Annalee Dolls Never Go Out Of Style!
Written: Jan 15 '09
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A poseable collectible doll.
Cons: none
The Bottom Line: From the 1950's until the present, Annalee Dolls have never went out of style!
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| Lark729_89's Full Review: Toots Clown 2008 |
Toots The Clown is another whimsical doll in the Annalee line of quirky characters. My Toots here is smiling with his mouth opened and his big eyes intent on matching that smile all the way. He is donned in a lime green and white plaid outfit with colorful yellow and purple accents in the form of a yellow vest and great big light purple bow around his neck made of satin. He has a floppy-style matching lime green hat. And oh yes, he proudly wears a flower.
Toots has big red shoes and he holds a horn which shows he is a very overly talented clown that does not know just funny antics and tricks but does know his music. Of course that horn could be a trick because after all, Toots is a clown! His reddish orange hair is typical of a clown’s frame of his painted jolly red-cheeked smiling face.
Toots was created in Meredith, New Hampshire at the Annalee Doll Factory. As mentioned in some of my previous reviews, Annalee Thorndike, creator of these dolls, liked to hand sew dolls and puppets as a young child. She did this as a past-time. When she grew up and discovered she was really good at it, she did some serious thinking and hired some women into her kitchen to help her.
She started her business from the kitchen of her farmhouse up in the lakes region of New Hampshire shortly after she married in the early 1950’s. She has been known through the years and through the seasons for her cute whimsical faced dolls that sold in stores at Christmas ,such as Jordan Marsh and Filene’s, throughout New England and surrounding areas.
I first found those dolls in the 1980’s on display in a Hallmark store in Matawan, New Jersey. That was the beginning of my collecting days and the first time I set eyes on an Annalee doll.
Annalee Thorndike first made her dolls for store displays. While browsing through a "going-out-of-business" furniture store in New Jersey I bought my first and only display Annalee doll. It was a three foot Santa Claus dressed in a green, red and white print Christmas vest with a red flannel body relaxing in a brown child’s rocking chair. (dolls were made mostly from felt back then) He was grinning at me and he was the only Annalee in the entire store. He came with the rocking chair of course as that is the way he was made.
Toots The Clown is ten inches high and was created in 2008 so he is pretty new. He came a year ago to join my "rocking chair Santa" and all the other dolls I have. I got to own him because I traded an extra of another doll for him through a friend. I never owned an Annalee clown before and this one is really enchanting. He is on display on a side table in my living room and he has been there all year. I have him under a glass dome to keep the dust bunnies off him. I did not purchase the dome through the Annalee Company. I had it in storage just waiting, I guess, for Toots.
You can find Annalee dolls for sale online under Amazon or Ebay, google "Annalee Dolls" or check with any Gold Crown Hallmark store in your area. Oh and also, when you do find Toots The Clown, you’ll find plenty of him with different facial expressions as no two dolls are ever made alike. And Toots’ rosy red cheeks are painted by hand by the family of employees at the Annalee Doll Factory in Meredith, New Hampshire. He has a wire frame in his body and can be very poseable. Toots cooperates a lot! Right now his left foot appears to be in a kicking position.
Annalee Thorndike was awarded the Collectibles and Gift Industry Pioneer Award in 1997. She passed away in the year 2002 but her business of creating dolls goes on.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): A trade
Type of Toy: Other
Age Range of Child: 9 Years or Older
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Epinions.com ID:
Lark729_89
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Location: Massachusetts
Reviews written: 310
Trusted by: 659 members
About Me:
Life's not about waiting for storms to pass...it's about dancing in the rain.
Vivian Greene
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