No more cute-n-pudgy rounded-legged ponies, either. Now they're all sleek and have dainty ankles and long sexy manes. Pony Porn.

Pah!

They just can't leave my childhood friends alone can they??!!

she looks less like a toddler and more like a school aged child, as if she has aged perhaps from age 4 to 7

and i see a little girl with a round face and freckles, a very modest outfit and childlike appearance

whats wrong with their clothing reflecting current styles

in fact, she still isnt stylish

retro in the 80's may have meant the 30s, retro in 2000 may be the 70's or so. *shrug*

both of those images are equally shudder-inducing, from my POV. Call me when they put out the new incarnation of the Holly Hobby stove, preferably with organic, all-natural mixes this time.

And now, in the infamous words of the Dead Milkmen, "'scuse me, while I puke and die (ha ha ha ha)."

Although American Greetings made them take it down, Penny Arcade is way ahead of ya:

http://dailyramblings.com/images/shortcake.jpg

the Peculiar Purple Pie Man (that's the villain's name, right?) Let's make him sexy, too.

Come to think of it, the Cabbage Patch Dolls are total frumps, too. Let's redress them in halter tops and short shorts.

And, you know, the American Girl Dolls, could use some modernzing, too. Their accessories, too. Give them all cells, pagers and IPods, I say.

Maybe GI Joe could use a makeover, too. Why should it just be restricted to girl dolls?

This is the second article I've seen with this attitude toward the re-imagined Strawberry Shortcake and I just don't understand it. There's nothing wrong with how they've updated this doll. I didn't play with the original, so perhaps I just don't have the attachment to its original incarnation.

But really? The Roxy? Oh c'mon. Strawberry looks sweet and wholesome. Let's re-establish some perspective here: Bratz. Really.

the Sunshine Family? I had a Sunshine Family! (This would have been mid-1970s.) They came with this cool kind of open-air house made of vinyl stretched over cardboard and a very few articles of furniture, along with instructions on making the rest out of cardboard milk cartons and fabric remnants and other discarded stuff. Oh, and a plastic mold for making dishes out of flour-water dough that you allow to dry and harden.

I hadn't heard of Magic Earring Ken until now...oh, god, that's hysterical, but then, *all* the Ken dolls were kind of closeted-looking.

I had a Barbie for a brief time but preferred to marry her off to GI Joe, who just seemed more...masculine, at least until they shrunk him down to three inches.

The new Strawberry Shortcake (more my sister's generational nostalgia than mine) doesn't seem tarty to me at all, but she does look bland and Disney-fied. Too bad. The cat was cute.

For about three or four years now, at least. And are they really ditching the cat for a cellphone? Every kid loves cats.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got a reboot/brand about five years ago, for that matter. Didn't you see the movie last summer?

nothing to get too worked up over here...she's definitely not tarted up as is suggested - just updated (although I'm sure my sister will hate hate hate this...good thing she ended up having two boys eh? :)

now what they intended to do to the Archie Gang was absolutely criminal! (and I say this as a lifelong Betty man :)

Why doesn't Scooby Doo have a penis?

Check out the similar kind of update done to the Star Wars figures:

http://robbinsbecher.com/Figures.html

Is anyone here old enough to remember the first Ken dolls? No anatomically correct penis per se, but he had a definitive, rather large bump of plastic down there. At some point shortly later on (don't remember exactly when, I was a young kid then) the bulge was eliminated by Mattel after complaints by parents--might've been around 1960 or so--and now here we are some 50 years later bemoaning the percieved 'tartness' of dolls that came out approx. 25 years ago.

Jeeze.

The old SS looked average, cute, but average. Now, she's been prettified. Just like everything, be pretty, be pretty. I don't think she's been tarted up, but she has been smoothed out the face is longer, the freckles lightened to the point of near invisibility, the hair is long, smooth and oh so shiny and manageable.

Hey look little girls messy hair under a cap, tre ugly, here's a hair straightener, add some hair gloss to make it shiny, grow it out, fade those freckles, now isn't she soooo pretty! Now, she's generic. Pretty, but generic.

If they want to play up the fruit over the cake, fine. If they just wanted to update her wardrobe fine, but they didn't keep the face, they changed the face and the hair. It's not SS, it's some new drawing they call Strawberry Shortcake.

Bulls***.

the rest of the new SS is rather Disneyfied, but not really offensive or sexualized, just pretty in that big-eyed bland way that Disney heroines are. Really lame to lose the cat, though. , especially for a cell phone.

...who always thought Strawberry Shortcake was a hideous, swollen-headed demon out of someone's nightmares, I'm having a hard time working myself up to be upset that she's been redesigned to look more human.

Someone gave me a Strawberry Shortcake when I was a child and I couldn't sleep until I hid it at the bottom of my closet. The things are nasty. And they smell BAD.

Marianna Trench, I had the Sunshine Family. Didn't care for their odd little beady eyes but they came with neat stuff. Mine were dressed as pioneers.

About 20 years ago, I think. There's a classic pic of Shortcake with Smurf, and 'tart' doesn't begin to describe it. It may have been in the Is Nothing Sacred? issue.

My husband never played with Ken, but he did have a Mego Spiderman, and he was deeply disturbed by Spiderman's crotch. Apparently it was covered with little spikes. As a child he theorized that it was the same sort of spike that lets insects walk on glass, and that poor Spidey must have lost his penis when he became a superhero...