Description

Strawberry Shortcake is a cartoon character used in greeting cards published by American Greetings. The line was later expanded to include dolls, posters, and other products featuring the character and an extended cast of friends and pets. In addition, the franchise has spawned television specials, animated television series and films. The franchise is currently owned by the Canadian children’s television company WildBrain through the holding company Shortcake IP Holdings LLC.

The Strawberry Shortcake line of characters each had their own fruit or dessert-themed name with clothing to match the fruit or dessert-themed name, and they each had a dessert or fruit-named pet. Like the Strawberry Shortcake doll, all the other characters’ dolls had hair scented to match their dessert theme. The characters lived and played in a magical world known as Strawberryland.

In 1979, toy manufacturer Kenner Products licensed the character and released the first Strawberry Shortcake doll. At the time, Strawberry Shortcake resembled a typical rag doll, complete with freckles, a mop of red yarn curls, and a bonnet with strawberry print on it. To reflect this, the toy was a rag doll, designed by Muriel Fahrion and made by Susan Trentel, Fahrion’s sister.

During the 1980s, Strawberry Shortcake became popular with children throughout the United States. At the time, there were many related products, such as sticker albums, clothing, bedding, a video game by Parker Brothers entitled Strawberry Shortcake Musical Match-Ups for the Atari 2600, and Bike’s Big Wheels. The Strawberry Shortcake Bicycle was introduced in 1983; production ended in 1990. Over the bike’s 7 year model run, it is estimated over 1 million of the Strawberry Shortcake Bicycles were sold, making the bike one of the most popular children’s character themed bikes ever produced. Several TV specials were made featuring the characters, one each year between 1980 and 1989, by which time the characters’ popularity had waned. Kenner produced no new dolls or toys thereafter.

In May 1983, following a court case, copyrights to Strawberry Shortcake were granted to Barbi Sargent from American Greetings Corporation.[8] Later on, Barbi returned the copyrights to American Greetings so that they could continue with the success of the Strawberry Shortcake franchise.

American Greetings manufactured Strawberry Shortcake Christmas ornaments, which are included in the Clara Johnson Scroggins collection, one of the world’s largest ornaments collections.[9]

In 1991, THQ tried reviving the franchise by producing an updated line of Strawberry Shortcake dolls. Strawberry and five of her classic friends each got a makeover with new clothes, hair, and eyes. However, the line saw only modest success and lasted just a year.

In 2002, the franchise was revived again, this time with a revamped look by a different designer. Many strong licensing deals were made. A television series with new home video releases was produced. Soundtracks for the episodes were also released.

Bandai (along with KellyToy) was granted the manufacturing rights of the Strawberry Shortcake dolls and toys. For the first time in almost two decades, new video games were launched, produced by The Game Factory for Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS. Educational CD-ROMs for the PC were also produced.

In 2006, Playmates Toys picked up the rights to manufacture and sell Strawberry Shortcake figurines. The line they produced was named “A World of Friends”. A full-length feature film, Strawberry Shortcake: The Sweet Dreams Movie, premiered in 2006 and was released on DVD in February 2007. Playmates Toys lost the manufacturing rights to Hasbro, which began releasing new Strawberry Shortcake–themed toys beginning in the fall of 2009, after American Greetings rebooted the franchise. Hasbro lost the manufacturing rights to The Bridge Direct in early 2014.