What was a very popular toy the year you were born?

[frogmarch]

17. Sparkle Plenty doll (from the Dick Tracy comic strip)

I don't know about the year I was born (1943) but for my 4th birthday in December 1947, I wanted a Sparkle Plenty doll. My dad was in the Army and our family was living in Tokyo. My mom and I rode all over Tokyo in Dad’s Jeep trying to find one at a PX, but there were no Sparkle Plenty dolls to be found anywhere. What we did find were Japanese bombing victims in dire need of help (I can still see them in my mind, as if it were yesterday), so we forgot about the silly doll and got out of the Jeep to see what we could do for them. Mom did a lot of social work and had lots of contacts, and our next visit was to take them food and clothing, and we weren’t alone, because Mom’s social worker friends were with us, also loaded down with goods.

Sparkle Plenty first appeared on June 6th, 1947 in the series as an extremely beautiful baby born from the genes of two homely looking parents, Gravel Gertie and B.O. Plenty. Immediately the world fell in love with her. Her picture made the cover of practically every newspaper in the country including local magazine Glance.

http://dicktracy.wikia.com/wiki/Sparkle_Plenty




In the frame on the left, the woman with the long hair at the window is Sparkle’s mother, Gravel Gertie. In the frame on the right, that’s Sparkle's father B.O. Plenty with the scruffy whiskers.


Much later in the comic strip, Gertie and B.O. had a son they named Attitude. He was said to be as ugly as Sparkle was beautiful, but we never were shown the face of Attitude Plenty.