Random Retro Riffraff #1: Reddi-Wip Dolls
I have so many ancient treasures I want to share with you, and not all of them lend themselves to longer posts. So I’m going to start opening my vault of random retro riffraff a few times a week, with shorter posts on forgotten gems you totally didn’t know you needed in your life.
First up:
I had at least four or five of these dolls as a kid (Ireland, Italy, and Jamaica, for sure). I think they were mostly rescued from flea markets for a handful of sticky nickels, so imagine my shock when I came across this ad in the 1965 Ladies’ Home Journal and uncovered their secret origins.
These weren’t just dolls: they were REDDI-WIP DOLLS.
Which is kind of sweetly sad, because food companies just don’t do awesome shit like this anymore. Like, when was the last time the Chicken of the Sea folks gave away free sea monkeys with six UPC codes? Why can’t I send away for Stamps of Many Nations when I buy Count Chocula? And WHAT HAVE GOLDFISH CRACKERS DONE FOR ME LATELY?
The ad copy is hilarious, because all ad copy written before 1992 is hilarious. It starts with the customary “yes! please send me blah blah” boilerplate, but then it extends the first-person verbiage far beyond what most people would consider comfortable. Like, I’m okay with signing off on “please send me the dolls I’ve checked” – that sounds like something I might plausibly say, though I probably wouldn’t preface it with “YES, REDDI-WIP!” unless Reddi-Wip was also giving me a large glass of Riesling and a footrub. However, I’m reluctant to sign my name to unprovable assertions like “I can see these dolls are easily worth $2.50 each” and “[each one is] delightful as pie topped with Reddi-Wip.” I guess printing your name under a statement that would make most cult members blush is a small price to pay if you’re walking away with a doll worth $2.50 for just $1.00 and a whipped-cream pull-tab.
Who else had these dolls? Were they more or less delightful than a pie topped with Reddi-Wip? Share with the rest of the class below!
ETA: Thanks for sharing your memories. To answer a question posed by Sara, who has vague remembrances of a doll in a flamenco dress, I’m posting part of the page that my scanner didn’t pick up. I believe this MAY be what you’re looking for:
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I had–still have, in fact–several dolls in a similar style, though not from Reddi-Wip. I have dolls from Ireland, Hawaii, and Jamaica, but my grandmother brought them back from trips to those places. I think I might have had one or two others that didn’t survive the past *mumblety* years. LOL
My mother DID, however, sell enough Stanley Degreaser to get me a Harmony doll for Christmas when I was 4! http://ow.ly/hPzn2
I didn’t have those dolls, but I remember when companies would give away crazy stuff for pull tabs and Proofs-of-purchase. I got a whole series of Beatrix Potter books as a kid from a gas station. A gas station!
My mom used to have bags and bags of Proofs of Purchase. She called them her “POPs.” I miss those days. (And I would’ve been all OVER those Beatrix Potter books.)
I have a set of dolls like this but mine are from Arco, every time my dad filled up the car he got a new doll there use to be a box they stood in.
Did they have a Spain? I swear I had a doll that looked like this wearing a flamenco dress. Had no idea where it came from.
And there she is! My little flamenco dancer! Because all Spanish ladies walk around dressed like that. At least, all the Spanish dolls I had did. Imagine my disappointment when I studied abroad and found them wearing jeans and t-shirts.
And who’s that above her? That skirt looks familiar.
In the plaid? Scotland, I think!
These are news to me – but they totally remind me of a doll with a crocheted dress that my grandma used to put over the extra toilet paper. She would sit on the back of the furry toilet tank cover and you’d put her Barbie-doll legs down the middle of the cardboard tube, demurely hiding the new roll beneath her mint-and-white wool dress.
Um, the doll. Would sit on the back of the toilet tank. Not my grandma.
Yes that is some incredibly aggressive copy! Plus, as I was reading about how they are as great as pie topped with Reddi Whip I am picturing the dolls topped with whipped cream which isn’t what I think they were going for. Yes, it is late…
i as a child had these and many other countrys dolls i however thought they were a gas station promo doll that my dad picked up everytime he filled up?
Hi Robin! I think these dolls were also given out as gas station promos, yeah. Here’s a link I found:
http://alegacyofstitches.blogspot.com/2009/03/gas-station-dolls.html
Not sure how Reddi-Wip got in on it too, but it’s a cool ad. Their billowy skirts are kind of mesmerizing!
Yes, I still have everyone one of these dolls. They are in pretty good condition, except the the rubber band inside them has dried out from 50 years ago.
My sister collected these in the sixties. Can anyone provide a complete list of the Reddi-Wip dolls? I know the 30 from the advertisement you see on Ebay. What were the other six, please?
Thanks!
I had the 30 doll collection when I was a kid. Just recently bought about 20 off eBay. Waiting for them to arrive. Will try to put together the whole set! My grandmother sent away for them and had to include the Reddi whip tab for each doll ordered if I remember correctly.