Toy Ads That Time Forgot: My Buddy
My Buddy. The first attempt to get little boys to play with honest to God dolls. I hadn’t heard the obnoxious, yet catchy, tune from the My Buddy commercials for years before stumbling across it on YouTube, which further proves that YouTube is both a blessing and a curse upon the world. Much like the evil videotape in The Ring, I must pass on the My Buddy themesong to you:
My Buddy was available in several different themes as well:
The girls counterpart was Kid Sister, who also had an annoyingly catchy and similar jingle:
It’s notable that the girl’s version was called Kid Sister while the boy’s version was My Buddy. After all, what kid would want to hang out with their kid brother? They’d want to beat him up rather than hang out all day.
Aside from having a jingle that could serve as a torture technique, My Buddy is most responsible for inspiring the look of the doll from the Child’s Play (and later Chucky) series of movies. Sure it’s never been officially stated, but Child’s Play writer Don Mancini said on Bravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments that his father was in marketing and he was therefore exposed to a lot of marketing campaigns. Producer David Kirschner then says that Mancini was fascinated by a toy company that was pushing a doll that was best friend for kids. So I guess we have My Buddy to blame for eventually churning out the Bride of Chucky turds. Ugh.
toy, toy collecting, doll, commercial, advertisement, jingle, Playschool, My Buddy, Kid Sister, Child’s Play, Chucky
May 1st, 2007 at 3:01 pm
My Buddy came out when my brother was just the right age. I believe the My Buddy doll truly was his best friend for quite a while and I’ve never been able to get the jingle out of my head. I just thank God that I was a little to old to request a Kid Sister doll.
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:28 am
Curse you, Paul, for reminding me that My Buddy–and this commercial jingle–ever existed.
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:11 am
All I had to do was read the words “My Buddy” and the jingle started up in my head! GET IT OUT!
July 22nd, 2007 at 11:51 pm
[...] On a side note: Damn it, “I Heard it Through the Grape Vine” is now stuck in my head. Well, at least it isn’t the My Buddy jingle. [...]