Some little things

There's a good chance my dad will get to come home later today, so after that there won't be regular daily posts until I return home. (I have three pre-scheduled ones).

Anyway, since I still have access to the computer today, I thought I'd bring down some of the little critters I talked about a few days back, the ones I found tucked away in a jewelry chest (that I never actually used for jewelry, not having that much and preferring the chalet-style jewelry box I had as a kid).

Here's the first Smurf I ever bought - the one I named Pedro. He's a little worn (especially the gold paint) because I actually played with him - I remember building him a house out of a small box, and I think I also carried him in my pocket a lot:

And this is Noel, the Smurfette I found in a snowbank:

Pedro's "copyright date" looks like 1965 (so: probably one of the early Smurf molds, re-used for the 1980s when they were first sold over here) and Noel's is 1978. They are both stamped MADE IN HONG KONG in addition to the creator's nom-de-plume (Peyo) and the company (Schleich)

Noel will stand on her own; that little bit of molded "grass" serves as a base. (As I remember, most of the Smurfs stood fairly well on their own).

And then the bunny and chick that were the ones I thought of when I saw the little Pochacco toy; they are in a similar but not identical spirit. I'm guessing these were sold around Easter some year, given the theme:

Both are marked "W. Berrie" (for Wallace Berrie, which became a subdivision of Applause and I guess exists now only as Russ Berrie). And they're marked 1979 - which is probably a couple years before I bought them, but a lot of times molds were used for years. And "Made in Portugal" which is somewhat-surprising in this era of "every cheap thing is made in China." But apparently Wallace Berrie had a factory in Portugal, because....

This is the extremely-cute little Frisbee Dog I referred to earlier. (He had a name, at one time, but I may have forgotten it. Sam? Maybe? He looks like a Sam. Anyway, all my toys that were models of living beings had names).

He's also by Wallace Berrie and made in Portugal and I cannot remember if these were something like a line of greeting-card characters or a short-lived comic strip or something, because here's another one from the line:

I'm pretty sure there were others, but these were the only two I had. (Yes, I think they all had a rainbow theme. Long before Pride Month was a thing, I guess...)


(Edited to add: Apparently they were called Rainbow Kids? here, for as long as it lasts, is an eBay auction. Allegedly my little dodo bird or whatever it is is worth $15? The Rainbow Kids were apparently an attempt to cash in on the popularity of Rainbow Brite; apparently most of the line was little humanoid beings - which is probably why I only had these two, humanoid things were less interesting to me (despite my sizable Smurf collection))

And it occurs to me that my love of Blindbag Ponies and similar small toys is not a new thing, just an extension of my childhood fondness of these little figural toys - where you can collect them, or play with them, or just arrange them on a shelf and look at them. (And yeah. I miss stores set up like some of the small stores where I shopped as a kid, where they just had big baskets of these things loose, and you sorted through until you found the ones you wanted to buy; there was a sense of serendipity there, that maybe you'd find that one rare figure, or one you hadn't seen before, as you sorted through all the familiar ones. And I also admit that even though I love blindbags, I don't love not being able to get the one I specifically want, and maybe getting five duplicates of another one.)