Indie Squid Kid

I venture to guess that most people are at least tacitly familiar with Beanie Babies, the hugely successful line of stuffed animal toys by Ty Inc. Beanie Babies were first introduced in 1993, and they still being made to this day. At one time, there was a rabid collectors market for the cute little toys, but that has been in decline for some time. Over the years, Ty has produced three different octopus toys, and, as you will see, the accuracy of the reproductions increases over time.

Inky the Octopus (6/03/1994 – 5/01/1998)

Inky’s head is big and round
As he swims he makes no sound
If you need a hand, don’t hesitate
Inky can help because he has eight!

Inky was the first Beanie Baby octopus, and it was your typical cartoony representation that bears little resemblance to any actual animal. Three different variants were produced: two gray versions (one had a mouth and one didn’t) that were pretty rare, and a common smiley pink version.

Wiggly the Octopus (1/25/2000 – 3/27/2001)

Under the sea I travel with ease
I flip and flop – do whatever I please
Being a squid can be lots of fun
Because I swim faster than anyone!

Ty’s next octopus was a vast improvement over old Inky…it actually looks quite a bit like a real cephalopod! The poem quoted above (all Beanie Babies have a little poem printed in their tag) seems to claim that Wiggly is a squid, but it’s abundantly clear that he is, in fact, an octopus. Its coloration is a cool shimmery red with white marbling, and there are these two weird stubby bits protruding from either side of the mantle. I have no idea what these are supposed to be, and I’d like to think that I am pretty well versed in basic octopus anatomy! Still, Wiggly is fine little toy, and the only one of these Beanie Babies that I actually own.

Opie the Octopus (4/23/2005 – 3/27/2006)

I live in the ocean blue
Have eight arms and a siphon, too
I squirt black ink and have two eyes
My body fits to any size !

Lastly, we have Opie, the latest and most accurate Beanie cephalopod yet. I’ve never seen it in person, but from the dark vein-like markings, it looks like it might have been based on the Coconut Octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus). The common version (shown here) has blue eyes, but there was also a limited edition version with red eyes that was exclusively sold at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s Ty Warner Sea Center.

Tags: Beanie Babies, octopus, plush, Plush Week

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 24th, 2010 at 11:45 pm and is filed under octopuses, toys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.