Creepy Toy Trend: Corner Dolls
Filed under: Weird But True, Toys, Opinions
Would you put this doll in your house? Credit: Pout Babies
Imagine a doll that's approximately the size of the average 2-year-old. Now, in your mind's eye, turn the doll around so that it's facing the corner. Because the doll has been very, very bad. And it needs to be punished. Just like your kids.
Um ...
If this were just one entrepreneur trying to make a few bucks that would be one thing. But there are multiple Web sites hawking Corner Dolls. One such site, Cindy's Dolls, offers a Do-It-Yourself Kit -- "$15.00+ $5.00 S&H for a Pre Sewn, ready to stuff and decorate Doll body. Great Craft Idea. I can make any doll you want special order for little or no up charge."
In addition to the poor grammar, the site refers to Cindy's creations as Bad Kids Corner Dolls. (Bad kids! Bad! Bad!)A British site, ShyKids, also offers kits to make your own doll. This time the cost is £34.95, or $55.80 in U.S. dollars. You get "Wooden Framework, Shaped Arm Pieces, Stuffing, Head, Body Stocking" and "Full Instructions." The site is called ShyKids, but they frequently call their offering "Time Out Dolls," so the punishment theme is still there.
Clearly the makers of these kits are tapping into a perceived need for a life-size doll that children can punish. Or maybe the parents are meant to punish the doll instead of their kids. Or, as our own reporter Tom Henderson put it during a phone conversation, "Punish the kid and take the doll out for ice cream."
What's next? Sally Spank-Me? Wallace Wash-My-Mouth-Out-With-Soap? Frankie the Failure?
Thanks to our friends at URLesque for alerting us to this new category of creepy toys.
Related: Fetus Dolls, Pole-Dancing Dolls, Homeless Doll
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 2)
10-06-2009 @ 11:28AM
Clarissa said...My husbands grandmother has a couple of those (a boy and a girl).They are really cute and not at all weird. They have also been around for a long time. They are not new. Grams has had hers for like 10 years or more.
The doll is not meant as a play toy for young children. They are decoration only.
The ones you should find really creepy are the reborn dolls. They look like live babies and some people spend thousands on them and carry them around and treat them as if they were living babies.
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10-08-2009 @ 6:36AM
Elizabeth said...You're right--I remember the neighbors down the street had them (the corner dolls) about 20 years ago, and they creeped me out even then! And those reborn babies--oh my lord! I watched a special about those, and honestly, it's borderline crazy what some of these women do--buying cribs and expensive clothes! Those people need help.
10-06-2009 @ 11:58AM
Inadequate Wife said...My mother-in-law made one for my daughter as a Christmas gift about 6 or 7 years ago. I always felt kind of odd standing it up in the corner of my daughter's room. It was like the poor doll was in timeout all day long. The doll's hands were attached to her face, and if you peeked underneath, she didn't have any facial features at all.
I figured it was like putting those resin/stone statues of little boys and girls in your front lawn - some people really like them and some people don't.
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10-06-2009 @ 12:56PM
tana green said...Seems like the only one who would want something like this is the frequently naughty child who wants the doll to take timeouts for him or her. Or some really weird pervert. Creepy doesn't begin to describe them.
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10-06-2009 @ 1:15PM
xcryrosex said...these things have been around forever, at least here in upstate south carolina. even when i was little, though, and saw them in mom-and-pop diners and barber shops... i thought they were creepy as hell. like Inadequate Wife said, their hands are attached and they have no faces. my mom and grandmother thought they were cute but (fortunately) never owned any themselves. if they had, i would have been terrified enough to secretly throw them away. ;)
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10-06-2009 @ 1:35PM
SKL said...It seems obvious to me that these are meant for decoration, not for play, and not for a child's room. It's kinda cute in an antique schoolroom sort of way. I personally wouldn't buy one, but to each his own. It's no worse than the fake granny bloomers in gardens.
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10-06-2009 @ 1:39PM
Emily said...I don't think they're creepy exactly, but they are really pointless to me. In the same category as those bending over figures that people put in their gardens or ceramic geese with dress up clothes on their porches. If other people want to spend their money on stupid stuff so be it, but I'd rather have something more useful/interesting!
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10-06-2009 @ 3:26PM
Shea said...That's crazy! It reminds me of "Blair Witch Project." I do not think they are at all cute...creepy is a good term for them. And I agree that a "bad" child in need of a corner replacement is about the only person I can see liking this idea!
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10-08-2009 @ 8:31AM
Heather said...These are not a new trend, they have been around since the 80's.
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10-08-2009 @ 12:58AM
jlusmom said...When I was young my abusive" Father" as punishment put us in "the corner",we would fall asleep untill my mom came home from her second job and we were all asleep"in the corner" and HE was passed out drunk.I always remembered "the corner" and swore I would NEVER use this as a punishment for my children!! I remember the first time I saw one of these dolls in the 90's,they were everywhere,and called the "corner doll',flea markets,yard sales ect,I made up my mind when my children would see them I would say they were playing "hide & seek" and to this day if I see one at a thrift store yard sale ect.I buy them up(less than $5 usually) and give them away when a child asks for one(after I tell them they are playing "hide and seek") and they just love them up and sleep with them and are thier" best friend"! I am so glad God turned something BAD into something GOOD!!! I keep a few around for the grand kids to play with and "NO BAD MEMORIES"!!!!
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10-08-2009 @ 1:21AM
B K said...when my daughter was a toddler and she did something that she knew she wasn't supposed to do I would sit her in her timeout chair and I would sit her favorite doll/toy in the corner across from her, after her 1-5 mins were up she would go "rescue" her toy. It was incentive for her to think before she acted and to care for something else other than herself. Personnally, I think actual "timeout dolls" are really rather creepy looking
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10-08-2009 @ 4:22AM
Tutuanne said...Talk about a big fuss over nothing! These are not meant to be playdolls, but decoration. My mother-in-law made me one. She was a doll collector. She saw one at a flea market, and went home and made it. She could make anything she saw. However, they are not typically for kids. You can always paint or sew the doll a face if you are the type to freak out over nothing.
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10-08-2009 @ 7:12AM
Vicki Lee said...I would imagine the author of this article is not even as old as time-out-dolls are if they think this is a "new trend". As the others already said, this is not a new trend at all. In Georgia, these time-out-dolls have been around every flea market for atleast the last 20-25 years. They probably started around the same time that the Cabbage Patch dolls went commercial. We live very close to the birth place of cabbage patch and when that little company went mainstream, the southern ladies here were burning up thier sewing machines trying to make dolls that would sell too... time out dolls were one of those patterns.
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10-08-2009 @ 7:28AM
Brutuss100 said...I think these people watched "The Blair Witch Project" waaaaaaaay too much. At night, these dolls come to life and wander aimlessly around your house in the dark and put small hand prints on your walls. Don't dare wake in the middle of the night and catch them, or you will regret it for all eternity.
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10-08-2009 @ 7:27AM
Bets said...These dolls are not toys. Many, many years ago we were at an antique tractor show and many of the tractors had these dolls around them. The owners had them in the seats of their tractors leaning over the stearing wheel. It looked like they fell asleep up there. They also had them in the areas where kids like to climb up on the tractors, hoping the dolls would keep them off. In most cases this works. I have these dolls to keep kids off my tractors.
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10-08-2009 @ 8:04AM
mimi said...I agree these are not new. I've had mine for at least 15 years. It was called a Crybaby doll at that time. I bought it as a decoration for Christmas time since she was dressed in a cute red and green plaid satin dress, a green felt beret covering her curly blond hair, with lace-trimmed white socks and patent leather shoes. Adorable. She looked cute hiding in the corner near the Christmas tree. In my mind she was covering her eyes until it was time to see her gifts! You can make it fun, not creepy if you try!
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10-08-2009 @ 8:28AM
Aggie said...What ever happen to the "Voodo Doll"? You stick it with pins.
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10-08-2009 @ 8:40AM
Rhonda said...People are making a big deal out of nothing. As some have already stated they have been around a long time. I don't even know if they are that popular now. They were never meant as a toy for lil children, Nor were they meant to be used as a discipline tool. They were simply made as a decorative item for adults in their homes. They were mainly purchased by ADULT doll collectors. The doll is only creepy if you allow your mind to see it as that. Even if a child played with the doll, it doesn't have to be used in any type of punishment. Some people just want to find negative in everything.
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10-08-2009 @ 8:57AM
Jennifer said...Adult doll collectors are creepy, too.
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12-20-2009 @ 7:33PM
jennifer said...This is not a time out doll. It is for decoration... My mother has one for Christmas dressed in her holiday outfit hiding from Santa.. get a grip. Why do people always make something bad that is no big deal!!!
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