Chuckyesque

Chuckyesque: adjective. Any toy that has the power to freak out anyone who looks at it.

I get frightened easily. Seriously. I spent so much time being scared as a child that my mother would carefully monitor any books I planned on reading to see if they could be considered too scary. Surely that would fix it. However, she missed two really important aspects: my dad let us watch horror movies when she wasn't looking, and I had the amazing power to scare myself with no assistance necessary.

This overactive imagination of mine has given me great gifts, such as an interest in crafts and literature, but has also been a big burden. Let me tell you about Baby Talks-A-Lot.

If you've ever seen a horror movie with an evil doll (and I certainly wish I haven't. Thanks, Dad), then you've seen something very similar to this doll. Baby Talks-A-Lot was made in the '80s and marketed as a doll that you can teach to talk. That's creepy enough, but even worse, over the years as ours got more worn and ratty, it started to look downright evil, which is why the title to this post is called "Chuckyesque." It really looked like a female Chucky.

I've had nightmares about this doll. I kept it in my closet. Finally, I tried to give it to my older sister (it was hers anyway), and she didn't want it. I thought she understood and shared my irrational fear of this strange toy, and told her about how I felt. Well, apparently she neither understood nor shared my feelings, and proceeded to make fun of me, as older siblings are prone to do, but in the end took the doll from me.

Now that I'm a mom, how do I feel about this? Well, if someone tried to give me or my children one, I would ask them to take it back. As a child of the '80s, I have no problem with '80s toys making a comeback, like My Little Pony and Carebears, but Baby Talks-A-Lot can stay in the closet of history, thank you.

By the way, if you want to see a picture of this horrifying doll, I'm providing a link. I'm pretty sure this is the right doll with a slight name change. Someone even asked on the page if it is Baby Talks-A-Lot. Our doll was the blond one.
http://www.inthe80s.com/toys/babytalk0.shtml