Price: $20.00 (each)
Age Range: All ages
Official URL: Uglydolls.com
Rating:

Ugly is the new cute. Popular with all ages from infant on up to the elderly, these fleecey pillow “Uglydoll” critters are just wonderful. The three newest characters: Puglee, Poe and Plunko bring three new styles and three new stories to the Ugly-line. Poe, an Ugly Dragon that prefers not to fly. Puglee, female piglet that is a brilliant student in spite of herself, and Plunko a business man.

WHAT IS AN UGLYDOLL?

Chances are pretty good that you’re already familiar with Uglydoll, seeing as they are EVERYWHERE. They are these great little fleece pillow-monsters that come in bright colors and that have tongue-in-cheek sarcastic stories that appeal to children and adults unlike anything else you’ve ever seen. They’re edgy, trendy, and modern and are friendly for all ages. Although parents might want to withhold the stories of the characters until the child is old enough to know that some of the Uglydoll traits are not exactly role model material.

Uglydolls come in a variety of sizes. Itty bitty keychain Uglies and “Little” uglies are perfect for the child to tote along with them. The standard 12″ Uglydoll, perfect for playing with and hugging, or the 2 foot tall Uglydoll which makes a great pillow stand-in and which makes for a great hug.

QUALITY & CONSTRUCTION

Imagine a loosely stuffed pillow made of soft fleece. Now imagine that the pillow is the shape of an oddball creature. That is the basic construction of an uglydoll. They are made of high quality soft fleece that is very cuddly and stuffed with polyester batting.  Their features- eyes, nose, teeth, mouth all vary from character to character but are made of the same lightweight material that feels like a cross between fleece and flannel, and which are stitched on to the Uglydoll’s face with broad visible stitches.

PACKAGING

Each uglydoll come with a few simple hang-tags that show an illustration of the character, the character’s name, and that tells the story of the character.

THE STORIES

The stories are part of what makes Uglydoll work so well. Each character comes with a tag attached that tells you a little bit about who the character is. Below are the character descriptions for each of the three Uglies covered in this review.

POE: Poe is an Ugly Dragon. Ugly Dragons come from the Ugly Dragon Mountain. But Poe has left the safety of his caverns is search of his big dreams.The other day he had a big dream about a big scoop of Ice Cream. Chocolate. While most Ugly Dragons sleep all day and fly all night, Poe is more into cars, trucks, bikes, and anything that lets him sit down while moving. Flying is hard. You have to flap your wings around all the time! Can Poe roll with you?.

PUGLEE: Puglee is super smart. How can you tell? You know how they say if you get really  good grades, you’ll have a better shot at getting a really great job? Well Puglee figured out that a great way to avoid getting a job was to get the worst possible grades ever! Only an F- would do. But here’s the problem… Puglee LOVES to read, write, and count. So she gets all A’s no matter how hard she tries! Puglee is also smart enough to know that life isn’t about getting a grade. It’s about the special bond she now has with you.

PLUNKO: Plunko is a business man. He’s got his own car wash, his own tire store, and ideas for lots of other stores. Some of those ideas are his very own! Plunko is a good guy to know. If you know Plunko, you can say you’ve got some connections. And if you call Plunko’s phone, you may get a bad connection.So anyway, are you sold on Plunko? Are you ready to do business? Plunko is the ultimate business partner because he only wants 100% of your love and even less of your money.

CARE AND FEEDING

Uglydolls require no feeding, and only light care. They are surface washable and clean up pretty well especially if you take a suede brush to them to loosen any random gunk that builds up. So far my son’s favorite Uglydoll Plunko has been subjected to mashed on banana, yogurt splatters and spaghetti sauce and has come out no worse for the wear. His slightly older Uglydolls have even made a quick trip through a gentle cycle in the washer-dryer and while they have come out a little bit less well-formed, they’re still great buddies for the little guy.

EDUCATIONAL/ENTERTAINMENT VALUE

Saying that Uglydolls have a great educational value would be a bit of a stretch, but these toys do encourage creative thinking. You can use their different stories to find a character that your child relates to, and encourage him to role-play with the character. A bookworm would love Puglee, for example.

Entertainment value is a bit more of this toy’s forte. The stories are a lot of fun for older kids to expand upon with creative roleplay. The variety of the characters, their similarities to many of the common stereotypes that we all knew in school, and their refreshing lack of movie/TV tie-ins makes for some wonderfully creative play.

For the younger kids they’ll have a blast figuring out where the creatures features are, and using these super-soft toys as a softer way to pillow-fight, or even just to snuggle up to. My 22 month old son loves to lay down on his bed with these guys and chatter away in his own toddler language.

BOTTOM LINE

Uglydoll owns the market on unique plush toys. Their simplicity of design, comfortable huggable fabrics and fun stories have made them one of the most popular toys for kids of all ages. Boys especially love Uglydoll, possibly because they’re not technically stuffed animals, and many of the different Uglies have names and stories that appeal to boys. They certainly appealed to my son. Whenever he sees an Uglydoll he says “Hi!” and waves. No one taught him to do that, and this is the only stuffed animal that he has ever done that with.

While the uglydoll has many imitators, it still manages to be wholly unique. I guess “simple” really isn’t that simple to achieve.