The Animation and All Things Related House of Horrors, Part 1: Lair of the Creepy Toys

Welcome, foolish mortals, to the Animation and All Things Related House of Horrors.

Here you will see things that will shock you, chill you to the bone, and perhaps even make you scream. This October, we shall be traveling through the Animation and All Things Related House of Horrors, which for those wondering is not because I can think of anything Halloween-related to review but rather just because I thought it would be neat.

Our tour begins here, in the Lair of the Creepy Toys. You'd think licensed merchandise of a beloved cartoon character wouldn't be that hard to mess up. But you'd be wrong. Very wrong. Just ask Fozzie Bear, who for some reason toy companies have much difficulty making a decent-looking doll representation of. Look at some of these:

He's basically a teddy bear already! How can it be so hard to make a good Fozzie doll?! But Fozzie isn't the only character who's been subjected to ugly-looking toys. We're going to look at some dolls, figures, and even salt and pepper shakers that you'll probably be seeing in your nightmares tonight. Kindly step all the way in, please, and make room for everyone. There's no turning back now.

These Three Mickey Mouse Dolls

Let's start the pants-scaring-off with these little beauties. You have your choice of either a derpy-eyed doll that kind of looks like Mickey Mouse and Monkeybone had a baby, a raggedy Mickey that looks like it should be haunting Freddy Fazbear's Pizza instead of being in a toy store, what I'm pretty sure was actually just a generic (and terrifying) baby doll somebody slapped a shoddy Mickey costume on. Suddenly those early walk-around costumes for Mickey they had at Disneyland don't look so bad anymore, do they?

This Gus (Cinderella) Figure

Speaking of terrifying mouse dolls, if your doll looks less like the cartoon character it's supposed to be and more like a creepy clown, YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG.

This Barney Rubble (The Flintstones) Figure

There's an odd amount of merchandise that gives Barney pupils. Normally, it's not scary, just a bit strange. This, on the other hand...

These Rigby (Regular Show) Plushes

It seems that Rigby is the Fozzie Bear of Regular Show - the character who you'd think it would be easy to make a plush toy of, only for almost every attempt at it to turn out nightmarish. I'm almost fully convinced the third one is a bootleg.

This Dopey (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) Doll

This looks less like Dopey and more like Howdy Doody. And I, for one, think Howdy Doody is terrifying as well.

This Bootleg Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story) Doll

Honestly, that Jessie's pretty creepy-looking too...

This Bootleg Garfield Doll

Why do people even MAKE bootleg Garfield dolls? Garfield dolls can't be that hard to find in stores... and why does it look like a weird fusion of the cartoon Garfield and the "live action" CGI Garfield from the 2004 movie, only to wind up not looking like either of them?

This Baba Looey (Quick-Draw McGraw) Soaky Bank and Doll

I honestly don't know which of these is creepier. Why is the first one RED? Baba Looey isn't red, he's brown. Has he just been out in the sun too long? Sunscreen's a thing, Baba Looey, use it. As for the second one, the vinyl head/plush body combo really doesn't work for me. And I've never been a fan of Jellystone!'s turning Baba Looey into a girl, but between the eyelashes and the feminine hairdo, it seems like this doll beat them to it.

This Nico (Rio) Doll

Nico, you should really stop going to those all-night samba parties. You look a little sleep-deprived... or are you actually on drugs? I can't tell.

These Alvin (Alvin and the Chipmunks) Dolls

Geez, these things is terrifying. If any parent gave their child either of these dolls, I want to know what on Earth they were thinking. Did the toymakers never actually see any of the Alvin and the Chipmunks stuff made around the time (apparently at some point in the 1950s or 1960s), so they had no idea what Alvin actually looked like?

This Yogi Bear Doll

This charming little doll comes from Knickerbocker, who in 1962 released a set of Hanna-Barbera character figures known as "Knixies". Giving Yogi Bear a flesh-colored head does not work at all - it makes him look like his head is completely furless. And that's very off-putting. Also, I know that red part is supposed to be the inside of his mouth, but is anyone else getting Joker vibes?

This Baloo (The Jungle Book) Doll

"Hey, Mowgli, could you give me a hand here? My snout is about to fall off."

This Bootleg Winnie the Pooh Doll

...why? Why would you do this? Why would you take a Winnie the Pooh doll and replace his nose with a duck bill full of human teeth?

This Bootleg Bart Simpson (The Simpsons) Doll

Is this obviously unlicensed Bart Simpson doll actually terrifying? Or is it your imagination, hmmmm?

Nope, it's not just your imagination. It really IS terrifying.

These [Presumably] Bootleg Joy (Inside Out) Dolls

"You can touch me on the head"? I don't think I want to...

This Raj (Camp Lazlo) Doll

Yes, Camp Lazlo merchandise exists. Among it was this bobblehead doll of Raj, who with his strange "evil eyebrows", eyes protruding from his head like he's being squeezed a bit too tight, and random set of teeth sticking out the side of his face makes me wonder if perhaps Joe Murray's art style doesn't translate well to plush toys. It's worth noting that Raj's pal Clam didn't fare much better.

These Alice (Alice in Wonderland) Salt and Pepper Shakers

I'm sorry, but I can't NOT make a reference to the girls from The Shining here... "Come play with us, White Rabbit. Come play with us..."

This Mort (Madagascar) Plush

Jeez, and I thought the low-budget CGI Mort in The Penguins of Madagascar was scary-looking...

These Chip and Dale Dolls From Tokyo Disneyland

These look like characters from Happy Tree Friends. I can't be the only one who's seeing that, right?

This Simba (The Lion King) Plush

Ah, yes, I remember that plot point in The Lion King where Simba got bitten by a vampire. It's such an important part of the movie...

This Will Smith Fish (Shark Tale) Plush

Let's be honest here, making fun of Shark Tale's creepy character designs isn't super-original... still, those TEETH.

Actually, now that I think about it, who the heck would BUY a Will Smith Fish doll? Would you want a likeness of that hideous thing sitting in your bedroom?

These Z and Bala (Antz) Dolls

And while we're on the subject of scary-looking DreamWorks characters, remember Antz? DreamWorks' knockoff of A Bug's Life that Katzenberg tried to blackmail John Lasseter with? I haven't seen it, nor do I want to, but I've always found the character designs kind of off-putting. These dolls of the main characters, Z the Woody Allen Ant and Bala the Sharon Stone Ant, somehow make these character designs even MORE creepy - Z looks more like E.T. on some sort of illegal substance, and Bala barely even resembles her movie counterpart (those LIPS!). You can go on and on about how much better Antz supposedly is than A Bug's Life, but at least dolls of A Bug's Life characters aren't nightmare-inducing.

This P.T. Flea (A Bug's Life) Doll

...well, okay, MOST dolls of A Bug's Life characters aren't nightmare-inducing.

This Hyacinth Hippo (Fantasia) Doll

Congratulations, Chernabog, you're NOT the scariest thing to originate from Fantasia after all!

This Bootleg Po (Kung Fu Panda) Figure

Even ignoring the creepy expression on Po's face, pandas don't even live in the jungle. They live in bamboo forests.

This Bootleg SpongeBob SquarePants Figure

This is just begging to be used in one of those "I cannot let you escape, Squidward" videos you can find on YouTube.

These Woody and Buzz (Toy Story) Shoes

Okay, okay, I know shoes really don't qualify as toys, but I had to include these here. Why would anyone wear these? The thought of putting your foot in somebody's mouth is disgusting enough already.

This Big Baby (Toy Story 3) Vinylmation Figure

I think Vinylmations are still a thing today (according to Wikipedia, Disney ceased production on them in 2015 but brought them back in 2022), but they're not nearly as popular as they were in the 2010s, so for those of you who don't know what they are: basically, they're figures shaped like Mickey Mouse, but painted to look like other characters. In theory it's not a bad idea, but not every character translates well to a Vinylmation - especially those that were already pretty creepy in the movies they came from. Case in point, this one of Toy Story 3 character Big Baby. In case anyone was wondering what would happen if a human and a mouse had a baby... which I know obviously isn't biologically possible (and if it is, please don't tell me, I don't want to know), but if it WERE, this is what the offspring would look like. I'm so, so sorry for the mental image...

Any and all Ren (Ren and Stimpy) Dolls

I can't help but wonder if maybe Ren dolls are a bad idea. His design does not lend itself to three dimensions. Especially when they give the dolls these terrifying facial expressions that might look amusing in a cartoon but are nightmare-inducing on a doll...

Thus concludes our tour of the Lair of the Creepy Toys. But our trip through the Animation and All Things Related House of Horrors (a registered trademark of animationandallthingsrelated.com!) is not over. Please remain seated in your Doom Buggy and we will continue our tour momentarily. And by "momentarily", I mean "next week".

Y'know what, you don't have to remain seated. Go outside and take a walk. The fresh air will do you good.