Doll-A-Day 2019 #103: Woody

  Today's doll is one we saw a lot of around our house over the years. He's Woody.

Woody is, of course, based on the character 'Woody' from the Toy Story movies.

There have been boatloads of Woody dolls sold over the years. It gets hard to tell which one is which. This one seems to be the second edition of the first Woody doll,made by Thinkway in 1995. The first Woody looked like this one, but has wires in his arms for posing. The second edition had no wires,as it had been decided they were a safety hazard.

Just like in the movies,the Woody doll has a holster,but no gun. And the bottom of his right boot says 'Andy'.

 Like the very first Woody doll, this one is a battery operated pullstring doll.   

Another safety measure was that the pull ring was made bigger to make it less of a choking hazard.

That is, his talking mechanism is pullstring operated, but battery powered. This may have been necessitated by the safety move of shortening the pullstring. It was decided kids could strangle themselves with pullstrings the way they were when I was a kid.Those strings pulled out to somewhere around 18 inches long. The motion set about by the string rewinding activated the spinning of the record with the voice on it,which was played by an actual needle, just like a record player. I suppose with the string being shorter the recoil time wasn't long enough for the job. This is just a theory. Dolls like Woody have batteries to power them,(Woody's battery pack is in his bottom, thus the Velcro closure.),but the voice is activated by the pullstring,which only pulls out about 6 inches. The voice is electronic,and not on a record.
   This Woody doll says several phrases from the movie,including,"There's snake in my boot!","Howdy partner.""You're my favourite deputy.","Yee haw cowboy!",and "My name's Woody." It sounds like Tom Hanks,and I'm not sure this doll wasn't actually voiced by Tom Hanks. It is true though that,at least later dolls,were voiced by Jim Hanks,Tom's brother. 
  Woody measures about 17 inches tall.

 

He has a molded curl in the front of his hair, just like the animated Woody.

Woody has to have his hat. It's removable,which made it easy to lose. That's why it's hard to find a Woody doll who still has his hat.

  
  The first Toy Story movie came out in 1995, the same year as my son Fuzzy. Fuzz was born in April,and Toy Story was 'born' in November. We used to buy the kids the latest Disney movies when they came out on home video.(In those days it was video.) So Fuzz was aware of Toy Story pretty much his whole life. He loved it when he was little. He had a Toy Story birthday for his second birthday. He had Toy Story bedding,and Woody and Buzz,and little figures of the other characters. I got him a big cardboard Woody and Buzz 'falling with style', from a video display and hung it on his ceiling. (It was pretty cool.Buzz's helmet had a clear plastic bubble,so it was 3 dimensional.) He was Woody for Halloween one year. He LOVED Toy Story. When Fuzz fell on the playground equipment steps when he was tiny and split his chin open,I had to take him to the emergency room for stitches. Fuzz was stretched out on the exam table when the doctor called to the nurse to come in and 'strap him down'. Excuse me? You aren't going to scare my kid to death by 'strapping him down'! You know how that would have made a tiny kid panic. Fuzz was probably about 3 years old. If they had come in and strapped him to the table he would have freaked and the whole thing would have been worse for him. I said,"You don't need to strap him down. He'll be still." So I discussed with him what they were going to do, and how it was very important that he be very still. While the doctor sewed his chin I talked to him to take his mind off of it. "Think about something else. Think about Toy Story. Remember that time when Buzz and Woody..."  He was really good and never moved. 'Think about Toy Story' became a family catch phrase. (Just a note: Fuzz busted his chin open,or at least hit it on something, in the same place, several more times over the years. I began to call it his Achilles Chin.)
  That's it for today. See you again tomorrow.