get your filthy nymphette-loving hands off of my childhood!

i understand that preying on our nostalgia is sometimes how toy industry executives make their living. when my friends and i were in college we spent hours upon hours listing our favorite cartoons and toys, most of which, obviously, overlapped. not all, though; i found it interesting that, while everyone had owned about four dozen plush popple dolls, almost no one had watched the cartoon, and even though everyone had watched the smurfs regularly, i was the only one with a collection of two-inch-tall plastic figurines. maybe all that really demonstrates is that i watched too much tv and owned too much plastic crap, and i'll tell you right now that i wouldn't have needed empirical evidence to convince me of the truth in that statement. but forget that; we dragged these items up in the middle of the night because they were important to us. these characters had captivated and shaped us, we were enthralled by them, we adored and looked up to them; they were our role models.

i think they were pretty good ones, too. they saved the planet over and over, either through teamwork, mutual respect and selfless and uninhibited affection (care bears, rainbow brite, rose petal) or overwhelming inner strength and physical prowess (he-man, she-ra, thundercats). we thought of them as rock stars, either literally (what little girl didn't bounce around in front of her mirror pretending to be jem? and someone tell me i'm not the only little girl who tried to give her sister aja's crazy layered haircut) or figuratively (i think my inability to completely separate rainbow brite from cyndi lauper only enhanced my frenzied worship of both). and then there were some, like my little pony and strawberry shortcake, who just comforted us with their sweet, placid faces and fruity-powdery aromas, like being wrapped in a blanket that's still toasty from the dryer after an apple-scented bubble bath. look at them, look how warm and soothing they are:


ss image found here

ponies found here

aren't they soft and sweet and darling? couldn't you hug them until they became embedded in your chest? didn't you think it would be swell to be able to share them with your own kids someday?

yeah, you did. and so did bandai and hasbro, for a minute or two. then they thought your kids would be better off with this crap instead:




now, undoubtedly, fashion tastes change and evolve over time, and there may have been a need to modernize certain aspects of the characters. but strawberry shortcake was never supposed to represent the pop starlet next door; she was a magical baker who lived inside of a dessert. she was not a princess, or a bride, or a denim diva, and she was definitely not skinnier than a ck model. she was a little girl with freckles who liked pastries. childhood obesity is a problem, and we want kids to be conscious of their eating habits, sure, but do we want to tip the scales in the opposite direction? new strawberry lolita doesn't eat pastries. she doesn't eat anything. her elastic-waisted pants are ballooning out over her bony hips. she used to smell like berries because she had a yummy surprise for you in the oven, and now it's because she read an article that said the smell of food was sometimes enough to trick your brain into thinking you had satisfied its craving. and what have they done to my pony? i don't mind the ankle tattoo, that's kosher, you can buy rub-ons identical to the one she's wearing by the dozen, but why does she have no subcutaneous fat? if the spca came to your farm and found a real pony in this condition, they'd confiscate it and fine you. this is a pony:



it's not the same thing at all, is it? no, it's quite different really, isn't it? i think piña colada pony has even had a chin tuck and a nose job. for shame! is this why lindsay lohan turned into lara flynn boyle? (and let's not even discuss the thing lara flynn boyle has turned into.) when i thought about recapturing my youth, i meant all of it, not what was left after it was highjacked by trimspa, baby. so listen up, execs: i want my 80s icons returned to me in good health, with full rosy cheeks and thighs that are wider around than their upper arms, and i want it done promptly and with a heartfelt written apology.

at this point i would like to tip my hat to femme feral at fluffy dollars, who introduced the reappearance of these toys in the context of a larger and more serious societal problem, freeing me to discuss it on this questionable and self-interested level.