Dolls and Dolls, Guys!

Summary

Stuff You Should Know - "Dolls and Dolls, Guys!" (Dec 25, 2025)

Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Podcast: iHeartPodcasts

Overview

In this festive episode, Josh and Chuck take listeners on a comprehensive, often hilarious, and sometimes heartfelt journey through the world of dolls—their history, social impact, and cultural resonance. From ancient Egypt to Barbie’s space career and the uncanny world of hyper-realistic baby dolls, the hosts explore not only what makes a doll a "doll" but also why these seemingly simple toys have had such a profound effect on individuals and society.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Dolls and Their Purpose (01:48–05:55)

• Definitional Challenges:
  • There is no universally agreed-upon definition of a "doll."
  • Dolls are distinguished from action figures, puppets, and animal plushies.
  • Josh (02:14): "There's almost no specific definition of dolls. No one can make an actual set definition."
• Role in Development:
  • Dolls help children practice empathy, patience, emotional expression, and caregiving.
  • Chuck (03:11): "Not an action figure... dolls teach kids a lot of great things. Empathy and patience and recognizing emotions, among many other things."
• Surrogate Expression:
  • Dolls can be surrogates for children to express feelings they might hesitate to share directly.

2. Dolls, Gender Roles, and Marketing (05:25–07:45)

• Historical View:
  • Dolls were not originally gendered; only in the 20th century did manufacturers emphasize "dolls for girls."
  • Pink and blue color-coding also arose during this period.
• Contemporary Shifts and Persistent Gaps:
  • Society generally encourages girls to play with "boy" toys more than boys with "girl" toys.
  • Chuck (06:24): “...only 64%. So there are far fewer families saying, you know, William, you should play with your doll... but way, way more families telling their girls like, you should go play with trucks or roughhouse.”
• Empowering Dolls:
  • Dolls like Barbie and American Girl have introduced more diverse and empowering possibilities for girls, including representation in STEM fields and LGBTQ+ themes (e.g., Earring Magic Ken, 07:45).

3. History and Evolution of Dolls (08:35–18:00)

• Origins of the Word (08:51):
  • "Doll" evolved from Dorothy’s nickname, dating to the 1500s.
• Ancient Dolls:
  • Egyptian paddle dolls may have been ritualistic, not toys.
  • Dual role in ritual and play observed among various cultures.
  • Greek and Roman dolls reflected ideals for young girls, sometimes buried as part of marital or funerary rites.
• Rag Dolls and Folk Traditions:
  • Oldest known rag doll in North America: Bangwell Putt, owned by Clarissa Field in the 1700s (14:15). Tradition possibly drawn from corn husk dolls without faces.
  • Chuck (14:33): “She named her doll Bangwell Putt ... because no one will know what it is, except for the rare stuff you should know listener.”

4. Victorian Dolls & Social Status (16:39–20:26)

• Dollmaking as Art:
  • By the 15th century, dolls were handcrafted luxuries for the aristocracy, especially in Germany.
  • Porcelain became the favorite due to its idealized depiction of skin tone.
• Socialization and Death Kits:
  • Dolls mimicked life’s milestones, even including miniature mourning rituals and funerals for death education.
  • Josh (18:00): “Little girls were given death kits to use with their dolls.”

5. Race, Representation, and the Doll Test (20:26–26:02)

• Topsy Turvy Doll:
  • Antebellum invention symbolizing dual caregiving roles (white and black doll in one).
• Racist Dolls & Social Impact:
  • Jim Crow era dolls promoted harmful stereotypes, subtly reinforcing white supremacy.
  • Josh (22:31): “Black dolls were not particularly cute. They were sometimes ugly ... white dolls were pretty ... that sent the signal.”
• The Doll Tests (23:05):
  • Landmark research by Mamie and Kenneth Clark: Black children overwhelmingly preferred white dolls, laying groundwork for the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case.

6. Modern Diversity in Doll Making (24:49–26:11)

• First Realistic Black Dolls:
  • Sara Lee doll (1951) and Baby Nancy (1965)—the latter created by a Black-owned company, marking a turning point in representation.
  • Chuck (25:42): “...the very first doll with realistic Afrocentric features. It was not like, ‘Hey, let’s run a run of white dolls and then just change the skin tone and color them brown.’”

7. Iconic Dolls of the 20th Century (32:01–46:42)

• Paper Dolls Craze (29:14–31:59):
  • Cheap, collectible, and a massive trend from ~1890 to 1920s.
• Kewpie (32:10) & Raggedy Ann (33:21):
  • Early cultural icons, with Raggedy Ann and Andy founded in literature, then made into widely-loved dolls.
• Betsy Wetsy (34:53):
  • The first “functional” doll that drank and wet itself.
• Chatty Cathy (36:49):
  • Post-Barbie, talking doll. Inspiration for both television (Twilight Zone, 39:01) and toy evolution.
  • June Faraday (voice of Rocky, Cindy Lou Who) and Maureen McCormick (Marcia Brady) voiced Chatty Cathy over the years.
• Polly Pocket (41:17):
  • Miniature innovation, with a possible movie adaptation starring Lily Collins.
• American Girl (41:46):
  • Created by Pleasant Rowland to teach girls history; premium dolls with elaborate narratives and stores.
• Hyper-realistic Reborn Dolls (42:11):
  • Handcrafted dolls with lifelike features, sometimes used therapeutically for Alzheimer's and dementia patients, but also controversial in approach.

8. Doll Fear and the Uncanny (47:13–50:45)

• Pediophobia:
  • Deep-seated, real phobia of dolls and mannequins.
  • Can result in panic attacks and avoidance behaviors, sometimes based on childhood experiences.
• Creepy Dolls & Unintended Consequences:
  • Some dolls, like Little Miss No Name, became unintentionally frightening.
  • Children see dolls differently; adults are cautioned not to project their judgments and create phobias.
  • Josh (49:51): "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 ... that's how humans start to think of things as creepy."

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On definition:
  • Josh (02:14): “There's almost no specific definition of dolls. No one can make an actual set definition.”
• On dolls as social tools:
  • Chuck (03:11): “...dolls teach kids a lot of great things. Empathy and patience and recognizing emotions, among many other things.”
• On marketing and gender:
  • Josh (05:55): “That's apparently where gendered toys came from ... Pink became the color for girls and blue for boys ... it used to be the opposite.”
• On race in doll history:
  • Josh (22:31): “...that sent the signal to black kids being raised in America … like, if you're black, you should feel pretty, pretty much about yourself, how you feel about this doll.”
• On the uncanny valley and scary dolls:
  • Chuck (48:17): “A lot of these things are creepy looking, and a lot of them are dolls. They didn't mean to make them creepy looking.”
• On empathy and projection:
  • Josh (49:51): “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 ... that's how humans start to think of things as creepy.”

---

Key Timestamps

• [01:14] – Episode intro & Christmas greetings.
• [01:48] – Pondering what makes a doll, a doll.
• [03:07] – Dolls aid in children’s development.
• [05:25] – Dolls, gender roles, and marketing history.
• [07:45] – Queer-coded dolls; Earring Magic Ken.
• [08:51] – Etymology of “doll.”
• [13:34] – The oldest North American rag doll, Bangwell Putt.
• [16:39] – Victorian Doll obsession & status.
• [20:26] – The Topsy Turvy doll and race in dolls (the “doll test” begins at 23:05).
• [25:42] – Baby Nancy and Afrocentric representation.
• [29:14] – Paper dolls: a 30+ year craze.
• [32:10] – The Kewpie craze & Domino effect: Raggedy Ann, etc.
• [34:53] – Betsy Wetsy & functional dolls.
• [36:49] – Chatty Cathy & talking dolls.
• [41:46] – American Girl Dolls & hyper-realistic “Reborn” dolls.
• [47:13] – Fear of dolls (pediophobia); scary dolls and the Uncanny Valley.

---

Tone & Style

Josh and Chuck maintain their signature, genial banter: at times irreverent, always informative, with moments of poignant insight and self-aware goofiness ("Decking your halls, if you give us consent, of course," 01:30). They riff on personal doll experiences, pop culture (from Aerosmith’s “Ragdoll” to Twilight Zone), and even wax philosophical about the societal impact of dolls.

---

Final Thoughts

The episode explores dolls from every imaginable angle: historical artifact, tool of socialization, vector of prejudice, vessel for empowerment, and even the stuff of nightmares. Inclusive, nuanced, and peppered with personal memories and fan engagement, “Dolls and Dolls, Guys!” exemplifies why "Stuff You Should Know" remains a favorite among curious minds.

---

For more profound, quirky, or just plain fun explorations, find “Stuff You Should Know” wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

[Chuck Bryant]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Announcer]

Guaranteed Human and now superhuman shack.

[Sleep Apnea PSA Voice]

I keep telling them not to say that. I'm no superhuman. Believe it or not, I struggle with moderate obstructive sleep apnea, or osa, in adults with obesity. Moderate to severe OSA is a condition where breathing is interrupted during sleep, with loud snoring, choking, gasping for air, and even daytime fatigue. Let's just say it could sound a lot like this. Sound familiar? Learn more@don'tsleeponosa.com this information is provided by.

[Announcer]

Lilly, a medicine company.

[Chuck Bryant]

Living with an autoimmune condition isn't easy, and every journey is different. That's why Season five of Untold Life with a severe Autoimmune condition from Ruby Studio and Argenics shares powerful firsthand stories from people with conditions like MG and cidp. Hosted by Martine Hackett, these conversations dive into what resilience really looks like through setbacks, breakthroughs, and finding strength in community list on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Announcer]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartradio.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

We would never deck halls just willy nilly.

[Josh Clark]

No, I mean.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, we're good guys.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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?

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

And she was holding a Chatty Cathy.

[Josh 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 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 the best example of how you can please some people some of the time. But not everybody ever. That old saying.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 like a model of usually a human type figure.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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 GI Joe episode. But what a doll specifically is beyond just looking like a human is it aids in kids development? Because 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 patience and recognizing emotions, among many other things.

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, okay.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

That's it.

[Chuck Bryant]

So recognizing emotions is a big one for kids as long as holding onto dolls like recognizing. 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.

[Josh Clark]

Is Chatty Cathy your go to doll so far?

[Chuck Bryant]

I'll move on to Betsy Wetsy soon enough.

[Josh Clark]

Chatty Cathy is pretty fun to say.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they can put themselves in their tiny little 1 inch shiny patent leather shoe.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

That Chatty Cathy has.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

If you, you know, want to talk about traditional gender roles, we're going to 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 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.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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 youe 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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Go jump off that dirt pile.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So, yeah, the 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 Kin wasn't a groundbreaking doll.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, Earring Magic Kin came out in 1993. You take one look at Earring Magic Kin and it's pretty clear that it's a queer coated dollar. He has 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.

[Josh Clark]

I saw that too.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. This is something I didn't know. 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 Ls for R. So Harold could be Hal, Mary could be Moll or Molly, and Dorothy could be Doll.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, wow.

[Josh 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, give me a doll.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, doll face.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, exactly right. So you're like, you're. 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?

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. They said, what kind of psycho are you?

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Why is that doll got strings coming out of it. Well, speaking of strings. 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, human shaped as far as 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.

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

And.

[Josh Clark]

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 Akan people of Ghana. They have ritual dolls that kids also play with at the same time.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh 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. Isn't that bittersweet?

[Chuck Bryant]

Mm, kind of just bitter.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

I thought the same thing too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Come on up and see me.

[Josh Clark]

That song's fun. New version of an old scene.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

That's right. Sponsored by the Otis Corporation.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. 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?

[Josh 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 once attached to its hair. But it's 2,000 years old. So give it a break, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, sure, of course.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that is a great band name.

[Chuck Bryant]

For sure, because 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 ragdoll.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Or visitors to the Pacomatic Valley Memorial association in Deerfield, Mass. Which is where it's kept now.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I guess they would know that. But 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 have sort of indicated the importance of touch for her.

[Josh 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. So that's why corn husk dolls don't have a face. And that's possibly why rag doll dolls don't have a face either. Like Bangwell putt.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

What about eyelashes?

[Chuck Bryant]

No eyelashes, no pimples, no freckles, Pores. No freckles, no wrinkles. No pores. What else is on the face? I'm looking at my face.

[Josh Clark]

Nose, hair, beard.

[Chuck Bryant]

Nose hair, mustache. All right, I think we covered it okay.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

That should be on the shirt. Don't come at me with teeth and tongue. It's the stuff you should know way.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

What about Victorian dolls?

[Josh Clark]

Well, this is really where doll obsessions, I think, kind of start to take off. Because up to this point, rag dolls, like, you got to 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 seed of it originally was Germany. They had dockenmachers, 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, works of art that very keyly 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.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

So one of my favorite things. So Dave helped us with this big head. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 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.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure.

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they do the darndest things.

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that'd be a good listener. Mail.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And that was thanks to the Victorians. And that's why dollhouses are always very nice and big, 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Ring this bell if you're hungry. So, you know, we talked a little bit about the complicated history of race 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 black dolls because it's a pretty complex story as far as race and self image goes. And the first one we're gonna talk about is called the Topsy Turvy. Doll. It's a really good example because it was a doll that had two heads. It had a long skirt to conceal sort of one side. 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 dollar. 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, 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, you know, later on in your life, then you need a two headed doll to care for the white doll in the day and the black doll at night.

[Josh 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 Wardrobe, which is not surprising. But the. 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. 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. Yeah, 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. 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?

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So this was just brutal. It is brutal. But it also was this groundbreaking research that the Clarks created.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure.

[Josh 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 90 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, pretty amazing result from that study. Sara Lee Creech was a doll maker, I guess, who created the Sara 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 Chindana Toys, and it was the very first doll with realistic Afrocentric features. It was not like, hey, let's run a run of white dolls and then just change the skin tone and color them brown. 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 seller.

[Josh 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 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. Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

So, I mean, I'm not into dolls.

[Chuck Bryant]

Cause, you know, I play with trucks.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

I can't remember. Did you have a Cabbage Patch?

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Creepy pantyhose dolls, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And 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.

[Josh Clark]

Your two and here's Michelle's and don't touch them.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I'm sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

I didn't know that one.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't even know what that means.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Announcer]

And now, Superhuman Shack.

[Sleep Apnea PSA Voice]

I keep telling them not to say that. I'm no superhuman. Believe it or not, I struggle with moderate obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity. Moderate to severe OSA is a condition where breathing is interrupted during sleep with loud snoring, choking, gasping for air and even daytime fatigue. Let's just say it can sound a lot like this. Sound familiar? Learn more@don'tsleeponosa.com this information is provided by.

[Announcer]

Lilly, a medicine company for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of kind a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisors Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

So, yeah, paper dolls were this trend from like the. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Grunge.

[Josh Clark]

No, grunge I will say was 10 years tops.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pet rocks.

[Josh Clark]

Pet rocks is maybe two.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's it. I got nothing else.

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hot pants.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

So 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.

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's kind of it.

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 kind of learn about fashion. So it's not that different than paper dolls.

[Josh Clark]

No, this is plastic.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And Cheep Cheep enjoyed that for a while.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

My friend Meredith. Her Auntie Meredith. She and Ruby are big buds.

[Josh Clark]

Meredith?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I think you met Meredith. Maybe.

[Josh Clark]

All right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You have At New York live shows.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, well, great pick, Meredith.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

You gotta start. And we're not gonna spend too much time on Kewpie doll. Except to mention that the Kewpie doll was kind of the first big doll of the 20th century in 1912. Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And the Great Mayo, too, by the way.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. I tried the Kewpie Mayo. Cause of you.

[Josh Clark]

What'd you think?

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

It shouldn't be. You can love both.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I do.

[Josh Clark]

I think kewpie was huge. So huge that it took Mickey Mouse to topple them. Him. Her. It.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think Mickey Mouse is an it.

[Josh Clark]

No, no, no. Kewpie.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's. They're both. It's.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay. So, yeah, well, Mickey Mouse is an. Ow. A mouse. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But he's an it. He's living in that gutter with a clown.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

In the sewer gutter.

[Josh Clark]

So along after that, I think Kewpie doll was. I mean, I. I know Steamboat Willie came out in the 20s. I'm not sure when it was actually Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse. Right. So kewpie 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 Kewpie doll by her little couple hairs on the top of her head down from the top spot and took it over.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 years later in 1920. But they had movie appearances, they had a TV show, they had a Broadway musical in the 80s.

[Josh Clark]

What was it about?

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Aerosmith did the score.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm pretty sure they did the book, too.

[Josh Clark]

So one other thing about Raggedy Ann. You know Annabelle from the Conjuring series?

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

You never saw the Conjuring.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, you're going to like it, dude. It's one of those very few modern, like, good ghost movies. It is good. Like goose pimple stuff good.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm going to conjure up some goose pimples for myself then, I think.

[Josh Clark]

And the Conjuring 2 is okay. But the first one's very good. I'll be very surprised if you don't like it.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Okay, child's play's coming up. Don't worry about it. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Megan was pretty good, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, Megan was fun. It wasn't so scary.

[Josh Clark]

No, it's no Conjuring for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Betsy Wetzy could drink you under the.

[Chuck Bryant]

Table, could pee pee herself. Betsy Wetsy could cry. I was about to say real human tears, but no cry, fake tears. This was from a company called ideal in 1937. And ideal got sued a few times because 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?

[Josh 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 or maybe give her a bath or something like that and start all over again.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. Not to be undone. In the early 90s, Magic Potty Baby came out. And I think I remember this actually, because this was a. It didn't pee pee 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. 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. That's its temporary holding tank.

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, agreed.

[Josh Clark]

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 is a Ruth Handler joint, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. This was a Mattel product along with Barbie. And, you know, Chatty Cathy was chatty and talked. So you would pull a string and there were, I think, 11 initial phrases. I hurt myself, please brush my hair.

[Josh Clark]

That was a great Chatty Cathy.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was it. That was Chatty Cathy.

[Josh Clark]

Chatty Cathy. Get. This was not the first doll to talk. As far back as Thomas Edison In, I think, 1890, he tried his hand at one, and he had different dolls that said a few different things. But we turned up a clip of the doll that read, 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

I praise the Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before thy wake, I praise the Lord my soul to break. Amen. So, 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh 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 for some reason staring at you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Your biggest fear.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Pretty good stuff.

[Josh 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?

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh 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 Talkie Tina and I'm beginning to hate you. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was good.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

I did not.

[Josh 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. All right. And then they re released chatty Cathy in 1970, and the voice was Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia on the Brady Bunch.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.

[Josh Clark]

Trivia masters. If you're looking for a new question. Yeah, Merry Christmas.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That no one will know unless they listen to stuff you should know.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, that's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's Jerry's nickname.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah, it is Jerry.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pleasant Rowland.

[Josh 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 $1986. $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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

That is quite a dare.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Rich. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And, you know, American Girl dolls look sort of real, but that ain't nothing like what's coming out of FAO Schwartz 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 FAO Schwartz in New York City, and we did. We took a trip through FAO Schwartz. And 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 because 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. And I held one of these things, man. And it is very surreal and weird because it seems like a real baby.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Like down to like the. The little veins in their temples, the little capillaries. And the smell. Did the creepy, man. Did the one you hold smell of, like, talcum or anything?

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Not a close up or for a close up. If you're Bradley Cooper in a Clint Eastwood movie.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, really? Which one?

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

I didn't know that. I didn't know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Check it out on YouTube. It's hysterical.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. 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. Because, again, they look a lot like a live baby or infant. Some people use them to fill an emotional void. And then apparently they're also useful for Alzheimer's patients and dementia patients. And when I first saw this, I Was like, that sounds pretty mean, actually. They don't tell 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I looked that up. I mean, it's sort of pluses and minuses. It can definitely help reduce dementia caused agitation and stuff like that, 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, like a reinforced, like, viewing people with dementia like their children. So you just gotta do it the right way is what I've read.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Do you remember my buddy, my buddy and me? My buddy, my buddy, my buddy, my buddy and me? Something like that.

[Josh Clark]

That was close. Close enough.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was the. What do you call that when you got a song?

[Josh Clark]

An earworm. An earworm.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

And listen to this. Hasbro Senior Vice President of marketing Stephen Swartz in 1995 told the Boston Globe this. My buddy is positioned as macho. Like, it's soft, macho, but still macho. Like, we show him climbing trees, riding their bikes. We didn't position it like a girl doll. Like soft and sweet. It's macho, but soft macho.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Oh, well, no, I think you got it. It was great.

[Chuck Bryant]

I missed an opportunity.

[Josh Clark]

That was Philly, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, that was for the Boston Globe, but I don't know. Oh, you mean my accent. No, no, no, no. That Philly accent's Much different.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. Yeah. You didn't say yinz.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

That's what they say. They never confirm that.

[Josh Clark]

It's pretty. It's pretty close. Like talky, Tina, Chucky. These things are close enough to just draw some assumptions here.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, agreed.

[Josh 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 pediophobia, 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. There's all sorts of reasons that you can have pediophobia, but one of the causes behind it, or possible causes behind it is having, like a traumatic experience with a doll or, say, with a ventriloquist dummy or something like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. You know, you used to publish when we were doing, like, image lists on the old housetuffworks.com days. Your list of scary looking toys.

[Josh Clark]

That thing is just gone, isn't it?

[Chuck Bryant]

Not on the Web anymore, no. Oh, well, that's probably good. But a lot of these things are creepy looking, and a lot of them are dolls. And, you know, they didn't mean to make them creepy looking. I think this just, you know, some decision is made. Like Little Miss no Name. In 1965, Margaret Keene'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.

[Josh Clark]

She is terrifying. Again, unintentionally, I think. Also part of it. She has, 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Little Miss no Name.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, it's awful. It is awful. But this was like a serious, like, release of a doll in 1965. So, 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 a creepy doll, but 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 that doll is creepy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure.

[Josh 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Just resist the urge, parents.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. Stifle if you want to know. If you want to know. Yeah. Can't you see Briar, like, growing up and sitting in her dorm, smoking pot one day and being like, now 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's a good one.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You can find it on stuffyou should know Dot com, by the way.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Nothing.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I'm glad we did this one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Me too.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. All my gifts are still waiting. I told them just not touching them, even the one that's ticking. And I'll be right back.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's for New Year's.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

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

[Chuck Bryant]

Nah, nuts to that, as you say.

[Josh 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 stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

[Announcer]

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

[Josh Clark]

And now Superhuman Shack.

[Sleep Apnea PSA Voice]

I keep telling them not to say that. I'm no superhuman. Believe it or not, I struggle with moderate obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity. Moderate to severe OSA is a condition where breathing is interrupted during sleep with loud snoring, choking, gasping for air and even daytime fatigue. Let's just say it can sound a lot like this. Sound familiar? Learn more@don'tsleeponosa.com this information is provided by.

[Announcer]

Lilly, a medicine company. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures [e-mail] Disclosures this is an iHeart podcast.

[Chuck Bryant]

Guaranteed Human.