They’re soft; they’re cute, or at least they try to be. They kept you warm at night and content during the day, and some had the ability to double as weapons to use against bratty siblings. Here are some of the stuffed animals that may still be hidden within our childhood closets. If they’re still on your bed, for the sake of your roommate and love life, it might be time for an extreme dorm makeover.

Hugga Bunch

Why so many little girls, including myself, thought these dolls were cute is behind me. The baby dolls’ bodies were twisted into an unnatural crawling-sideways position and their arms were clasped together and could be clipped into pretty much anything. Some of the dolls looked more comfortable — fixed into a slumped, sitting position in poorly assembled rag-doll form. They felt like peach fuzz and had curly wisps of hair colored pink, purple and other colors. These plush dolls were introduced in the early 1980s, and were promoted with other merchandise and even a really bad movie starring no one you’ve heard of.

Sources: amazon.com/Hugga-Bunch-Natalie-Masters/dp/B00000F46V and inthe80s.com/toys/hugabunch.shtml

Wuzzles

Wuzzles were most popular for their short-lived animated TV series, but every child could own his or her favorite Wuzzle in plush form as well. Wuzzles were colorful mixed-breed creatures, including a butterfly-bear (“Butterbear”), rhinoceros-monkey (“Rhinokey”) and moose-seal (“Moosel”).

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wuzzles

Popples

I was impressed when I found out that Popples had their very own website, but was disappointed to see it had not been updated since 2003. Popples were fuzzy creatures that could pull objects out of their pouches and tuck themselves up into their pouches to form a ball. When they emerged from their ball form, they made a popping noise, thus the name “Popples.” The original characters all had names starting with the letter P, including Pancake, Puffball, Potato Chip and Punkster. They were vividly multicolored and had floppy heart-shaped ears. These cuddly toys also doubled as parent-accepted weapons.

Source: popples.org

Glo Worms

When these toys were left under a bright light for a while, they would glow in the dark. They came in small, hard plastic form and larger, plush form. The characters ranged from a Grannybug to a Skunkbug and a Snugbug to something called a Doodlebug. The original GloWorm was released in 1982, and they were still popular in 1989 when Wendy’s distributed its own version of the hard-plastic GloWorms as meal toys.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glo_Worm

Care Bears

In 1981, American Greetings created Care Bears for their greeting cards, and two years later Kenner turned them into some of the most successful stuffed animals ever. Care Bears had their own TV show, plus numerous animated movies — the first came out in 1985 and the most recent, a computer-animated movie, in 2005. The original plush bears came in different, vivid colors to match each one’s personality. The blue bear was grumpy, the green one was lucky and the yellow one was fun and sunny. Care Bears’ popularity died out in the late 1980s, but since the mid-1990s, they have slowly gained a following again.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheCareBears

Pound Puppies

These mid-1980s plush toys, Mattel’s spin-off of Cabbage Patch Kids, were sold with carrying cases and adoption papers. They were a substitute pet for kids with parents who wouldn’t get a real dog. They were super soft, had floppy ears and came in a wide variety of colors and sizes. A cat version was released soon after the puppies, and they were called “Pound Purries.” In 1987, lots of kids drove their parents crazy (and sick to their stomachs) as they demanded to go eat at Hardees solely to acquire the mini Pound Puppies that were part of children’s meal. I leave you with the following lyrics to the official Pound Puppies song — if you can figure out what they mean, kudos to you: “We're Pound Puppies! Cooler and the crew. Whopper, Bright Eyes, Nose Marie. Helping pupparoos!”

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_Puppies

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