Bobblehead doll
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A bobblehead doll, also known as a bobbing head doll or wobbler is a type of collectible doll. Its head is often oversized compared to its body. Instead of a solid connection, its head is connected to the body by a spring in such a way that a light tap will cause the head to bobble, hence the name.
Although bobblehead dolls have been made with a wide variety of figures such as vampiric cereal pitchman Count Chocula, beat generation author Jack Kerouac, and Nobel-prize-winning geneticist James D. Watson, they are most associated with athletes, and baseball players in particular. Bobblehead dolls are sometimes given out to ticket buyers at sporting events as a promotion.
History
The exact origin of the bobblehead doll is unknown, though first known reference to a bobblehead doll in literature was in Nikolai Gogol's famous 1842 short story "The Overcoat". While the word bobblehead was not used directly, the main character's neck was described as "like the necks of plaster cats which wag their heads". Early bobbleheads depicting animals were sold by street vendors as novelties, presumably most were bought as gifts for children. Although not strictly considered bobblehead dolls, some examples of Japanese netsuke exist with bobblehead-like spring-operated features.
Bobbleheads as we know them today began to gain ground in the 1950s. By 1960, Major League Baseball had gotten in on the action and produced a series of paper-mache bobblehead dolls, one for each team, all with the same cherubic face. The 1961 World Series brought the first player-specific baseball bobbleheads, for Roberto Clemente, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Willie Mays, still all with the same face. Over the next decade, after a switch in materials from paper-mache to ceramic, bobbleheads would be produced for other sports, as well as cartoon characters. One of the most famous bobbleheads of all time also hails from this era: The Beatles bobblehead set, which is a valuable collectible today. By the mid-1970s, though, the bobblehead craze was in the process of winding down.
It would take nearly two decades before bobbleheads returned to prominence. Although older bobbleheads like the baseball teams and The Beatles were sought-after by collectors during this period, new bobblehead dolls were few and far between. What finally prompted their resurgence was cheaper manufacturing processes, and the main bobblead material switched once again, this time from ceramic to plastic. It was now possible to make bobbleheads in the very limited numbers necessary for them to be viable collectibles. The variety of bobbleheads on the market rose exponentially to include even relatively obscure popular culture figures and notable people. The millennium would bring a new type of bobblehead toy, the mini-bobblehead, standing just two or three inches tall and used for cereal prizes and such.
Bibliography
Hunter, Tim - Bobbing Head Dolls: 1960-2000 (Krause Publications, 2000)