Saturday, December 24, 2022

The Box

Still no Tahoe, which should come as no surprise. Elsa has arrived, and guess what, I am totally dorked out about the box she came in:

The Big Poodle is on it!

I know it probably means… nothing. The Big Poodle – as opposed to the Small Poodle, which has had a few releases since its rediscovery in the 1990s – has been out of production for nearly fifty years now, longer than any other animal mold other than the German Shepherd (who is damaged, and not functional), the Modernistic Buck and Doe (who are just plain weird). 

I suppose the In-Between Mare still counts as the Queen of All This: she was out of commission for nearly 60 years before she came back. 

The Big Poodle was in production, in one color or another, for about 15 years. It was officially released in 1958, but it was also for sale in Christmas catalogs and magazine advertisements by late 1957. Which would have made some sense back then: Poodles – both as pets, and as decorative accents – were very much a thing in the 1950s. If the mold was ready for production in time for the upcoming holiday shopping season, why delay the release and miss all those potential sales?

Especially since their first attempt – the mold now known as the “Small Poodle” – failed to find a market a couple years earlier.

By the 1970s, Poodles were no longer as popular as they once were, and with the looming oil crisis making Cellulose Acetate hard to come by, the Poodle mold was one of many things that ended up getting the axe in 1973. Anyone who has owned a Breyer Poodle or two knows that they are pretty hefty – usually scaling up at around a pound. 

For comparison, the Proud Arabian Stallion – one of the hottest new molds of the early 1970s – comes in at a rather svelte 11 ounces. In other words, you could make about three Proud Arabian Stallions for every two Poodles!

But anyway, I was momentarily excited by the possibility that the Big Poodle might return – if you’ve been to my house, you know I have a lot of these big boys – but the economics of it are probably just as unfeasible now as they were in the early 1970s.

Stranger things have happened: I don’t think most of us (even me!) expected the IBM to return. 

(The question is… when next? LOL’ing if she turns out to be this year’s XMAS surprise…)

(Honest, though, I’m just as much in the dark as you all.)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish they would remold the German Shepherd.

Anonymous said...

Or fix that mold! I couldn’t care less if we never see a big poodle again, but the smaller one wouldn’t be bad.

Anonymous said...

I would love to have an example of the big poodle, the hair texture is super cool. Haven’t come across a nice one for a reasonable price yet though

Suzanne said...

There was a Hong Kong poodle on ebay that had a wonderful airbrushed grey paint job with hand-painted teeth. The seller even listed it as "like Breyer." I always find those well-made knock-offs fascinating! Too bad, I thought poodles would have seen a bump in popularity in the late 70´s with the 50´s nostalgia.

timaru star ii said...

Dorking out box indeed! I conga the Buffalo. I've always admired the Big Poodle in a sort of sidewise way, wanting one the way I've always wanted a Longhorn Bull: not quite yet enough to plunge. Big, expensive,... romantically vintage.

Lydia Lepic said...

I was really excited when I saw Elsa's box too! I wondered briefly when she'd shipped if the box would be the same as the box Johanne and Chadwick came in. If there's a petition to the powers-that-be for a reworking of the German shepherd mold, I'll gladly add my name!

Unrelated to this post, but for the diorama, I think a horse-drawn canal boat scene would be neat. I saw one (sans horse) in Indiana in a little town when my husband and I were up for a reunion. You could still walk in the horse's track that was worn along the waterway.