Dolls by Ideal

 A Jewish immigrant working from a small shop in New York City gave the world one of the most successful and productive toy companies of the 20th century.

 Morris Mitchtom, probably better known for his pioneering with the teddy bear and his letter to President Teddy Roosevelt, was the founder of the Ideal Toy Company.

 Mitchtom and his wife were making toys in the early 1900s but did not formally establish the Ideal firm until 1907, five years later it became the Ideal Novelty & Toy Company.

 Teddy bears were a strong seller from the start, which enabled Mitchtom and his small company to finance production of early dolls which mostly had cloth bodies and composition heads. In 1911 they advertised themselves as “makers of unbreakable dolls and stuffed animals.”

 Ideal was highly successful with two advertising dolls in the years that immediately followed. In 1914 Mitchtom designed the Uneeda Kid doll for the Uneeda Biscuit Company it wore a yellow raincoat and carried a miniature tin box of crackers. The next year he followed that accomplishment with the Zu Zu Kid doll for the National Biscuit Company. This time the doll wore a clown suit and carried a box of Zu Zu ginger snaps.

 The firm was also successful with its early cloth character dolls including Dandy Kid, Baby Mine and one in the image of the legendary Ty Cobb.

 Ideal had developed total composition dolls by 1916 and by 1921 had one of the’ country’s first composition walking dolls in full production.

 The golden age truly dawned for Ideal in the 1930s when the company launched a series of tremendously successful composition celebrity dolls. In 1934 Molly Goldman designed Ideal’s Shirley Temple doll complete with the outfit from her first movie sensation, Stand Up and Cheer. In 1936 they produced the Shirley Temple cowgirl doll with gun and holster, and by 1939 eager parents could purchase Shirley Temple dolls with a vast assortment of clothing and accessories.

 Shirley Temple herself was rated the most popular movie star in the world at one time during that decade, and Ideal grossed more than $6 millions from sales of her doll alone. The revenues encouraged similar movie star personality dolls like Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland, and eventually Mary Hart.

 Character dolls based on film and radio were a big item for Ideal during the 1930s too, marketing boomed with such ‘stars’ as Mortimer Snerd, Baby Snooks, and finally Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket.

 Following World War II in 1945, Ideal continued their fine character doll tradition with a classic Superman version. The doll was 13 inches tall and came with composition head and wooden body.

 In 1947 the company captured nationwide attention with a doll that only had been known to the public for a few months. In May of that year the Dick Tracy comic strip featured the birth of a baby to characters B.O. Plenty and Gravel Gertie. In New York City, the Gimbels’ department store toy manger convinced Ideal a doll following the character would be a great idea. Just 48 days later the production of Baby Sparkle Plenty dolls began, they went on sale at Gimbels in July and despite the relatively expensive price of $5.98 they were an immediate best-seller. The store sold 10,000 the first five days and 22,000 within two weeks, more than all other doll sales put together during the first half of 1947. Two years later the company produced dolls honoring a couple of that era’s most popular cowboy movie stars, Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy. Neither doll attracted as much attention as Sparkle Plenty or their last doll of the year.

Ideal introduced another fabled winner during the Christmas season of 1949 with Toni doll. This time the model was hard plastic and came with materials that allowed girls to wash, set, and curl the doll’s hair just as they did with their own. Ideal paid dearly for the license to sell the Toni home permanent dolls, but it proved to be a very wise investment.

 Ideal doll 1976. Wake-up Thumbelina vinyl head and arms, plastic body stuffed legs.

 The fabulous toy company reached its zenith as the 1940s ended. In the book, Ideal Dolls, author Judith Inez reported that during the pre-holiday season over 4,000 people were working on three shifts to produce enough dolls and other toys for the public demand.

Ideal plunged into the 1950 with a host of appealing and consequently high selling dolls including Howdy Doody, Plassie, McCall magazine’s Betsy McCall, Magic-Squeeze Babies, Saucy Walker, Posie who was capable of 100 “life-like poses”, and Honeysuckle Babies which drank and wet like a real baby. Additionally, they advertised the Musical Doll Baby which was two feet tall, and children could “croon her to sleep with Rock-a-Bye Baby.” The doll came with a built-in Swiss music box and sold on the “easy lay-a-way plan” for $9.98.

 A deal with the cosmetics giant Revlon gave Ideal another great seller starting in 1957. Miss Revlon, 26 inches tall, was billed as a beautiful doll with “full-formed teenage figure, (that) bends from the waist, and pirouettes on nylon-stockinged legs in high-heeled shoes … All are beautifully dressed in high fashion style with smart personal jewelry.”

 During the early 1960s Ideal’s striking fashion doll Jackie did well, but the Tammy series introduced to meet the competition of Mattel’s smashing Barbie did less well. Fashion Liz, made of plastic and modeling a bikini bathing suit appeared in 1965 followed by a resurgence of Posie, this time foam-filled with vinyl arms and head.

 There was an attempt to move directly into the action doll market for boys in 1966 with the plastic and vinyl Captain Action. In the 1970s Ideal’s action hero was Electro-Man completed with battery operated lights. Tara, a female counter part appeared in the Electro-Man outfit in 1977.

 During the early 1980s there was a return to Betsy Wetsy, Thumbelina, Velvet and Tiny Tears. New issues included the Victorian Ladies series. Ideal was sold to television network CBS in 1983 which in turn closed the doll division and sold off the trade name a few years later.

 “A company’s products are judged on how well they perform and last,” concludes Judith Izen in her book on Ideal dolls. “If that is the case then Ideal Toy Corporation’s dolls deserve a special place of honor in the hearts of children and grown-ups everywhere.”

 Collector’s Guide to Ideal Dolls by Judith lzen, Collector Books.