So, some might have noticed that several popular 80's toys are back - Care Bears, My Little Pony, and Strawberry Shortcake just to name a few. But it's the last one which always bothers me. Unlike the other toys making a comeback, the Stawberry Shortcake doll has a new look; one that quite frankly always bothers me. I got in a discussion with my friend Jef one day that she just looked different then she used to. He dismissed my comment saying it was just her clothes. I knew though that there was more to it then her "trendy" outfit, her face just looked wrong to me. So I searched the web for some good pics both old and new to prove my point that side-to-side, they really are quite different afterall.



The old version of Strawberry Shortcake had a cute, dimpled face. The new one sports squinty, up-to-no-good eyes and doesn't have the same freckled face as she used to.



I just don't like the new Strawberry Shortcake. I think she looks evil or perhaps wicked - and not in a good way. She seems underhanded and slimy and it breaks my heart to think of this "modernizing" of toys I played with twenty years ago when they first came out is ruining what I treasure as childhood favorites. The Care Bears look almost the same - good for them - but Strawberry here just looks wrong. Her quaint little dress and hat weren't in fashion in the 80's, so why they felt the need to update her look is beyond me.

And what did they do to the ADORABLE Custard Cat??!

Look how cute she is!


Look how snobby and overdone she is!

Yes, let's teach our kids to be so shallow that even our formally cute pets need to be over groomed and in make up.

Hello Clueless Toy Companies: Toys are allowed to look different and they don't have to be "cool" or "hip" in fashion to be loved, enjoyed and played with. Toys exist in their own realities and you do us all a disservice by trying to force trendy marketing upon them. Let them be imagninary and let them have thier own world that's seperate from the corporate sponser saturated reality we have to grow up into all too quickly.

In short: leave our damned toys alone.

~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream at 11/18/2003 03:18:54 PM ~ ~