Droll Status Symbol

When I was in 3rd grade, these guys were the rage:  the more of them you owned, the greater your prestige, and even amongst the trolls, there was a ranking:  unfortunate ones with such insipid hair colors as black or white decidedly didn't qualify very high on the totem pole.  Now, hair colors like pink or orange or lime green:  those were way cool!  They transformed you into a school celebrity. 

So of course, I wanted at least one, but not just because of the status they conferred;  frankly, they enchanted me.  I was utterly spellbound by them:  the unique smell they emitted (when you sniffed them close-up---yes, even back then, I was already inquisitive, LOL!), their cutesy potbellies and disarming grins, their clothability (I envied a classmate who crafted and sold irresistible felt outfits, professionally wrapped in newcomer Saran Wrap---which we were too poor to afford, and I couldn't picture myself hawking them in wax paper, the staple sandwich packaging material in our household), and not to forget!  The brushability of their long hair (tho if you carried that too far, you'd end up with a troll who looked like he'd gone thru chemo).  Oh yes, I doted on trolls as thoroughly as teen girls of those years worshipped the Beatles.

It got even worse when they started appearing in different sizes (the first ones had measured about 3" high):  I just about had a fetish for the one inch ones that fit on the end of a pencil.  My fondest wish was to own at least 100 of those in all different haircolors (my German grandmother inadvertently nixed that by instead giving me a brawny, blackhaired 7" one; he reminded me of a caveman, so he immediately reaped the benefit of my newfound crochet skills in the form of a flintstone outfit).

Since I'm a history buff, I was amazed to find out the genesis of the dolls.  But I'm not at all amazed that they keep having repeated high tides of saleability.