Do You Remember a Favorite Toy?

Yes!  My Chatty Cathy doll.  You pulled a string in the back of her neck and she spoke!  I thought it was the most marvelous and magical doll!  She had blonde hair and my mom made clothes for her.  She was my favorite, favorite toy to play with for a long time.

Alas, when I was in about 4th grade, my brother, whom will remain nameless (but his name begins with W), pulled the string right out!  My Chatty Cathy was voiceless.  *sigh*  I was devastated...

I also liked to play with Paper Dolls.  I started to play with Paper Dolls when I was about 4-years-old. My friend, Mona, and I would spend hours cutting out the dresses for our dolls, then pretending with them.  But I think the fun part was the cutting. It was a wonderful device for teaching a child how to use scissors correctly.  If you wanted to play with them, you had to first cut out all the parts.  I was diligent and endeavored to never go out of the lines to ruin the clothes for the dolls.  I believe it was the precursor to my love of Scherenschnitte (Pennsylvania Dutch term for "scissors cutting")!

I had paper dolls of Janet Lennon and the Lennon Sisters, Dorothy Maguire and the Maguire Sisters   (I think my mom liked them) and I even had Dinah Shore and George Montgomery Paper Dolls!!! ahhhh!   And remember the FREE Betsy McCall paper dolls in the McCalls magazine every month?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWjewuHTg_I&feature=related

I wish I could talk to my friend, Mona, and see if she remembers what other paper dolls we had.

And, of course, the BIGGEST thing to come out in the 50s was BARBIE!!!!!  I remember wanting a Barbie doll so much, but my mom said we couldn't afford it.  At $3, it was expensive in 1959.  So she first bought me a knock off doll.  Her name was Babette--NOT a Barbie.  I wanted a brunette Barbie with a pony tail--a classic. 

Then, one day, a few years later (yes, YEARS I had to wait), I got a Barbie--an ash blonde Barbie with a "bubble cut."  *sigh*  Oh, well...at least it was a Barbie. I still kind of get a tingle when I think about it . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hhjjhYGQtY&playnext=1&list=PLC36B6061AAEEB1BD

(This is the first Barbie commercial that first aired during Mickey Mouse Club!)

I didn't have a Ken doll either until one day, my friend, Laurie Mundy, gave me her old Ken doll that a dog had mauled.  It had no hair and only one hand.  We said he came back from the war, and I was content.  Then my brothers got GI Joes and that was even better than a Ken doll.  So Barbie, and later, Tressy, had GI Joe boyfriends.

Tressy was the doll whose hair would grow when you pushed a button on her back (or was it her stomach?)  "Short, or long, or in-between; Tressy's hair makes her a queen!"  "It's grows and grows!"

I decided then I wanted to be a hair dresser when I grew up.

What was YOUR favorite toy to play with when you were young?