When you were little, did you have a favorite doll or stuffed animal? What was its name, and where did the name come from? And what became of it?
I had a rather generic teddy bear named Hotsy-Totsy, who for some reason was female. I think my grandfather named her. Unfortunately, my brother drowned her in our little backyard wading pool. I hung her up to dry, but her innards rotted, so we had a little funeral for her.
I had a series of beanbag kittens (I was always losing them) there was a definitely a tan one called caramel. There was a grey one later, or maybe before, that got left on a plane from Mexico City. I don’t recall the name.
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Sometimes I write these posts and when I re-read them, I realize my almost pathological lack of sentimentality goes back a long, long time.
My sister had an adorable red and white stuffed monkey. I asked my mother for a stuffed monkey and got a black one.
We had the grandest time playing with our monkeys. I even wrote and illustrated several books of monkey adventures.
When we were clearing out my mother’s things after she died we found one red and white stuffed monkey and a black earless, tailess, naked stuffed Mickey Mouse doll.
When I was a wee kid, my two favorite stuffed animals were a tiger named (imaginatively) Tiger, and a gray cat we got with Green Stamps, named Toulouse (I was a fan of “The Aristocats,” which had just come out shortly before I got my stuffed cat). Along with other stuffed cats (oh, man, I still remember their names: Tiger, Toulouse, Scat Cat, Tom, Tim, and Thomasina) we had the Tiger Club. I was an only child. Can you tell? 
I also, at a younger age, had two stuffed rabbits, one named Bun and the other one I can’t remember his name but he was really cool–he wore a red tailcoat and tie.
I think my favorite stuffed toy memory was the year I asked my parents for a stuffed Pink Panther for Christmas. I’d never seen such a thing and doubted it even existed, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. My mother, who was always very good at finding the unfindable (I inherited this trait), presented me with one on Christmas morning and I think my eyes nearly fell right out of my head. After that for a long time I was convinced that Mom could do anything. 
I had a sizeable koala collection, the first and favortite being named Darwin (all of them had Australian names; Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaid, Sydney, yada yada yada). I remember when his nose fell off and my Dad said he was sending him to Poughkeepsie for emergency surgery. I don’t know where he actually took it to get repaired but he did eventually come back with a new nose and recovery bandages. Later, when I was really too old to still have stuffed animals, I had a more realistic looking koala that I named Bartholomew - guess I’d run out of Australian place names. It took me until my late twenties to get rid of it and I don’t mind saying I was pretty broken up about it.
Hold up. Are you saying your mom successfully passed off a Mickey as a monkey? :eek:
I have a teddy bear I got for Christmas when I was 4. He’s a large Care Bear (like, twice the normal size) - Bedtime Bear. He’s green. He’s called Bear-Bear.
We didn’t do much playing or talking. Just sleeping. I still sleep with him but now he lives in a pillow case because he’s too old to clean very often. I just clean the pillow case.
I did have a beautiful tiger doll named Hobbes that I slept with for a long time. Very soft. Later on I got Calvin, another tiger who was shaped like Calvin (sitting up, with a big head, instead of lying down like Hobbes).
I slept with those two for a very long time, until I got my puppy who started humping them then tore them apart. Oddly enough, I don’t feel any sadness about their “passing” - I guess I was glad that my puppy got some tiger huntin’ done. Here she is with Calvin. And a shoe.
When I was very young (maybe 3), my mother saved up labels from Aunt Jemima pancake syrup to send away for an Aunt Jemima rag doll. She was about 10" tall, wearing a bright yellow top, a red apron (maybe the top was a whole dress, I don’t remember) and had a yellow kerchief with red polka dots tied up on top of her head in the stereotypical “black domestic helper” style. In retrospect, I guess the doll had a lot of racist overtones. I didn’t see it that way, though. I loved her.
Don’t know what ever happened to her. 
Annie’s post reminded me of the beanbag Kermits my brother and I had. (They were identical twins, but we could tell them apart because his was wearing a fringed and beaded shirt belonging to the Tonto [del]doll[/del] action figure). They spent a lot of time doing air guitar with the radio, but they also did various death-defying feats involving the ceiling fan.
A couple of weeks ago, my youngest child purged most of his old toys, and I salvaged those Kermits as I always do.
I had Dalmy - a stuffed dalmatian puppy about 3 inches high from Disney’s 101 Dalmatians. He had a black patch on his eye and a little plastic collar which was soon torn off. I had him from the time I was one and took him with me everywhere. He was my favorite toy and was always the star of the strange little melodramas I put on with all my toys. I slept with him under my arm every night and didn’t feel comfortable if I didn’t have him. He even had a personality of sorts - goofy and sweet. He was my friend and comfort for a long time, but eventually I had to put him away. He’s still under my bed at home.
I had a rather large cloth doll, who didn’t have a name for the longest time. It just never occurred to me to give her one. One day I was flying alone (so I must have been at least 6) and a kindly nearby passenger asked me what my doll’s name was. I quickly realized that dolls were supposed to have names, so I said, “Carrie!” - the first name that popped into my head, from Little House on the Prairie. The name stuck.
There was also Bear Bear (I bet you’ll never guess what he was), who my Dad brought home when I was very wee. Bear Bear was HUGE, much bigger than me. I used to sleep on Bear Bear like he was a mattress, he was so big. Imagine my surprise to see some old pictures and realize that Bear Bear was prob’ly a 36" stuffed bear. Not small, but not nearly as big as I remembered!
You just reminded me of another toy I had that I’d completely forgotten about: a stuffed Yogi Bear doll that probably stood around the same height as your bear, maybe even taller. He seemed quite huge to me as a kid. I remember one time I didn’t want to go to bed, so I put Yogi under the covers, tied a string to him, and hid on the other side of the bed. When my mom came in to kiss me good night, I stayed quiet and used the string to move Yogi around a bit so it would look like I was asleep under the covers. I don’t think it worked, but I thought it was pretty clever for a little kid (I was probably 5 or 6 at the time).
I had a stuffed monkey named Monkey (I was such a creative kid). He had a plastic face and plastic hands and a banana that fit into his mouth. I had him til I was about 10 when a fire broke out in our house while we were on vacation and Monkey was a casualty of smoke and water damage.
I had a blue stuffed kitty who I named Peppermint after this book:
A litter of kittens was born in a cancy store and all got candy names. Peppermint (the white one) fell into a vat of laundry blue-ing and turned blue.
I had a stuffed dog which I named Fleegle (after the dog character in The Banana Splits). I got him when I was very young, probably 2 years old or younger. He originally had a wind-up music box in his chest, but apparently it got torn out when I was fairly young (my memories go back to age 3, and I don’t ever remember him having a music box). My mother patched and repaired Fleegle repeatedly, as I slept with him until I was 8 or 9. All of his fur wore off, as did his nose and tongue. Honestly, he wound up looking pretty Frankenstein-esque, but I still loved him.
Fleegle’s still around, on a shelf at my parents’ house.
I had a stuffed chicken named Glorieste, a stuffed vulture named Murdock and a stuffed ghost with no name.
I had two bears named Chocolate and Vanilla, a wombat named Digger, and a stuffed cat named Grayful (because he was gray, and I was grateful to have him. Yes, my five year-old self was clever). And a stuffed bee named Busby.
I still have all of those (I might not have one of the bears anymore) I also had a weird magenta squirrel thing named Squirrelly and a stuffed raccoon named Rocky and a foam-plush bear named Baby Gumdrop. Squirrelly got tossed at some point, probably around college. Rocky was donated to a friend’s family. Baby Gumdrop started falling apart and was reluctantly tossed. I also had a baby blanket, which is probably in storage somewhere.
It’s weird. I’m okay with tossing most things; I’m actually pretty adamant about it after living with a borderline hoarder. But tossing stuffed animals is hard, man. I named them and everything.
Currently, I also have an Ugly Doll black Icebat and a Pedobear. I usually fall asleep holding the Pedobear, and am keenly aware of how effing weird that is. I almost have to be holding something in order to fall asleep, though. I used to have a rainbow terrycloth dog, but my cat peed on it, and there was no way that smell was going to come out.
I had a teddy bear very originally called Roosevelt and a dolly of no name, but was a rip-off version of Holly Hobbie.
I had a stuffed pig that was quite anthropomorphic. It had red overalls! The situation was kind of strange… every year for my birthday, my mother would get a new pig, exact same version to replace the year old “ratty” one. So in her mind, it was the same pig, but in mine, it wasn’t. I think she assumed that I would get very upset once the pig fell apart. Finally broke out of that cycle by telling her that I didn’t want the pig for my birthday anymore! I liked stuffed animals, but for security attachment, I had (and still have it, actually) a yellow blankie. I used to fold it over and roll it up and snuggle with it like it WAS a stuffed animal. I clearly remember telling my sister that my bankie was SO awesome because I could use it to cover myself AND roll it up and hug.
I had my friend Raggedy Ann. My original Raggedy Ann was a huge one (bigger than me, so probably one of those 36-inchers) that was bought at a school rummage sale. After my sister threw up on that one, I got a new classic 12-inch one. In the “house” game I played with my friend across the street, my baby (played by Raggedy Ann) was named Debbie, which just happened to also be the name of my friend across the street.
For my 8th birthday, I got a Wilhelm Walrus. I slept with him for many years.