toy canon #3: polly pocket and the compacts of dreams
As a child of the 90s, one of the toys that I have the fondest memories of are Polly Pockets. Unlike My Little Pony, which started their roll out in the early 80s, Polly and I are the same age. This teeny tiny two piece, plastic doll and I grew up at the same time. I’m not sure when my family started actually gifting them to me, but I know I at least started playing with them around 1993, because I have a vivid memory of tucking them in my jacket pocket to sneak out to recess in preschool and unwrapping brand new playsets for birthdays and Christmases. The ratio of new to thrifted toys was very much skewed in favor of the latter, so to accumulate a significant number of brand new Polly Pockets said something about its presence in my childhood.
Unlike my Pony Canon, I had a much looser attachment to individual pollies. This meant that most of them didn’t have solidified personalities (let alone names!), though a few of them do stand out to me as characters that I frequently reached for due to their design or their associated playset.
What resonated so strongly with me about these toys was: (1) the littleness of everything, including the compact itself, the little depicted scenes, the interactive components, and the dolls; (2) the encouraged mix-and-match where you could bring in pollies from other sets quite easily to make storylines more lively; and (3) pocketability. If I wasn’t carrying a book, then I wanted a toy with me to stay entertained during car rides, waiting in queues (bank, post office, grocery stores, etc.) Polly Pockets were small enough to hold in my palm of slip into a pocket and the dolls were also small so I could keep a few of them in the compact and pull them out to play around.
I mentioned this in the intro post to Toy Canon, but I was the kind of kid who usually played silently. I would pick up the pollies and move them around in a pantomime to the story unfolding in my mind. Since these toys were so small, this felt a little less odd to do in public. Also, I shared most of my toys with my brothers, at least when I invited them to play together, but Polly Pocket was mine. Sometimes I might use them to tell stories to my younger brother, but most of them time I played with them entirely by myself.
By my count, I had around 31 playsets, two rings, and a board game. For now, I am going to cover the standouts in my collection that I remember playing with the most.
This post was made possible with the archival work of Only Polly Pocket. There are a few choice elements on the site that are not my cup of tea, but I believe in citing my sources regardless!
My oldest one in terms of release date! This was a pretty standard amusement park scene. One polly would be designated the ticket seller while the others would make their way around the fair grounds, scooting around in the roller coaster seat, being whizzed around like mad in the bunny-go-round (often shooting out of bounds in the process), or having tame fun down the slide. I'm positive that I ended up losing the coaster seat, which meant the track ended up being a fancier slide. Given her age, Balloon Polly was one of the dolls who became very worn out, automatically bending at the hinge and paint chipping in spots.
This is aforementioned set that I brought with me to preschool! I loved to open and close the doors to the chapel so the gold paint on the handles were wearing away. In my most often replayed storyline, The Bride would get frustrated, especially since all of the guests on the other side would start singing or cheering each time the doors opened, because she wasn't ready for the event to begin! One day, I took this with me to preschool and lost the Groom. Or thought I did. I might have found him later somewhere in the recesses of my bedroom (likely in the place where the carpet could be pulled up slightly from the baseboards—a death trap for many a toy, Barbie accessory, and Lego piece), but I was convinced he was gone forever and cried. That was my lesson not to take beloved toys to school with me. This was one of the few sets that I ended up performing for my younger brother with to entertain him with silly stories.
This one takes me back! I honestly didn't remember that these two pollies came from this set, because they just succumbed to the bag of dolls I had. I loved the little chef, though! This usually led to Seinfeld-like episodes where pollies were trying to be seated in an overcrowded restaurant, or it would be a date-spot between two dolls (usually on the upper-floor in front of the King and Queen portraits where they could cozily share secrets.) Even though there aren’t many interactive in this set, I just loved the idea of having restaurant stories and imagining what food they might order. Over time, I imagine I passed over this one in favor for other, more inspiring sets, but when my collection was much smaller this was in frequent use.
This was a heavily used playset! I never liked playing house, store, or doctor, but school? That was my shit. It let me determine which dolls were what kind of student: who was the art kid, smearing paint on a canvas? Who was the student excelling at math and the one in the back who was failing? Who complained about the cafeteria food every day and who was the athlete swimming laps in the pool? I don't remember this boy doll whatsoever (95% sure I lost him), but hat girl has such a pretty design and I know I played with her a lot, though not necessarily in this set haha She looked too fancy to be at school given the boring uniforms at my elementary school. The color scheme of this set is also so charming. Maybe that contributed to my affection for pastel, minty greens?
To be honest, I had no idea what Polly Pocket packaging looked like until beginning this project, because, despite noting how I remember receiving these as presents, I have no cognizant memory of actually unboxing these toys - just owning and playing with them. While doing research on Midge’s Flower Shop, however, I realized that I specifically received the Gift Set. I know someone bought this for me one year because I had that throne, necklace, and all of the extra pollies! The set itself is a relatively uninspiring. I know I would sit dolls on the shell throne at the top, make the parrot say random things, go down the slide, and that's kind of it... my main reason for featuring this in my Toy Canon is because the pink and blue doll with the overalls, Midge herself, was my favorite Polly. I don't even know why! I just claimed her as the best and featured her in most of my stories. I think the combination of orange bangs and freckles appealed to me.
Of all the compacts I owned, this set was my favorite to use to make my younger brother laugh.. Midge would either be writing a story on a dark and stormy night, sneaking out of bed to read and having to race back under the covers to avoid being caught, or trying desperately to fall asleep while being repeatedly and humorously interrupted. Over time, she lost one of her hands, the hinge was entirely compromised, and the ring component of the bed was thoroughly chewed up (courtesy of said brother.) Despite this, I'm super fond of this toy and even set it aside when my parents were moving house so that it wouldn’t get lost with all the donation items.
For Polly Pocket, this set was massive, impossible to store, and one of my greatest treasures. It had two compartments where you could store pollies, which was a huge help for corralling all of the dolls given how many sets I had been gifted. There were all kinds of adventures to go on: picnics on the beach, taking the canoe to hunt for buried treasure, tending to the horses at their stables, lounging in the mansion, or taking the car for a drive around town. Even though the physical design is very clunky, it encouraged telling stories with multiple characters. And the animals! As someone who adored collecting tiny animals, this set really did it for me - especially the tiny cats and bunny. Last year, I helped my parents clean out their garage and found this set in a box of my old things. The poor toy was destroyed beyond salvaging, unfortunately. So many components were snapped apart, missing, or covered in weird marks. I felt wistful parting with it, but I made a promise to myself to only hold onto sentimental things that still bring me active joy.
It's confusing to me that this is marketed as a nursery, when to me it was always a doctor set; though, it makes more sense if I revise in my head that it’s a hospital nursery where babies can receive care after birth. Regardless of its name, I played with this one a lot. Baby pollies made me laugh because they are so tiny and had such a silly faces. The two that came with set would get into all kinds of mischief, crawling out of their cribs when Dr. Polly was upstairs at her desk or trying to catch a quick nap after changing and bathing the kids. I remember liking the tactile feel of how the white door would open close and the bright colors were so much fun. I'm sure I held these baby sets near to my heart at least a little because of Rugrats because most of my play sessions focused predominantly on the little ones.
I don't remember the swan at all, but boy do I remember the rest of the set! This was ideal for Cinderella storytelling with the castle, carriage, and the royal couple. The doors opened to a throne and canopy bed. I think there was a suit of armor that could flip to reveal a secret hidden unicorn. Even though I wasn’t a princess-y kid, I did enjoy staging a ballroom scene. Having pollies walk up and down the stairs, or sit up on the rooftop overlooking the gardens. This compact was incredibly chunky because it required batteries to light up the stars and gazebo, which I thought was SO cool as a kid. However, I did end up reaching for it a bit less when my parents gifted me…
There’s something about the Polly Pocket fairy playsets that is so utterly magical and fun. The only other one I owned was a thrifted Fairy Fashion Show and now, as an adult, I really wish that I owned more of them because they’re sparkly, colorful, and twee. But one Christmas, I hit the jackpot with Fairylight Wonderland.
This was a world I wanted to disappear into. The clear glittery hot hair balloons with petal-shaped baskets, the heart-shaped seats on the fountain, the little dance turn-style where pollies could get their jam on. I played with this giant hunk of plastic almost as much as Polly's World, especially because the two fairies who actually had wings were the prettiest things I had ever seen. They acted as fairy godmothers granting pollies wishes beyond their wildest dreams. Blonde Polly looks very Tinkerbell, but the one with short, orange hair was one of my faves and it showed in her hinges. Surprisingly, these wings lasted through the ages, though! This set also required batteries, but the lights were even more impressive leading to many late evening play sessions in the dark so I could witness the lights at their brightest.
Perfect Playroom and Strolling Baby
My mom gifted me the first two in babysitting set, and, as with the older nursery, they were frequently in my play rotation. Since these babies were in sitting positions, they looked even funnier than the older ones. If I had to choose between the two, I liked the pink one more - the play area downstairs lent itself to my favorite story: escape of the toddlers! This poor babysitter could never catch a break. I loved when she would confidently latch the toddlers in the high chairs only to have them escape like Tommy Pickles with his handy-dandy screwdriver so they could ride the rocking horse and jump on the couch.
Although I didn’t have either the surfboard or power ski, I had fun making pollies drive around in this car. Even back then, I thought the concept was pretty absurd, but I also had a fondness for tiny cars (loved micromachines, especially) and since the car was pretty big proportionally to the pollies, that enabled me to have them visit larger playsets that I owned for other toys.
Similar to the fairy sets, I thought the Enchanted Storybook line was so much fun. It was colorful, glittery, whimsical. I adored the canopy bed, playing with the swingset, and having a polly sit in the soaking tub. I didn’t own either of the princesses since mine was thrifted, but I remember carrying this book around with me often, latching and unlatching it like as a fidget, and relishing its visual appeal even if I didn’t have concrete stories in mind for it.
There are so many Polly Pocket compacts that had unique house designs to them that were such as the Animal Wonderland and Pollyville lines. I only owned a few of them from thrift excursions, but this one stands out in my memory because it was faintly scented like strawberry. There’s something about that synthetic, plastic strawberry scent that whisks me away to childhood. The roof also had this squishy, softer texture to it. These playsets weren’t pocketable, but they were so much fun to line up to assemble little towns and have pollies wander to and fro (or take their car!) to various shops.
I owned the 1990 Polly Pocket Salon and remember playing having my pollies sit on the dryer chairs, but I wasn’t that inspired by it from a storytelling standpoint. When my mom thrifted this compact, however, I had so many silly ideas for it. I loved opening and closing the sauna and shower door, having a polly make a big splash in the pool, rotating dolls in the the chair from hair station to station. The storage underneath the pool was also a bonus because it meant I could keep a polly behind each door and under the pool, which meant having a lot more characters available. I didn’t have any of the hair accessories, and don’t think I ever had a polly with rooted hair, but the overall design of the playset gave me plenty of inspiration.
One thing that hasn’t come up yet is how much I loved playing with water. I was 100% a bath time kid, a throw all of my toys into the inflatable pool kid, fill up the sink and throw a pool party for my tiny creatures kid. So a Polly Pocket that was meant for you to add water that pollies could slide around in? Perfection. I don’t think this one would have appealed to me at all if it weren’t for the deep indentations for adding water.
Sweet Roses Crystal Perfume Even without the perfume stopper, I was obsessed with the design of this toy especially the translucent and metallic components. They didn’t use this kind of material very often and the rose design makes it stand out all the more. I know I liked to sit whichever polly I deemed prettiest or fanciest at the vanity before the giant trifold mirror or wander elegantly through the garden around the fountain. It’s not playset with a lot of storytelling potential, but it’s just so pretty to look at. Perfect as a smaller option for placing my fairies!
There are plenty of other sets that I owned, the majority of which were thrifted by my mom: a couple from Animal Wonderland, the Magical Mansion, some of the older stamp sets with incomplete pieces. I also owned several of the Disney sets (Minnie and Mickey, Beauty and the Beast), but I rarely played with them and cherished them more as a pretty object to open and look at. In general, I don't have as many recollections of actively playing with these sets so much as owning them. While MLP playtime was consistently character-driven, I engaged with my pollies on a more situational-basis, which makes sense since you're given realized environments for them to interact with and the dolls themselves are so small!
Despite that, there’s something about little pollies… they’re so quintessentially 90s: colorful, imaginative (especially the later sets), and a massive choking hazard for toddlers. Thankfully, my brother only wanted to chew on them and I had zero desire to put my toys in my mouth, thank you very much.
Revising this project has also got me thinking about how these toys functioned as fidget toys for me due their interactive components, the satisfying click of the hinges, and the visual stimulation. While MLP inspired me to move the toys around and tell clear stories, Polly Pockets provided me with sensory stimulation, especially in environments like the backseat, long lines, and at school. It’s a good reminder that the toys of my childhood served different functions, but each had its own special role.
Thank you for reading! ʕᵔᴥᵔʔ
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