Polly Pocket Follow-Up: The Modern Playline Compacts

It's been a very restful Thanksgiving week for me here in New Jersey, and I was especially thankful that my son came for a visit and I didn't have to work on the holiday!  I hope that those of you who celebrate had a pleasant time as well.  I was a little stressed to come out of this week realizing that December is upon us, though!  Yikes.  That means I need to start getting my advent calendar series ready.

Between planning the advent calendar reviews and eating a lot of stuffing, I didn't have much time to pull together something new and creative for this week.  So, I decided to tie up loose ends from my last Polly Pocket review.  In that extensive post, I mentioned a few of the playline compact-style sets that are available right now, but I didn't have time to look at any of them in person.  Today I'll make up for that by showing you three of my favorites: the Monster High set, the Care Bears set, and the Hedgehog Cafe:

Polly Pocket in her Hedgehog Cafe from 2020 ($24.99).

Polly Pocket, Then and Now

I've talked about Polly Pocket dolls several times over the years.  The first time was back in 2015, when I reviewed  3.75 inch dolls from 2011 and 2012, and compared them to a Polly Pocket-themed Kinder Surprise egg that my husband generously bought for me.  More recently, I looked at the bizarrely entertaining Pop 'n Swap Pollys from 2008.  My advent calendar feature last December also included a 2024 Polly Pocket set with the smaller 1.25 inch Polly dolls.  Oh--and speaking of advent calendars, I have plans to do another advent mini series this December, but it'll be shorter and more focused than last time.

Anyway, the Polly Pocket advent calendar from last year got me thinking about the original Polly Pocket dolls--you know, the tiny little two centimeter ones that come in compact cases.  I never had any of those sets when I was a kid, and didn't purchase any as an adult collector, either, until just recently.  Today I'm going to be looking at a few sets from the late 80s and early 90s, and comparing them to similar toys from the last few years.  Because Polly Pocket is such a distinct and beloved brand, this review feels long overdue...and it's pretty long, too.  So grab a snack or a drink and settle in.

Various Polly Pocket toys, current and vintage.

Woof & Co. by Sunny Days Entertainment

I feel like I should call the last month or two of my life the Walmart Phase, because a lot of the things that I'm excited about lately are from Walmart.  And I don't shop at Walmart very often.  It all goes back to that tip about the LUV dolls being on sale for $7.50 (which they still are, btw).  While I was investigating that deal, I found about six other doll lines that were either on an irresistible clearance sale or were simply too appealing to ignore.  I really didn't need any fresh ideas for reviews, since I have enough dolls in my basement to last the rest of my life, but this is a good time of year to investigate some affordable dolls and toys that might be appealing to kids.  The Hey Besties that I just talked about would make wonderful holiday gifts, and I think the dolls in today's review would, too.

I hesitate to call the critters in today's review dolls, though.  That hesitation prompted me to look up the official definition of a doll, which is something you'd think I'd have done by now.  According to Merriam-Webster, a doll is "a small-scale figure of a human being used especially as a child's plaything."  So, yeah.  These aren't really dolls, because they're definitely not figures of human beings.  They're dogs:

Woof & Co. Finley, by Sunny Days Entertainment ($29.98).