Crissy

Crissy

Ideal Crissy Doll with box, circa 1969
Type	18-inch (360 mm) doll
Company	Ideal Toy Company
Country	United States
Availability	1969–1974
Features	adjustable-length hair

Crissy is an American fashion doll with a feature to adjust the length of its hair. Crissy was created in the Ideal Toy Corporation's prototype department in 1968. She has auburn hair and is 18 inch (360 mm) tall. While having stationary foundation or base hair rooted to its head, the Crissy doll also had another adjustable thick strand or lock of hair that emerged from an opening in the top of the doll’s head, giving it the ability to adjust the length of its hair so a child could choose to make the hair short or long.

The creative idea and realization of a doll that “grows” hair originated not at Ideal Toy Company, but at the American Character Doll Company. The Ideal Corporation obtained the patents for the basic mechanism when they acquired them from the American Character Doll Company after that company's 1968 closure. American Character developed and used the concept as early as 1963 in their "Pre-Teen" Tressy, and later fashion dolls Tressy and Cricket. The patent for a grow hair mechanism awarded to Ideal in 1971 and attributed to inventors Francis Amici, Robert David, and Richard Levine is scarcely different from the original invention used in the 1963 Tressy doll.

With the Crissy doll’s hair fully or partially extended, turning a knob located on the doll’s back retracts the hair into the torso to be wound on an internal rod or spindle. The design of the knob and the body mold form a one-way ratchet which along with internal spring tension serves to hold the hair locked and stationary. Pushing and holding in a button on the doll's abdomen disengages the locking ratchet to allow the hair to be pulled back out of the Doll's Head. From a child’s perspective this ability to “grow” hair was the Crissy doll’s main appeal, as in play, Crissy had the potential to sport various types of hairstyles by adjusting the hair to different lengths and styling the hair appropriately.

After the New York Toy Fair in 1969, Ideal's "Beautiful Crissy" was released to the buying public. Each production year enjoyed some new variations. Production runs of the Crissy doll early in 1969 had adjustable hair that "grew" down to the doll's feet. Later production Crissy dolls in 1969 had hair extending only to hip length. This became the standard length for the later models produced in the following years. Hair quality of both these early dolls tended to be of a coarser or wooly quality than subsequent models.