American Girl, LLC | |
---|---|
President and CEO |
Pleasant Rowland (formerly; company now owned by Mattel) |
Founded |
1986 |
American Girl, also known as The American Girls Collection, is a children's lifestyle brand released in 1986 by Pleasant Company. Originally focusing on dolls portraying characters from different periods of American history, the company expanded its line into accessories, clothing and dolls from contemporary life.
The original dolls were a spinoff from the 18-inch dolls made by Götz in Germany during the late 1980s to the 1990s. Pleasant Rowland initially bought the remaining stock of Romina dolls from Götz in 1985-86, to be rebadged and marketed as Samantha Parkington, complete with books and various accessories. Around that time the company also released two other characters - Kirsten Larson and Molly McIntire, and in the 1990s American Girl introduced several other dolls from various time periods such as Felicity Merriman, Addy Walker, and Josefina Montoya, along with a line of dolls representing the modern era.
Mattel now oversees manufacturing of the toys as the company was acquired by the toy giant in 1998.
Hitler parody universe[]
In GewSaints and some of Subtitlecomedy's parodies, it was established that Hitler was a doll collector, ranting furiously whenever something goes wrong in relation to his rather girly hobby. Some of the dolls Dolfy owned were Kanani Akina, Lanie Holland and the recently-released Cécile Rey, Marie-Grace Gardner and Caroline Abbott dolls, of which the Fuhrer often brought along into his bunker office. It is unknown as to whether the Goebbels children had a toy from AG or two.
While it can be said that the company existed in the Parody Universe, perhaps even facing competition from Germany's very own Reich Girl toy line, some of the characters from AG's historical series did exist as real people in the alternate timeline, either working as "creative consultants" for the company, were simply interviewed, or even unaware that AG was making a fictional account of their lives.
Notable AG cast members[]
- Kit Kittredge
- Edward Merriman
- Felicity Merriman
- Maryellen Larkin
- Ruthie Smithens
- Samantha Parkington
Comparison with other themes[]
As with most other spinoffs, American Girl parodies take inspiration from Hitler Parodies in terms of aesthetics and recurring concepts. And like Inside Out Parodies, since the American Girl films are, well, American productions, parodies made with these films typically use foreign-language dubs depending on the sources available.