think the production couldn't keep up that year because they were such a hot sellers.

• 25:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was a great success for sure. And the Sarah Lee doll, again, this is the first like semi-accurate doll, but there was still a lot of features that weren't quite what, what black children look like. The Baby Nancy was like unmistakably had cute, tight little curls. And it was like, this is the first like legitimate African-American doll anyone's ever made. I thought that was pretty cool.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's amazing. Very cute doll, actually.

• 26:13Josh Clark?

  So, um,

• 26:14Speaker 03

  I mean, I'm not into dolls because, you know, I play with trucks.

• 26:17Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  But if I played with dolls, Baby Nancy might be my doll.

• 26:21Josh Clark?

  I can't remember. Did you have a cabbage patch?

• 26:24Speaker 03

  Uh, I did, uh, sort of. We, we bought a bunch of them, uh, when they were handmade by the original Xavier Roberts guy.

• 26:33Josh Clark?

  Creepy pantyhose dolls, right?

• 26:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. And they, they assigned a couple of them to me as mine, but they were never like in my room. And it's not like I was like, oh, don't put that in my room. I don't know why they did that. It was weird. They were like, here's Scott's two and your two, and here's Michelle's.

• 26:48Josh Clark?

  And don't touch them.

• 26:50Speaker 03

  I know. I think they're worth a little bit of money.

• 26:52Josh Clark?

  Oh, I'm sure.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  My, I do remember mine as a little boy and a girl and it's, uh, their shirts. And I guess the doll, whatever they were, was my little TV star or something like that.

• 27:02Josh Clark?

  Hmm.

• 27:03Speaker 03

  So I don't even know what that means.

• 27:06Josh Clark?

  Um, let's say, hey, let's move along to paper dolls or do you want to take a break now?

• 27:12Speaker 03

  Let's take a break and I'm going to look up and see how much those, uh, Xavier Roberts dolls are worth of mine and I'll see if I can list them on eBay and I'll be right back.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I spoke with Dr. Lara Jayhai of Cleveland Clinic about how advanced computing is helping shorten the path from medical discovery to treatment.

• 27:46Speaker 05

  The moment that there is a compound that someone in a lab thinks it would be effective to treat a certain disease, it takes about 10 to 13 years from that moment to when that drug is on a shelf for a patient. A big part of that gap could be computationally solved. Better simulation of compounds, designing drug trials that are more efficient, that would finish faster. That was the motivation to bring computational tools and technology closer to biomedical researchers.

• 28:20Speaker 04

  Learn more about how Cleveland Clinic and IBM are using AI and quantum computing to revolutionize biomedical research at ibm.com/smarttalks.

• 28:45Josh Clark?

  Okay, we promised to talk about paper dolls. And what kind of Grinch Scrooges would we be if we just didn't deliver on that?

• 28:54Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 28:55Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, paper dolls were this trend from, like, the apex was from 1890 to 1920. But, I mean, you could find them pretty easily into the 1970s, and they're still around today in different forms. But they were, like, think about this. What trend can you think of, Chuck, that lasted for 30 years? This is a huge, huge trend.

• 29:20Speaker 03

  Grunge?

• 29:21Josh Clark?

  No. Grunge, I will say, was 10 years tops.

• 29:27Speaker 03

  Pet Rocks?

• 29:30Josh Clark?

  Pet Rocks is maybe, maybe two.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  That's it. I got nothing else.

• 29:36Josh Clark?

  Okay, that's what I'm saying. That's how massive a trend paper dolls were from the late 19th century to the early 20th.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  Hot pants?

• 29:46Josh Clark?

  Okay, there you go. Daisy Dukes, they've been huge since the 70s, definitely.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  So a paper doll is a doll that you cut out. And the fun thing about paper dolls was, and I guess is, if you're still into them, is they would come with different outfits and things, and you would cut out the different outfits and put them over the doll. And that was the fun of it, is you could change the clothes, but it wasn't real clothes, because it was just sort of free, because it came in the magazine or newspaper or whatever.

• 30:15Josh Clark?

  But that was the only fun of it. Don't even try to have any other fun. Just put the outfits on and sit there.

• 30:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's kind of it.

• 30:23Josh Clark?

  But luckily, there was a bunch of new outfits, and they were always coming, because this whole thing was basically a way to get people to go buy your newspaper or your magazine, or in some cases, buy your product, like Pillsbury products. You would get a set of these collectible paper dolls in new outfits. And for 30 years, people would go buy Pillsbury everything, because they had the best paper dolls.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, this still continues. I just realized that at one point, my friend Meredith, who worked in the fashion industry, got Ruby for Christmas a little, it's like a little fashion kit, and it's kind of like paper dolls, except they're already, it's magnetized and they're pre-cut, but the whole idea is that you can put together all these different outfits and like, kind of learn about fashion. So it's not that different than paper dolls.

• 31:11Josh Clark?

  No, this is plastic.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, and she enjoyed that for a while.

• 31:16Josh Clark?

  Oh, good. Who was that that gave her that present?

• 31:19Speaker 03

  My friend Meredith, her auntie Meredith. She and Ruby are big buds.

• 31:22Josh Clark?

  Meredith?

• 31:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think you've met Meredith, maybe.

• 31:25Josh Clark?

  All right.

• 31:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, you have at New York Live Shows.

• 31:28Josh Clark?

  Okay. Well, great pick, Meredith.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:32Josh Clark?

  So I say we move on to famous dolls of the 20th century, Chuck. This is the part I've been waiting for. This is the reason we did this episode.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  You gotta start, and we're not gonna spend too much time on Cupid doll, except to mention that the Cupid doll was kind of the first big doll of the 20th century in 1912, right?

• 31:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and the great mayo too, by the way.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, I tried the Cupid mayo because of you.

• 31:57Josh Clark?

  What'd you think?

• 31:58Speaker 03

  It was great. It's not gonna replace Dukes for me, but a very good mayo.

• 32:02Josh Clark?

  It shouldn't. You can love both.

• 32:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do.

• 32:05Josh Clark?

  I think Cupid was huge, so huge that it took Mickey Mouse to topple them. Him, her, it, I think?

• 32:14Speaker 03

  Mickey Mouse isn't it.

• 32:15Josh Clark?

  No, no, no, Cupid.

• 32:17Speaker 03

  That's, they're both its.

• 32:18Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay. So, yeah, well, Mickey Mouse is an owl, a mouse.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, but he's in it. He's living in that gutter with a clown.

• 32:25Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  In the sewer gutter.

• 32:28Josh Clark?

  So along after that, I think Cupid doll was, I mean, I know Steamboat Willie came out in the 20s. I'm not sure when it was actually Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse, right? So Cupid doll was on top for a while, but even if Mickey Mouse hadn't come along, Raggedy Ann would have eventually come and pulled little Cupid doll by her little couple hairs on the top of her head down from the top spot and took it over.

• 32:53Speaker 03

  That's right. Raggedy Ann and her little brother Raggedy Andy were big hits. I had Raggedy Ann and Andy when I was little. It was a children's book from cartoonist Johnny Gruel. He made it for his daughter. It's very sweet. Dolls came out a couple of years later in 1920, but they had movie appearances. They had a TV show. They had a Broadway musical in the 80s.

• 33:15Josh Clark?

  What was it about?

• 33:17Speaker 03

  I don't really know. Raggedy Ann, I guess.

• 33:20Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 33:22Speaker 03

  It was called, it was called. It might've been called Raggedy Ann Ragdoll or something Ragdoll. I didn't look too much into it. I don't think it ran too long.

• 33:29Josh Clark?

  Aerosmith did the score.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  I'm pretty sure. They did the book too.

• 33:33Josh Clark?

  So one other thing about Raggedy Ann, you know, Annabelle from The Conjuring series?

• 33:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I never saw that, but I know what you're talking about.

• 33:42Josh Clark?

  You never saw The Conjuring?

• 33:43Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 33:45Josh Clark?

  Oh, you're gonna like it, dude. It's one of those very few modern, like, good ghost movies.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  All right.

• 33:53Josh Clark?

  It's good. Like goose pimple stuff. Good.

• 33:59Speaker 03

  I'm gonna conjure up some goose pimples for myself then.

• 34:02Josh Clark?

  I think, and The Conjuring 2 was okay, but the first one's very good. I'll be very surprised if you don't like it.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  I'll check it out. Most of my doll scary movies have been Child's Play and Megan.

• 34:13Josh Clark?

  Okay. Child's Play's coming up. Don't worry about it.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:17Josh Clark?

  Okay. Megan was pretty good, too.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, Megan was fun. Wasn't so scary.

• 34:21Josh Clark?

  No, it's no Conjuring for sure.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:24Josh Clark?

  So now we come to Betsy Wetsy. Just wait for your Chatty Cathy. Let's talk about Betsy Wetsy first.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, Betsy Wetsy was, well, let's just say this. Betsy Wetsy could drink.

• 34:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, she'd drink you under the table.

• 34:40Speaker 03

  Could pee pee herself? Betsy Wetsy could cry. I was about to say real human tears, but no. Could cry fake tears.

• 34:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  This was from a company called Ideal in 1937, and Ideal got sued a few times because

• 34:55Speaker 03

  they had other dolls out there that could cry and that could pee themselves and drink. But apparently Ideal was like, but can they do all of that?

• 35:04Josh Clark?

  Right. And yeah, Betsy Wetsy was a huge smash hit. I think she was most popular in the 50s, but you could find her on the shelves through the 80s. And you would give her a little bottle. She had a tube running through her, so the bottle of whatever, hopefully water if you were a parent and not actual milk, would go through her little tube and come out the other end. And then you would get to change her diaper, maybe give her a bath or something like that.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  What fun.

• 35:32Josh Clark?

  And start all over again.

• 35:34Speaker 03

  That's right. Not to be undone in the early 90s, Magic Potty Baby came out. And I think I remember this actually because

• 35:42Josh Clark?

  I do not.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  This was a, it didn't PP itself, but there was a toilet that came with it. And it was all about toilet training, of course, but the toilet would fill up with this, you know, fake yellow liquid, or it wasn't fake, it was a real yellow liquid. I guess fake urine. I hope it was fake urine. I never tasted it. And the doll would sit on it and then you would flush it and it would disappear back into its, its temporary holding tank.

• 36:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And you're like, oh, that sounds kind of weird. Go watch the ad for Magic Potty Baby. And for some reason, it's, it's just, it's, it's even more bizarre when you see it in person.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, agreed.

• 36:20Josh Clark?

  Um, okay, Chuck. I think now it's time for Chatty Cathy, which I didn't realize was a follow-up a year after Barbie came out. And this was a Ruth Handler joint, too.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  That's right. Uh, this was a Mattel product along with Barbie. And, you know, Chatty Cathy, it was Chatty and talked. So you would pull a string and there were, I think, 11 initial phrases.

• 36:43Speaker 06

  I hurt myself. Please brush my hair.

• 36:47Josh Clark?

  That was a great Chatty Cathy.

• 36:48Speaker 03

  That was it. That was Chatty Cathy.

• 36:51Josh Clark?

  Um, Chatty Cathy, get this, was not the first doll to talk. It's as far back as Thomas Edison in, I think, 1890. He tried his hand at one and he had, uh, different dolls that said a few different things. But we turned up a clip of the doll that, um, read, um, I guess the Lord's Prayer. And I, Chuck, we have to share it because I haven't laughed out loud in a really long time.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, we don't play clips a lot. Uh, so I think we're in probably legally okay to play this clip. So Jerry, can you run that?

• 37:30Speaker 07

  Oh, my baby, don't please. I pray the Lord my soul to take. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.

• 37:49Josh Clark?

  So

• 37:49Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 37:51Josh Clark?

  Like, imagine that coming out of a doll you're holding, and it's dark. Like, there's no light in your room because it's nighttime and your doll starts saying that.

• 38:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, or imagine, as you're just in a dark room and hear that, and you turn on your Edison bulb, and that's the only thing in there.

• 38:07Josh Clark?

  Right. It's just sitting in the rocking chair, looking at you, rocking slightly back and forth. Or even worse, it's sitting in the wicker wheelchair in the corner of your room for some reason staring at you.

• 38:17Speaker 03

  Your biggest fear.

• 38:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, pretty good stuff.

• 38:22Josh Clark?

  I agree. So Chatty Cathy, back to her. She was actually an inspiration for a very famous Twilight Zone episode, Living Doll. Do you remember that one?

• 38:32Speaker 03

  I don't remember that, but I did watch the clip.

• 38:35Josh Clark?

  It's good. So this was Talky Tina, and this is like three years after Chatty Cathy came out. Very clearly Chatty Cathy.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:43Josh Clark?

  And she has this kind of protective feeling around her kid and doesn't like the kid's parents. And at one point, they pull the doll's cord and she says, "My name is Talky Tina and I'm beginning to hate you."

• 39:01Josh Clark?

  It's a really good Twilight Zone episode, which I can't really think of a bad Twilight Zone episode, but this one is particularly good.

• 39:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was good.

• 39:09Josh Clark?

  I found two other things about, or one other thing, I guess, about Chatty Cathy. Did you see the voice thing I sent?

• 39:15Speaker 03

  I did not.

• 39:16Josh Clark?

  So June Faraday, who was the voice of Rocket J Squirrel on Rocky and Bullwinkle, and Cindy Lou Who on the Grinch Christmas special, she was the first voice of Chatty Cathy.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  All right.

• 39:29Josh Clark?

  And then they re-released Chatty Cathy in 1970, and the voice was Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia on The Brady Bunch.

• 39:36Speaker 03

  Oh. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.

• 39:39Josh Clark?

  Trivia Masters, if you're looking for a new question.

• 39:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:43Josh Clark?

  Merry Christmas.

• 39:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, that no one will know. Unless they listen to Stuff You Should Know.

• 39:47Josh Clark?

  Yes, that's right.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, we should talk about Polly Pocket for a minute because that was a miniature doll. It was a British inventor named Chris Wiggs who built a mini dollhouse for his daughter out of a makeup compact in the early 80s. And Mattel was like, this thing's great. And they licensed Polly Pocket as a doll in the early 90s. And all of a sudden, many toys were a big craze. And we mention this because you may see a movie coming to a theater screen near you because Barbie was such a big hit, obviously. Reese Witherspoon and her production company has optioned this away. I don't know about away from Lena Dunham, but Lena Dunham was originally attached a few years ago and is no longer attached.

• 40:30Speaker 03

  And so they're trying to make Polly Pocket into a movie starring Lily Collins, Phil Collins' daughter.

• 40:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 40:39Josh Clark?

  What about American Girl dolls? Did you know about the origin of them? They came from an elementary school teacher in Wisconsin named Pleasant Roland, which is a great name.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  That's Jerry's nickname.

• 40:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it is.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  Jerry Pleasant Roland.

• 40:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but Pleasant Roland wanted to teach kids about history, I guess specifically girls. And she started releasing them in 1986, these American Girl dolls. And at first, they were just mail order and they were expensive too. 65 bucks in $19.86, which is like $100,000 today, I'm guessing. But they were a big seller right off the bat and eventually you could find them in stores too.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, like their own stores, you know, their flagship stores. And I just encourage anyone that has dollophobia, which we'll get to in a minute, to dare walk by or through an American Girl doll store.

• 41:30Josh Clark?

  That is quite a dare.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's not a dare, actually, because that's not funny if you have a real fear like that.

• 41:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I was looking that up. We'll talk about it in a second, but it is some real deal stuff. It does not sound pleasant.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you know, American Girl dolls look sort of real, but that ain't nothing like what's coming out of FEO Schwarz and companies like Reborn and companies like Ashton Drake because they are making. These realistic baby dolls, we finally on this last trip to New York on fall break. I'd always wanted to go to F A O Schwarz in New York City. And we did, we, we took a trip through F A O Schwarz and I, I recommend it. I mean, it's very, very busy. So don't go in there if you have any sort of fear of crowds. Cause that is one of the most packed places I've ever been in. But eventually we wandered over to where they had their baby, like real baby doll display.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  And I held one of these things, man, and it is very surreal and weird because it seems like a real baby.

• 42:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like down to like the, the little veins in their temples, the little capillaries. And the smell, did, did the, did the one you hold smell of like talcum or anything?

• 42:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, they smell and look like babies, like full stop.

• 42:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And they even have weight to them too, like heft. So they're so realistic that these things are, this is what is often used as like a movie prop for like a long shot or something like that. Not a close up.

• 42:55Speaker 03

  For a close up, if you're Bradley Cooper in a Clint Eastwood movie.

• 42:59Josh Clark?

  Oh, really? Which one?

• 43:00Speaker 03

  The American Sniper, there's a very famous scene where he's clearly holding a fake baby.

• 43:05Josh Clark?

  I didn't know that.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  Just check it, check it out on YouTube. It's hysterical.

• 43:09Josh Clark?

  Okay, but, but people collect these things. I mean, they are essentially like works of art. They're usually made individually. They're not mass produced. Some of them I've seen referred to as museum quality pieces. So they can run hundreds of dollars, probably more than that for some of them. But there's other things that people do with them too. There's role playing, like just for fun, treating them as if they're alive. Cause again, they look a lot like a live baby or infant.

• 43:39Josh Clark?

  Some people use them to fill an emotional void.

• 43:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 43:42Josh Clark?

  And then apparently they're also useful for Alzheimer's patients, patients and dementia patients. And when I first saw this, I was like, that sounds pretty mean, actually.

• 43:54Josh Clark?

  They don't tell the, the patient that this is a real baby. They're like, here, hold this doll, but the doll is so lifelike that it can trigger memories. And pleasant emotions in Alzheimer's patients who now remember raising their own kids. Or taking care of their own kids. And then also just the feel of holding a baby can have all sorts of positive benefits for people with Alzheimer's and dementia too.

• 44:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, I looked that up. I mean, it's sort of pluses and minuses. It can definitely help reduce dementia cause agitation and stuff like that.

• 44:26Speaker 03

  All in a non-pharmacological way, which can be good, but there are critics that say like, you gotta be real careful how you do this because it can also reduce dignity and give the impression that like a reinforced like viewing people with dementia like they're children. So you just gotta do it the right way, is what I've read.

• 44:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's, I'm sure there's a myriad wrong ways to do it, too.

• 44:52Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 44:53Josh Clark?

  So that was a great, great call out, Chuck.

• 44:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:57Josh Clark?

  Do you remember My Buddy?

• 44:59Speaker 03

  My Buddy and Me?

• 45:01Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:01Speaker 03

  My Buddy.

• 45:02Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:03Speaker 03

  My Buddy.

• 45:04Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:04Speaker 03

  My Buddy, My Buddy and Me. Something like that.

• 45:07Josh Clark?

  That was close, close enough.

• 45:09Speaker 03

  That was the, uh, what do you call that? When you got a song?

• 45:13Josh Clark?

  An earworm, uh, earworm.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  No, no, no, the jingle. Yeah, that was the jingle. Everyone screaming, jingle. Uh, it was very infectious. I still remember it for the most part, all these years later. Uh, that was the inspiration for Chucky from Child's Play, but that was a doll that came out in 1985. That was, um, kind of during the Cabbage Patch Kid craze. They were like, hey, what about a doll that's made specifically for boys?

• 45:37Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 45:37Speaker 03

  And listen to this. Hasbro Senior Vice President of Marketing, Steven Swartz, in 1985, told the Boston Globe this. Uh, my buddy is positioned as macho. Like it's soft macho, but still macho. Like we show them climbing trees, riding their bikes. We didn't position it like a girl doll, like soft and sweet. It's macho, but soft macho.

• 45:57Josh Clark?

  Right. He was wearing all these medallions with his chest hair poking through.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:02Josh Clark?

  So that was, uh, thanks to our friends at Metal Floss who turned up that quote, which is priceless.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I should have read it in a Boston accent, but oh well.

• 46:10Josh Clark?

  No, I think you, you got it. It was great.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  I missed an opportunity.

• 46:13Josh Clark?

  That was Philly, right?

• 46:15Speaker 03

  Uh, well, that was for the Boston Globe, but I don't know. Oh, you mean my accent?

• 46:19Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:20Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no. That Philly accent's much different.

• 46:22Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay. Um, yeah, you didn't say yinz.

• 46:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, and he would go out after and have a hoagie.

• 46:29Josh Clark?

  So, like you said, he was the role for, or the model for Chucky from Child's Play?

• 46:33Speaker 03

  That's what they say. They didn't never confirm that.

• 46:36Josh Clark?

  It's pretty, it's pretty close, like Talky Tina, Chucky.

• 46:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:40Josh Clark?

  These things are close enough to just draw some assumptions here.

• 46:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, agreed.

• 46:44Josh Clark?

  So we talked about fear of dolls, and I'm glad you already kind of touched on the fact that this is quite serious. This is a genuine phobia. I know to people who don't have it, it can sound like, well, fear of dolls. It almost sounds like something you could make a movie out of. If you have a fear of dolls, a petiophobia, um, like you can get a full-blown panic attack. You may avoid places where you think there may be dolls. It's not just dolls, it can be mannequins too. Um, there's all sorts of reasons that you can have petiophobia. Um, but one of the, the causes behind it, or possible causes behind it, is having like a traumatic experience with a doll, or say like with a ventriloquist dummy or something like that.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:28Josh Clark?

  It just didn't land correctly, and now you're traumatized for the rest of your life, um, without serious counseling, uh, because you have this fear of dolls.

• 47:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. Um, you know, you used to publish, uh, when we were doing like, uh, image lists on the old HouseOfWorks.com days, your list of, uh, scary-looking toys.

• 47:48Josh Clark?

  That thing is just gone.

• 47:50Speaker 03

  Isn't it not on the web anymore?

• 47:51Josh Clark?

  No.

• 47:52Speaker 03

  Oh, well, that's probably good. Uh, but a lot of these things are creepy-looking, and a lot of them are dolls. Um, and, you know, they didn't mean to make them creepy-looking. Uh, I think this just, you know, some decision is made, like... Like Little Miss No Name in 1965, Margaret Keen's big eyes was a big deal. And so we're like, why don't we make a doll with those big giant eyes? And they did, and it's terrifying.

• 48:17Josh Clark?

  She is terrifying, again unintentionally. I think also part of it, she has like, like shadow under her eyes. She's supposed to be kind of gaunt because she's a panhandling child who wears a burlap sack and has a tear running down her cheek. And unintentionally terrifying.

• 48:34Speaker 03

  She's called Little Miss No Name?

• 48:35Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 48:35Speaker 03

  It's awful.

• 48:36Josh Clark?

  It is awful, but this was like a serious, like, release of a doll in 1965. So, um, yeah, there's, there's, and there's plenty you can come up with. I would, I would suggest just go looking up terrifying dolls, knockoff dolls, or knockoff toys is always a little fun rabbit hole to go down. But they're not inherently creepy is the thing. And the reason we know that is because there's kids out there who will play with what older people will consider creepy doll, but it, the kid doesn't think of it that way. So if you ever see a kid legitimately playing with a creepy doll, do not go up to that kid and be like, that doll's really creepy, because that's how humans start to think of things as creepy. And if they don't think of their doll as creepy, it is not your place to tell that kid

• 49:21Josh Clark?

  that doll is creepy.

• 49:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 49:24Josh Clark?

  There's a Instagram account of a mom who has been documenting her daughter Briar with her doll Creepy Chloe. And Creepy Chloe definitely lives up to her name, but Briar plays with her like she is any other doll. It's very cute.

• 49:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, just resist the urge, parents.

• 49:43Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 49:44Speaker 03

  Stifle.

• 49:45Josh Clark?

  If you want to know, if you want to know, um, yeah, I, can't you see Briar like growing up and sitting in her dorm, smoking pot one day and be like, no, I understand why my mom always threw her hand over her mouth and walked out of the room when I was playing with Creepy Chloe.

• 50:00Speaker 03

  Or why didn't she ever tell me? It might be the other way of thinking about it. Yeah.

• 50:05Josh Clark?

  So, um, just real quick, the thing that usually explains why we're creeped out by dolls is the uncanny valley. We won't get into that because it's pretty deep, but we did do an episode on the uncanny valley you can go find.

• 50:16Speaker 03

  It's a good one.

• 50:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah. You can find it on stuffyoushouldknow.com, by the way.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 50:22Josh Clark?

  You got anything else on dolls or Christmas or anything like that, buddy?

• 50:25Speaker 03

  Nothing.

• 50:27Josh Clark?

  Well, I'm glad we did this one.

• 50:29Speaker 03

  Me too.

• 50:29Josh Clark?

  Thank you for coming in from home this morning on Christmas morning to do this.

• 50:34Speaker 03

  That's right. All my gifts are still waiting. I told them just not touch them.

• 50:39Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 50:39Speaker 03

  Even the one that's ticking and I'll be right back.

• 50:40Josh Clark?

  Well, hopefully your orange rolls aren't cold or anything like that. So let's, let's go home. Let's go to our homes, not our shared home.

• 50:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:49Josh Clark?

  That's something else.

• 50:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's for New Year's.

• 50:52Josh Clark?

  And we'll wish everybody a Merry Christmas, huh?

• 50:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. I hope everyone has a great holiday and I hope you're with ones you love. And if you're spending Christmas in a less than ideal way, we are always thinking about you for real.

• 51:05Josh Clark?

  Very nice, Chuck. And I don't think we'll do listener mail, huh?

• 51:09Speaker 03

  Nah, nuts to that, as you say.

• 51:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Well, if you want to say Merry Christmas or Happy New Year or Happy Holidays or anything, hi, whatever, you can send it via email to [email protected].

• 51:47Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, MyHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 52:03Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 52:33Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.