Troll doll
 |
|
| Type | Doll |
|---|---|
| Inventor | Thomas Dam |
| Company |
DreamWorks Animation (NBCUniversal) |
| Country | Denmark |
| Availability | 1959–present |
A Troll Doll is a type of plastic doll with furry up-combed hair depicting a troll, also known as a Dam doll after their creator Danish woodcutter Thomas Dam. The toys are also known as good luck trolls, or alternatively gonk trolls in the United Kingdom.
The dolls were originally created in 1959 and became one of the United States' biggest toy fads in the early 1960s. They became fads again in brief periods from the 1970s through the 1990s and were copied by several manufacturers under different names. During the 1990s, several video games and a video show were created based on troll dolls. In 2003, the Dam company restored their United States copyrights, stopping unlicensed production. In 2005, the brand was modernized under the name Trollz, but it failed in the marketplace.
In 2010, it was announced that DreamWorks Animation were making a feature film based on the dolls, which was released in 2016. On April 11, 2013, DreamWorks Animation announced that they had purchased the Troll doll brand outright from the Dam company.
Troll dolls were originally created in 1959 by Danish fisherman and woodcutter Thomas Dam. Dam could not afford a Christmas gift for his young daughter Lila and carved the doll from his imagination. Other children in the Danish town of Gjøl saw the troll doll and wanted one. Dam's company Dam Things began producing the dolls in plastic under the name Good Luck Trolls. The dolls became popular in several European countries during the early 1960s, shortly before they were introduced in the United States. They became one of the United States' biggest toy fads from the autumn of 1963 to 1965. The originals were of the highest quality, also called Dam dolls and featuring sheep wool hair and glass eyes. Their sudden popularity, along with an error in the copyright notice of Thomas Dam's original product, resulted in cheaper imitations.
The Dam company never stopped their production of trolls in Denmark, where they were always a popular item. In the late 1980s, the Dam trolls started making another comeback in North America. The E.F.S. Marketing Associates, Inc was one of the few corporations which was granted permission to import and market the Thomas Dam trolls for resale in the United States. These Dam Trolls were marketed under the trade name of Norfin (R) Trolls, with the Adopt A Norfin Troll logo on the tags.
...
Wikipedia