Thursday 8 December 2011

Pamela the Bendable Doll

Poor Pamela! She welcomes the world with arms outstretched, but somehow, she just looks a bit odd. She is what a doll collector would call a 'clone' - a copy of a popular doll. The popular dolls in question are 'Flatsy' dolls.

These are curious in themselves - flat dolls in cute outfits, they appeared in 1969. I think they were more popular in the US than in Britain, and they have been recently revived (here)
nostalgic--but not one of my favorite disco dolls--Flatsy girls
(picture from JapaneseSweetShop)
Odd, for sure, but you can see that they might have some appeal.

However, in trying to copy the dolls closely, but not too closely (in case they get sued), the creators of 'Pamela' have just missed the mark.

3 comments:

Jane Housham said...

I especially like the fairground backdrop on the packaging.

Gina said...

OMG, I haven't thought of these in years...well, decades actually. My older sis had several of these (she was a child of the late sixties/early 70's) and I "inherited" them when she outgrew them in the mid-to-late 70s). I've never seen them without ratty hair.

Kylie said...

Oooh I missed this!
Thanks for the link.
I remember my Flatsie as being much prettier than copy-cat Pamela.
I also remember the wire popping out if you bent Flatsie too hard (or chewed on her, like my sister did!)