There have been some grumblings that the toy series has been dominated by my little boy toys, and I’m sorry about that. But, as fate would have it, I was a little boy, and society did that to me—and I am still quite pissed about that. But I did revolt in my own little ways against the power structures of conformity I saw all around me, and it often came in the form of stealing my little sister’s Strawberry Shortcake dolls and sniffing them clandestinely in my room. I would usually grab Apple Dumplin’, Apricot, Huckleberry Pie, Purple Pieman and/or Rasberry Tart and breath in their artificially flavored hair for hours. I couldn’t help it, they were scratch and sniff books grafted on figurines, and the whole thing amazed me. I can almost reproduce the heavenly mix of plastic and saccharine rasberry as I write this. My sister even had Strawberry Shortcake’s house, but I have to save that episode for another post.
Image credit: Wishbook’s “1981.xx.xx Montgomery Ward Christmas Catalog P037”