Stuffed toy

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"Stuffed animal" redirects here. For practise of stuffing and mounting dead animals, see Taxidermy.
"Cuddly Toy" redirects here. For the song, see Cuddly Toy (song).
Different types of stuffed toys

A stuffed toy is a toy sewn from a textile, and stuffed with a soft material. They are also known as plush toys, plushies, or stuffed animals (U.S. & Canadian English), and soft toys or cuddly toys (British English).

Textiles commonly used include plain cloth and pile textiles like plush or terrycloth. Common stuffing materials are synthetic fiber batting, cotton, straw, wood wool, plastic pellets or beans. Stuffed toys are made in many different forms, often resembling animals, legendary creatures, cartoon characters or inanimate objects. They are often used as comfort objects, for display or collecting and given as gifts, such as for graduation, Valentine's Day or birthdays.

History and types

Replica of a Steiff teddy bear from 1903

The first commercial concern to create stuffed toys was the German Steiff company in 1880. Steiff used new technology developed for upholstery to make their stuffed toys.[1] In 1903 Richard Steiff designed a soft bear that differed from earlier traditional rag dolls, because it was made of plush furlike fabric.[1] At the same time in the USA, Morris Michtom created the first teddy bear, after being inspired by a drawing of Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt with a bear cub.[2] The character Peter Rabbit from English author Beatrix Potter was the first stuffed toy to be patented, in 1903.[3]

A pair of homemade sock monkeys

Sock monkeys are handmade stuffed monkeys made out of socks that first appeared during the Great Depression.[4] Amigurumi is a Japanese type of handcrafted knitted or crocheted stuffed toys. Amigurumi are typically made to look cute with oversized heads and undersized extremities. Beginning in 2003, they are collected and sold on crafting websites like Etsy.[5][6]

A Beanie Baby beanbag toy

There are many brands of stuffed toys, including Beanie Babies, a line of stuffed beanbag animals, that was started in 1993. Several marketing strategies were used to encourage collecting of Beanie Babies.

Several brands of electronic and robotic plush toys were fads when they were first released. These include Tickle Me Elmo, a laughing and shaking plush toy based on the character Elmo from the Sesame Street television show, released in 1996,[7] Furby, a robotic talking plush toy with its own language, released in 1998[8] and Zhu Zhu Pets, a line of robotic plush hamsters released in 2009.[9][10]

Webkinz stuffed animals were created by Ganz in 2005. Each Webkinz toy comes with a unique "Secret Code" that gives access to the Webkinz World website and a virtual version of the toy for online play.[11][12] Disney's Club Penguin and Build-A-Bearville from Build-A-Bear Workshop are other online worlds with content that can be unlocked from codes found on associated stuffed toys.

Pillow Pets are a brand of folding stuffed toys. These types have straps that open to transform the toy from the stuffed toy position to pillow position, and close to restore it back to a stuffed toy.[13]

See also

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stuffed animals.
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Gary S. Cross (1999). Kids' Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood. Harvard University Press. pp. 93–94. 
  2. ↑ "Teddy Bears". Library Of Congress. Retrieved 2007-12-10. 
  3. ↑ Beatrix Potter's Life - peterrabbit.com
  4. ↑ Boschma, Janie (2007-11-05). "History of the sock monkey: Stuffed animal created during the Great Depression". The Spectator. Retrieved 2009-07-01. 
  5. ↑ Mary Beth Temple (2009). Hooked for Life: Adventures of a Crochet Zealot. Andrews McMeel. pp. 40–41. ISBN 978-0-7407-7812-4. Retrieved 2010-03-20. 
  6. ↑ Mary Belton (2006). Craft, Volume 1: Transforming Traditional Crafts. O'Reilly Media. pp. 41–42. ISBN 978-0-596-52928-4. Retrieved 2010-03-20. 
  7. ↑ "Just Tickled". People, January 13, 1997.
  8. ↑ "New toy an interactive fur ball". CNN. 1998-10-05. Retrieved 2007-07-13. 
  9. ↑ Vicki Mabrey; Kinga Janik (November 20, 2009). "Zhu Zhu Pets: Hamsters to Save Christmas?". ABC News. 
  10. ↑ Anderson, Mae (November 27, 2009). "Robotic hamsters are holidays' unlikely new craze". Denver Post. Retrieved May 18, 2011. 
  11. ↑ Pardo, Steve (2007-04-11). "Kids hooked on Webkinz world". The Detroit News. Retrieved 2007-04-23. 
  12. ↑ Barakat, Matthew (2007-07-13). "Review: Webkinz pleases parents and children". MSNBC. Retrieved 2007-08-20. 
  13. ↑ My Pillow Pets - About Us
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