Dear Friends, Only because I think and hope it will have a
Happy Ending, will I tell you the tale of
"Color-Me-Cuties," and how they came to be, and
not to be, fading, dying and coming back to Life, time
and time again. It is a story that points out the Irony
of inventing toys, and shows how Chance and Luck, both
good and bad, determine the fate of all our best
endeavors. You
can click on any picture below to 1. "Flower Children" Petals closed for nap time. One can foresee Cuddles in these dolls. 2. Elephants, nothing ever came of this. 3. "Hug and Hold," These babies had Velcro hands that hugged and held themselves and others. This was another forerunner of Cuddles. 4. "Mop Tops". Soft dolls with yarn hair. They were the very first glimmering of "Color-Me-Cuties". The Idea for Mop Tops, and the only photo, was cast aside and forgotten, until, about 3 years ago - Kiscom was showing a project to Fisher Price involving some tiny figures I had sculpted. The figures were too small for "preschool", but Fisher Price admired the styling and suggested that the characters, if enlarged, might make a nice line of rag dolls. Thus, in response to their comments, [and in order to save time], I dug up the only existing photo of Mop Tops and redrew it, changing the faces to be less "weird" and more like the tiny sculpted children that Fisher Price had liked. Some might think me lazy for recycling the
same art over and over again, but I truly regard it as
miraculous that I have the power to grant new life to
that which died, often in vain. A toy never produced is
like a tree that has fallen unnoticed in the forest,
making no sound. I love to see it rise, and have another
chance, to take root and grow again. And if not the tree
at least a seed might be gathered up and planted to
germinate and lead to ... who knows what?
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