Originally published at: Remembering the Sunshine Family, the "most 1970s toys of the 1970s" | Boing Boing
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Just when I thought I was out of the van life, they pull me back in.
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You don’t choose the van life, the van life chooses you.
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In my memory – if there was anything besides Barbie that really had the young girls in its clutches in Kansas during the 70s, it was Holly Hobbie.
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No Strawberry Shortcake?
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There was some traction, but Holly had the most, as far as I remember. Even more than Raggedy Ann.
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I’m with you, Jennifer, in raising Sunshine Family awareness!
I worked at Mattel as a toy designer during their short tenure. I didn’t work on any SF toys but I always admired their sincerity and wide eyed honesty in a plastic world. (They were unique with their translucent injection molded plastic eyes inserted into their soft roto-cast vinyl heads.) my wife had a Baby Sweets as her dashboard mascot and we took her/him all around California.
I did see some love for the Sunshine Family at a local toy show/flea market this weekend: a bagged set of Mom, Dad, and Baby Sweets for $25…
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Huh… I just realized that Holly Hobbie was cottagecore before it was cool! 
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did you get to work on any memorable toys?
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As I recall, Strawberry Shortcake was an early Eighties thing, Holly Hobbie more in the Seventies.
I was in elementary school in that era, so my (boy) lunchboxes were mostly Six Million Dollar Man or Star Trek, the other boys mostly into Happy Days.
Oh, and my sister had two Sunshine Family sets, the base one and a Black one. My well-meaning parents wanted to ensure we grew up with as few prejudices as possible, and worked with what they had at the time in rural Iowa.
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