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Popples
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Popples was a series of fictional characters created by Those Characters From Cleveland (TCFC), a subsidiary company of American Greetings, and the plush toys were manufactured by Mattel. Produced in the 1980s, these toys resemble brightly colored teddy bears or marsupials (but with long tails with pom-poms on the tip), and have pouches on their backs that can be inverted, so they are in the pouches and resemble brightly colored balls.
At first there were only the nine original Popples : PC (Pretty Cool) Popple (large blue boy), Party Popple (large pink girl), Pancake (large dark magenta girl), Puzzle (medium orange boy), Prize (medium dark magenta girl), Puffball (medium white girl), Pretty Bit (small lavender girl), Potato Chip (small yellow girl) and Putter (small green boy).
Then came the Rock Star Popples : Punkity (girl with microphone and star on her tummy) and Punkster (boy with guitar and lightning on his tummy) as well as the Popples Babies : Bibsy (pink with blue and white striped hat, bib and bootises) and Cribsy (white with purple and white hat, bib and booties with stars) The babies had rattles in their tails and came with a squeaking baby bottle.
There were also the Pufflings which looked like little Popple pets (they were basically a ball of fluff with a face and tiny paws and tail coming out, they could flip inside out to look a bit like an anemone) and carried riddles and jokes on tags inside them.
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Encyclopedia
Popples was a series of fictional characters created by Those Characters From Cleveland (TCFC), a subsidiary company of American Greetings, and the plush toys were manufactured by Mattel. Produced in the 1980s, these toys resemble brightly colored teddy bears or marsupials (but with long tails with pom-poms on the tip), and have pouches on their backs that can be inverted, so they are in the pouches and resemble brightly colored balls.
At first there were only the nine original Popples : PC (Pretty Cool) Popple (large blue boy), Party Popple (large pink girl), Pancake (large dark magenta girl), Puzzle (medium orange boy), Prize (medium dark magenta girl), Puffball (medium white girl), Pretty Bit (small lavender girl), Potato Chip (small yellow girl) and Putter (small green boy).
Then came the Rock Star Popples : Punkity (girl with microphone and star on her tummy) and Punkster (boy with guitar and lightning on his tummy) as well as the Popples Babies : Bibsy (pink with blue and white striped hat, bib and bootises) and Cribsy (white with purple and white hat, bib and booties with stars) The babies had rattles in their tails and came with a squeaking baby bottle.
There were also the Pufflings which looked like little Popple pets (they were basically a ball of fluff with a face and tiny paws and tail coming out, they could flip inside out to look a bit like an anemone) and carried riddles and jokes on tags inside them. There were 6 different colors of Pufflings : Red, yellow, sky blue, purple, white and magenta.
The Popples also had Sports Popples who turned into balls : Big Kick (soccer ball), Dunker (basketball), Touchdown (football), PC Pitcher (baseball), Net Set (tennis ball). The Sports Popples included Cuester, who turned into an 8-ball, but no known toys has been made of him. Same with Pitcher, no toy was made of the original Pitcher but they dressed PC in a baseball outfit to replace him.
There were many other variants, such as Flower Popples (who would turn into flowers when you flipped them inside out), Pillow Popppes (who were wearing pajamas and turned into their own sleeping bag instead of a ball), Fruit Popples (who obviously turned into different fruits), as well as special editions or limited distributions such as the animal series with Popples that turned into a parrot, a dog, and a rabbit, or the Costume Popples who were wearing special clothes and turned into something related (example : a ballerina Popple that turns into a handbag).
Other than the stuffed animals, another Popple merchandise which was very popular were the small Pocket Popples. They were the same designs as the original Popples but they were small enough to fit in your pocket, with PVC faces, articulated arms and legs with some other fabric features such as their ears, tails and pocket (which still allowed them to hide in it)
A revival is currently being attempted by Playmates Toys (who are also the current makers of toys featuring another American Greetings property, Strawberry Shortcake), however this rendition (which currently only has four characters with names ending in "popp") is significantly different from the original 1980s incarnation (which had various different characters with names beginning with "P").
Other merchandise
From 1986 to 1987, a two-season Popples cartoon series was broadcast on Saturday mornings in the United States, and there was a four-issue comic book series from Star Comics based on this cartoon (which was intended to be five issues long, but the fifth issue was never published).
See also
External links
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