The wonderful history of Troll Dolls

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/04/14/778884.html

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Is “Doll” actually in the brand name like that?

My grandparents had two of these in their Appalachian home, a proper troll and a (wtf) giraffe, and they would haunt my nightmares as a child.

They currently terrify my wife in the media room.

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My sister had a couple of hardbody trolls in the late sixties, but for some reason I had cheap knockoffs, rubbery rather than hard, the hair was !ong and straight. And those trolls tended to get bald spots with time.

The hardbody trolls were fragile, either someone stepped on one or the dog got it, so it was in two pieces.

It was easy to make clothes for them out of felt, I think there was even a pattern.

GI Joe accessories fit the trolls, and they were easier to play with. But the trolls were pacifists, just using the neat accessories for everyday use.

I decided my troll was a millionaire (maybe influenced by Batman on tv) and was a sort of cyborg (influenced by Brianiac in Superman comics). So I took a cardboard box and made a two floor mansion, comolete with a swimming pool on the roof.

My tonka jeep worked fine with the trolls driving.

I liked the gadgetry of GI Joe and Major Matt Mason, but it was the trolls I actually played with the most.

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From the Wiki page. I believe the author was a fan of the Hoover Dam guide from “Vegas Vacation”:

The Dam company never stopped its production of trolls in Denmark, where they were always a popular item. In the late 1980s, the Dam trolls started making another comeback in North America… These Dam Trolls were marketed under the trade name of Norfin Trolls, with an “Adopt A Norfin Troll” logo on the tags.

Trolls? Ptui!

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Don’t trolls basically ruin the comments? Should we really celebrate such bare passed behavior?

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