More on the new Strawberry Shortcake dolls

The Toys R Us exclusive Strawberry Shortcake set.

Well, after writing the last post, I was curious to learn more about these new Strawberry Shortcake dolls.  Apparently, the copyright to the characters is owned by American Greetings, who are known for making greeting cards.  As some of you know, the Strawberry Shortcake characters began as drawings for greeting cards in 1977, which then got licensed out to various toy companies over the years to make dolls.  The first company to get the license to make the dolls was Kenner in 1979, and it was Kenner who made all the original Strawberry Shortcake dolls from the early '80s we know and love. 

The last of the Kenner dolls were produced in 1985.  After that, several other companies licensed the name and characters and produced their own versions.  The Bridge Direct, which produced the dolls shown in my last post, are new to the license this year.  Hasbro had the license last year (from 2009-2013) and for whatever reason, didn't renew the license agreement for 2014.  (Sidenote: Hasbro bought Kenner in 1991, so Kenner ended up becoming a division of Hasbro.)

Right now, at my Toys R Us they have some of the older Hasbro Shortcake dolls still on the shelves, right next to these newer Bridge Direct dolls.  I never liked the Hasbro version.  They never caught my eye like the newer dolls do.  (If they had, you'd probably have seen them on this blog before now.) 

Anyway, in researching these dolls, I found an absolutely excellent run-down of the history of the dolls, complete with great photos that show you how the dolls' look has changed over the years.  You can find it at the "Never Grow Up" blog, here.  I have to give kudos to the lady who writes that blog.  Apparently she's a big Strawberry Shortcake fan, and her post on their history is absolutely wonderful.  You should definitely check it out.  I didn't see it until after I did my post on The Bridge Direct dolls, so I was tickled to see that she'd also bought a Bridge Direct Strawberry Shortcake doll.

Back of the box.

Guess what?!  Toy R Us has an exclusive 5-pack of the newer dolls.  I had to get it this morning.  The outfits are VERY cute, but have a modern look.  I miss the prairie dresses of the original Kenner dolls, but the new clothes are adorable anyway.  And I noticed that with these, the tops and shorts are separate pieces, so you can mix-and-match them.  (Unlike the dolls of my last post, which had clothing that was sewn together.)  So I guess I'll have to do one more post on these girlies, when I debox them. 

Ciao.