Popples are for boys, too.

Certain toys are for girls and certain toys are for boys. It's something that you just knew when you were a kid. You weren't trying to be sexist or stereotypical by thinking those things. It's just the way it was. For example, my female cousin had Dinobot Sludge and Boba Fett. Those were "boy" toys and I never understood why she had them (especially since I didn't have those particular figures myself). Popples on the other hand, for some reason, were most definitely "girl" toys.

Popples were certainly a part of my childhood. I remember watching the cartoon series all of the time (I think it was part of USA's Cartoon Express but I could be wrong about that). I didn't have any Popples toys but my sister did. She had one of the small "Pocket Popples." They had plush bodies with plastic arms and legs. She had Pancake, the purple one.

Maybe it was the fact that it was my sister's toy, or maybe it was the fact that Popples were plush toys, or maybe it was just because there was so much pink and purple going on, but Popples became firmly entrenched on the "girl" side of the toy dichotomy in my brain. Even though the cartoon which featured two human main characters, a girl AND a boy, and even though many of the Popples themselves were boys, these were clearly "girl" toys. No doubt about it.

Well I'm here today to set the record straight. Popples were for boys, too. It only took me the better part of three decades to fully come to this realization and openly and proudly accept Popples into my world of toys.

What led to this you might ask? It was the Pocket Popples. The same type of Popples my sister had when we were kids. These things just bring back that childhood nostalgia, even though I never had the toys myself. I see them and I have to have them...



After accepting Pocket Popples into your life, you're just a short step away from opening yourself up to ALL of Poppledom, which means the larger (in some cases MUCH larger) plush toys. They're all cute and that poppling action never gets old. (Yes, I'm using "popple" as a verb to describe the action of turning the critter into a ball and vice versa. What other word really works so succinctly?)

While I don't have all the various types of Popples to show you, here are a few. There are the basic Popples in several sizes...



There are punk rock Popples (so very 80's)...



And then there are the sport Popples...



I think the sport Popples are definite proof that I was not alone in considering Popples as just for girls. Mattel obviously felt the need to add something to the basic Popple design in order to better tap into the boy demographic. Not only do these Popples come decked out in various sports uniforms, but they popple into the appropriate sports balls as well...



So Popples have shed their "girl" toy label in my mind. My only regret, some of them are just so damn large. They take up so much space. Good thing they're cute.