Morning Musically-Minded, Medically-Minded, Masticators!
(Today’s post is sponsored by the letter “M”)
Over the past 600+ episodes, The Simpsons has taken us on an amazing journey involving music, science, and food to name a few concepts.
And what better way to start your week, than by discussing some of these concepts Monday morning?
So let’s get started this week by talking about a toy that was all the rage in various decades, dating back to 1959.
In the one hundredth and ninth episode of The Simpsons, Bart’s Girlfriend (Season 06, Episode 07), Marge forces Bart to go to church, where to occupy the time, he is playing with a troll doll.
Bart (singing): “I’m a troll man. I’m a troll man.”
Marge: “I don’t want you playing with something that has such bizarre hair. Awful, awful hair.”
But Bart goes back to boredom after Marge takes the Troll doll.
That is until he lays his eyes upon Jessica Lovejoy. Bart falls head over heels for Jessica and does anything for her.
But have you ever wondered what troll dolls are?
Troll Dolls
A Troll Doll is a type of plastic doll with furry up-combed hair depicting a troll, also known as a Dam doll after their creator Danish woodcutter Thomas Dam (May 15, 1915-November 12, 1989) . Troll dolls were created in 1959 by Danish fisherman and woodcutter Thomas Dam. Dam could not afford a Christmas gift for his young daughter Lila and carved the doll from his imagination.
Other children in the Danish town of Gjøl saw the doll and wanted one. Dam’s company Dam Things began producing the dolls in plastic under the name Good Luck Trolls. After gaining popularity across Europe in the early 1960’s, they became one of the United States’ biggest toy fads from the autumn of 1963 to 1965. In the early 1990’s, around the time of the airing of this The Simpsons episode, efforts were made to market Troll Dolls to boys, with action figure themed Trolls.
The Toy Industry Association named Troll dolls in its Century of Toys List, a list of the 100 most memorable and most creative toys of the 20th century. Troll dolls have featured in TV shows, video games, and movies like Toy Story and their own 2016 Trolls movie starring the voices of Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake, and in the 2020 sequel Trolls World Tour.
In 2013, collector Ray Dyson, based in Edmonton, Canada, secured the Guiness World Record for his collection of more than 4,000 trolls—only to be usurped in 2018 by collector Sherry Groom, a retired psychiatric nurse who has an astonishing 8,130 troll dolls and remains the world record holder today. Troll fans can visit Groom’s collection in Alliance, Ohio, where she and her husband run the Troll Hole, a two-story museum that displays an additional 22,000 pieces of troll-related memorabilia.
Now that we’ve learned more about Troll dolls, be sure to come back next week when we continue our Monday morning musings with the next episode of The Simpsons.
Did you remember this episode? Have you ever owned a Troll doll? If so, how many? What’s your favourite Simpsons toy reference? What about your favourite Simpsons Bart has a girlfriend episode? Sound off in the comments below. You know we love hearing from you.
In the 90s in college, a friend on mine sent me a package. My roommate saw the package and said, “I bet it’s a troll.” Me: “It better not be.” Open package: “It’s a troll.” That troll still sits on a shelf in my study. My wife appreciates it more than I do, and I have not allowed any others to join it.
Groundskeeper Willie: Now the kilt was only for day-to-day wear. In battle, we donned a full-length ballgown covered in sequins. The idea was to blind you opponent with luxury. [Bart ties a set of balloon to his kilt, making it fly off with them and show his buttocks, which makes everyone gasp.] Aah, ’tis no more than what God gave me, you puritan pukes.
Thanks for the interesting read…loved the name of the guys business. Dam Things..that’s funny. I was never a troll doll fan, but do remember kids having them in school and on the top of their pencils. The Troll Hole sounds like quite a hobby..that’s a lot of items.
My sister had about a dozen of them. Though she didn’t get them directly from Dam Things (great name I agree).