Toys / UglyDolls

Ugly is in. ^note (From left to right: Babo, Ox, Wage, Wippy, and Ice-Bat)

Uglydoll is a Korean-American series of collectable plush dolls concieved by David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim. Released in 2001, these dolls are the definition of Ugly Cute, with many different characters in the roster, as well as their own universe, the "Uglyverse", to call their own. All of the Uglydolls have their own personality quirks and differences, with "Ugly" being marketed as a positive adjective for individuality. Going with this, the Uglydolls avoid gender stereotypes, including Peaco, a pink guy who loves to dance, and Gorgeous, a girly girl who's an avid computer coder.

Uglydolls started off during Sun-Min Kim and David Horvath's courtship. Since they weren't able to see each other in person, they communicated with letters. David drew a doodle of the character who would become Wage on one of his letters, and Sun-Min turned it into a plush doll for him as a gift. Thus, the toys were born. Uglydolls were made in four sizes: The "Classic" size, which is the medium size and about 1 foot tall, the "Little Uglys", who are half the size and originally had wildly different colors, the "Clip Ons", which were tiny 1/4 size Uglydolls sewn to a plastic clip to hang on backpacks and the like, and the "2 Foot" size, which is exactly what it sounds like. ^note The Uglyworm character's dolls interacted with this sizing format in a unique way, as the doll is designed to have an extra-large single eye. To achieve this, the Uglyworm dolls under two feet all used the standard eye size made for the next doll size up! The "Citizens of the Uglyverse" line of unique Uglydolls was a new size, with dolls that were slightly smaller than the Classic size.

The toys were a huge success, being one of the biggest toy trends of the 2000s. However, after 2013, the line began to slow down for a while, producing novelty and licensed variations of older Uglydolls instead of new characters, being produced by Gund instead of Pretty Ugly LLC independently. The line returned to form in 2016, with a new group of characters available under the production of the Commonwealth Toy Company.

A film adaptation by STX Entertainment released in May 2019. The toyline for the movie saw Hasbro taking control of the master license until it expired. Three years later, in April of 2022, plans for new adaptations in the Uglydolls franchise were announced by Imagine Kids & Family. This announcement was concurrent with Nickelodeon greenlighting a animated adaptation of Horvarth's other creation Bossy Bear.

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Tropes of the Uglydolls:

• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Wage, the only standard Ugly to wear anything, wears a worker's apron.
• Aerith and Bob: Many of the names are based on puns, but some aren't, and some are neither, leading to names like Wedgehead among the likes of Sour Corn and Niimah.
• Alternate Universe: The Uglyverse, and the various other alternate universes that coexist with the Uglyverse.
  • "In an alternate universe, Babo is still Babo, only purple."
• All Love Is Unrequited: Niimah has a crush on Wage that he doesn't know about.
• All There in the Manual:
  • While Flatwoodsey lacks a bio to contribute to their cryptid-inspired mystery, and thus their gender would appear to be unknown, the red version of Flatwoodsey exclusive to FAO Schwarz advertised them as female.
  • The various guidebooks give extra expansion to the world the Uglys live in.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: The Uglys come in every color under the sun.
• Ambiguous Gender: All of the prototype Uglys, as they were never sold as dolls or put into the Uglyverse media where their genders could be established. A few released Uglys are ambiguous as well, as some, like Softy, have bios that don't include any pronouns to refer to them by.
• Animals Not to Scale: Gato Deluxe, Deer Ugly, Uglyworm, Uglydog, and Cheesy are all animalistic, but usually the same size as the other Uglys.
• Art Evolution: A few Uglys changed over time. Babo is a notable example, originally starting off grey and with different proportions. Eventually, his design became more infantile, with his color becoming pale blue and his shape rounding out. The plush version never got changed to match his evolution, but Tray, Jeero, Ice-Bat, and Cinko's dolls did.
• Bat Out of Hell: Ninja Batty Shogun is designed to evoke a spooky black bat, and especially looks the part when paired with his softer-shaped white mothy counterpart, Picksey.
• Bedsheet Ghost: Ghosty, the second ghost character, resembles a pale grey wisp with a rounded head akin to a classic sheet ghost.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Uglyworms, who, while depicted in material as smaller than the average Ugly, are still proportionally larger to them than real worms are to humans.
• Big Eater: Winkolina, whose bio lists the large amount of tacos, cookies, and an apple currently in her belly.
• Big Little Sister: Moxy is a head taller than her older brother, Ox. That's including his giant ears, too.
• Black Bead Eyes: The "Origins" line of characters have black dots with a small white highlight for eyes instead of the standard ones with pupils.
• Bland-Name Product: The Ugly Guides show an Ugly version of Apple's Finder icon, and a "Fony" television.
• Blowing a Raspberry: If an Ugly doesn't have teeth sticking out of their mouth, they'll often have a little tongue permanently sticking out instead. Ox and Cinko are the first and most noticeable for this appearance.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • Tutulu's tag bio claims that he used psychic powers to say "read my tag!"
  • Picksey's bio subverts this, explaining that the other Pickseys you see in the store are actually alternate-dimensional manifestations of the same Picksey.
  • Eya's bio tells you not to skip to the end of the tag.
• Catchphrase: Babo's is "What dat?".
• Cat Stereotype: Gato Deluxe is a bit pompous, and Cheesy is incredibly lazy.
• Cat Up a Tree: Niimah's cat keeps getting caught in a tree in the comic "My Hero". It turns out, she is the one getting it stuck in the tree, just for an excuse for fireman Wage to keep coming back.
• Carpet of Virility: Target sports chest hair (due to his age) which intimidates a few Uglydolls.
• Cartoon Creature: Everyone, but Fea Bea, the "Ugly Stick" stands out as an especially bizarre example. A few Uglys have recognizable animal or monster bases, but they're still rendered in the Uglyverse's cartoony and simple manner that shows they're not quite that recognizable entity they draw from.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: TooDee was discontinued fairly early for no discernible reason. Picky was an Ugly that had extremely limited production but never made it to the mass market.
• Cool Old Guy: Target is the token elder of the Uglydolls, whose age has brought him wisdom.
• Costume Evolution: Ice-Bat's Frostbite costume, in an attempt to hide his identity, goes from a simple domino mask, to a sleeveless cowl hoodie with a belt, to finally a sleeveless jumpsuit with an eye-covering helmet and jetpack. After he gives up on trying to hide his identity, he sticks with the second outfit.
• Creator In-Joke: Wedgehead's name comes from a reference to something creator David Horvath would pull against a lying toy store. Back in the 80s, when the classic Star Wars action figures were out, the only toy store that had them near him was a long bus ride away, forcing a call to them. The store would claim they had the figure he asked for, only to not when he went there. Fed up with having to deal with this multiple times, he concocted the name "Wedgehead" and asked if they had that figure. The store said yes, causing him to be able to catch the store in their own lie with a fake figure name. Come the creation of Uglydoll, the name Wedgehead was reused...and the same toy store did sell his doll.
• Crosscast Role: Many of the Crossover series contain Uglys that portray roles of the opposite gender. This includes Ox portraying The Wicked Witch of the West in the The Wizard of Oz series, and a good chunk of the Sanrio line, with Ice-Bat as Hello Kitty, Tray as Badtz-Maru, Ox as My Melody, and Uppy as Lala of the Little Twin Stars.
• Crossover: The licensed waves have crossed over with various series, such as DC Comics, KISS, and Sanrio.
• Cyclops: Many Uglys have only one eye, with Wedgehead and Target being the first.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Babo's Bird has no other known name.
• Dream Weaver: Dream Bat's ability is to help make good dreams become realities. Unless it's about donuts, those are cheap and can be bought with relatively no issue.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The overall look of the Ugly's bio tags grew more refined over time, as well as David Horvath's drawings.
  • The early green Ugly with "O" and "X" eyes had his name start off being rendered in all caps as "OX", and the bio tag referred to his name as "OX, as in hug and kiss", indicating that it would have been pronounced "O.X." as a pair of intials. Later, his name shifted to being rendered as "Ox" with the implicit pronunciation being the same as the ox animal.
  • The colorations and designs of some Uglydolls were different at the start than at the tail end of the toyline. Tray started off in the illustrations and toys with a pale pink color before switching to an intense hot pink later on. Ice-Bat's four teeth were unusually-spaced, with the middle two closer and separate from the outer two, and he had rounded feet before a later version gave him a more typical uniform row of four contiguous teeth and two toes on each foot. Jeero switched from a beige-grey color to a pale tea-green color in both drawings and his plush, with the plush itself having adjusted proportions. Cinko's dolls had a different body design and received an entirely new shape later in the line, as well as a more saturated brown color. Target got replaced by his orange Suntan Target variant. The Little Uglys half-size Uglydolls also started out by having unique color palettes, before switching to be the same colors as all other sizes of each character.
• Everyone Is Related: There are a lot of family connections.
  • Moxy is Ox's sister.
  • Mij and Tutulu are siblings.
  • Basheeshee is Big Toe's little brother.
  • Dream Bat is Ice-Bat's sister.
  • Abima is Wage's cousin.
  • Target is Cinko's older brother, and Peaco is their cousin.
• Expy: Some of them, like Cold Feet to Cinko ^note  Both have rounded heads and tentacle-like spotted arms , Dream Bat to Poe, Gragon, and Ice-Bat ^note  Which makes sense, seeing as she's the latter's sister , Sporko to Tray ^note  Original Tray was pale pink, and is a blue-eyed Ugly with three head lumps, and so is Sporko , Eya to Ox's looks and Peaco's passion for dance, and Tooly to Jeero ^note  They have the same face .
• Extra Eyes: Some Uglys have three eyes, with Tray, Cinko and Peaco starting the trend.
• F--: Puglee strives to get F-minuses for her grades, since low grades means she not smart enough for a job, so she wouldn't have to work. Unfortunately for her, she loves to read and write, so she's always getting straight A's, no matter what she does.
• Faeries Don't Believe in Humans, Either: Langis thinks whales are real, which is stated by his bio to be ridiculous. Ox's bio also mentions that he and Wedgehead are on a mission to prove the existence of humans...though it's really an excuse to have some snacks, which they're choosing to frame as scientific proof of human existence.
• Feather Fingers: All of the winged characters have no trouble using their wings as hands.
• The Flatwoods Monster: Flatwoodsey is portrayed as very a stylized Flatwoods Monster, to the point that the only recognizable sections are her name and the spade-shaped head. To keep with her cryptic background, her original toy's bio was simply a question mark. It took an FAO Schwarz-exclusive recolor of her to give her not just a bio, but a gender confirmation as well.
• Fog Feet: Ghosty has a wispy tail instead of legs.
• Funny Octopus: Target has multiple tentacles, two which serve as arms, and Cinko's arms resemble tentacles with suckers. Fittingly, they're brothers. Cold Feet also has tentacle arms and closely resembles Cinko. Within the Uglyverse, a prominent fast food chain is the goofy Tako Hut, which serves octopus dishes.
• Fun with Palindromes: Ikoy Yoki's name is a palindrome.
• Generation Xerox: The Ugly Guides show that the Uglys of ye olden days were more or less the same Uglys of modern times, only with ye olden problems to deal with.
• Genius Ditz: Wedgehead is a bit dim for the most part, but when he flips over, he's a master food critic...though it only works on cereal.
• Genki Girl: Moxy, to the point that she can't stay still and has a hyperactivity permit.
• The Ghost: Ugly Charlie's bio mentions a brother, Jrizzy, who has yet to be seen. This might have been a prototype name for the released Jay Jdizzy, however, since he's an Uglydoll with a similar name and a face that matches Ugly Charlie's.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: While never referenced directly, Picksey and Ninja Batty Shogun are a similar but contrasting pair released at the same time, resembling an angel and a devil.
• Hates Baths: Cinko, due to being extremely afraid of water. In one of the guidebooks, it mentions you wouldn't have to ask about if he hates them if it was a scratch and sniff book.
• Honest John's Dealership: Abima runs a rather dodgy mechanic business.
• An Ice Person: Ice-Bat. He can turn anything frozen with his touch.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Mr. and Mrs. Kasoogi, and Brip and Brip Drip, with each pair only differing in their colors.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Peaco loves to dance, and happens to be pink.
• Irony: Ghosty is scared of many things, and needs help sorting his fear issues out.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold/Jerk: Gato Deluxe.
  "Gato Deluxe is all that! He's got it going on big time! ... Or at least that's Gato Deluxe on the outside. On the inside, Gato Deluxe is a real sweetheart who knows he's all that, big time. Wait, that's the same."
• Kuleshov Effect: All of the Uglydolls are given flat expressions in their dolls and most of the books involving them, with their current emotions being determined by the context of dialogue, narration, and the rest of the scene. The comic books give them various visible emotions, however.
• Lampshade Hanging: TooDee and Flatter's names both reference the fairly two-dimensional designs of the dolls.
• Meaningful Name: Many.
  • Babo is reminiscent of a baby, being of a shorter stature in Uglydoll media and being the most innocent. "Babo" is also the Anglicized word for "fool" in Korean.
  • Wedgehead has a literal wedge-shaped head, and thinks less articulately when standing upright.
  • Moxy is full of energy and never stops moving. Her bio openly draws the connection between her name and her energy.
  • Target has one red eye, in reference to the red-bullseye logo of the shopping chain of the same name.
  • Cinko has five spots, three on one arm, and two on the other. "Cinco" is Spanish for "five".
  • Wage's name is slightly ironic, but it still applies, since he's a passionate worker. He's just not a paid employee.
  • Wage's Little Ugly, due to his size, is dubbed Minimum Wage.
  • Peaco was the first male Ugly with feminine colors, and loves to dance. Thus, his name is derived from "peacock", a species known for its flashy males.
  • Puglee is slightly doglike in design.
  • Ox is named for his "O" and "X"-shaped eyes.
  • Poe's dark mountain home and feared status may be a reference to Edgar Allan Poe.
  • Little Bent has one bent ear.
  • Winkolina's name could be interpreted two ways. Either that she has only one eye, so every time she closes it, it's a wink, or that she cannot wink because she only has one eye.
  • Looking at Pointy Max, (whose head is the opposite of Wedgehead's) it's no wonder where he got his name.
  • Picksey is vaguely fairy-like in design.
  • Mover has three feet and is constantly on the go.
  • Coli, a benefit-exclusive Ugly, was named for their cauliflower-like appearance.
  • Flatwoodsey is based on the Flatwoods Monster, allegedly an alien in a robe with a pointed round hood.
  • Cold Feet is nervous and afraid to do anything.
  • Hib Eyebeye^note "Hi, bye-bye" is always busy and can't stop to say hello.
  • Sporko has a short, stocky body topped by three separate head lumps. Sporks are hybrids of forks and spoons, featuring the rounded bowl of a spoon with short fork tines on the end.
  • Tray has three brains and three eyes, with "tres" being Spanish for three.
• The Mothman: Picksey, one of a few Uglydolls based on cryptids in design. Unlike the standard design of mothmen, he is a creamy white color, and shares many aspects with faeries as well. He also has interdimensional abilities, according to his tag. This is the reason there are multiple Picksey dolls at once, it's him from different times at the same time. Ironically, despite this nifty ability, he's worried all the time over various things, such as if he's too early or late, or if one of his alternate versions forgot to leave a tip somewhere and people would think he is the stingy one instead.
• Mutagenic Food: Tray's eyes are alleged to be blue because of her passion for blueberry pie, and TooDee is purple because he has grape juice so often.
• My Brain Is Big: Mynus visually invokes this with her large head protrusion and intelligent personality.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Ugly Guide 3 says that Babo is purple in an alternate universe, alluding to his initial Little Ugly version giving him the alternate body color of purple.
  • A line of wind-up Uglydoll toys made Peaco a swimming toy because his shyness about dancing leads him to seek privacy underwater.
• Naked Apron: In a safe for work variation, Wage only wears a worker apron, but this also happens to be more than other Uglys wear on a regular basis.
• Nervous Wreck: Trunko combines this with Crazy-Prepared, such as bringing a fire hose to a birthday in case the candles really need to be put out. Chuckanucka is even worse, as he worries about everything.
• Never Say "Die": Uglydolls are to all intents and purposes immortal, although references to the chance of not coming back alive are common, due to their ridiculous pasttimes.
  • That didn't stop Babo from becoming a floaty, cookie-halo'd version of himself at the end of Ugly Guide 3.
    Babo (floating away from a half-eaten cookie): "Wait, I wasn't done with that!"
• Nice Guy: Used verbatim to describe Sporko. This doesn't apply if you try to use his head as a rake.
• Ninja: Ninja Batty Shogun. He's fully into the art, and hates the cartoon ninjas that have overly bright flame-patterned outfits or that spell it with a "z" at the end.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: The Uglyverse doesn't feature romance to much of an extent at all. Uglys are capable of having crushes, as indicated by Niimah's attraction to Wage, but the only Uglys confirmed to be in a relationship are married couple Mr. and Mrs. Kasoogi.
• Nonindicative Name: One of the prototypes, a red, lobster-like being was dubbed "Aquatic Wage".
• Not Drawn to Scale: Subverted by the toyline having multiple sizes for the dolls, allowing for it to be possible to collect canonically smaller characters at an appropriate size, while also being able to get them at the same size as other characters when that clashes with their depictions in the Uglyverse media.
• Numerical Theme Naming: Tray has three eyes and three brains, and her name is a corruption of the word "three". Cinko has five spots on his arms, and is named after the spanish for "five", "cinco".
• Only Six Faces: Since Uglydolls all have the same style of mouth and eyes, the variation comes from the number, color, and placement of eyes and color, placement, and shape of teeth if they don't have a tongue instead.
• Our Cryptids Are More Mysterious: Flatwoodsey, based on the Flatwoods Monster, doesn't even have a bio on their tag. Winkolina seems to be a cyclops, Uglycorn is a unicorn, Nandy Bear is based on the nandi bear, and Target is kraken-like.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Poe, an Ugly Dragon. Gragon also counts.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The Ugly Ghost is a squat figure with stringy hair, black eyes, and likes to jump out and startle, while Ghosty is a three-eyed legless wisp with lots of fears of his own.
• Palette Swap:
  • Fea Bea came in two color schemes using different balances of yellow, blue, and pink, and both Bop n' Beep and Turny Burny were available in two different color schemes.
  • The "Little Ugly" editions of the Uglydolls once used different color schemes than their larger counterparts.
  • The same goes for the "Ice Lodge" ^note  White Uglys with black eyes and blue teeth and "Secret Mission" ^note  Standard Uglydolls with a black base color Uglys.
• Paranoia Fuel: Invoked by Ikoy Yoki's bio, which states that Ikoy Yoki are everywhere, even though you may not believe in them.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: While most Uglydolls don't follow this convention, Ice-Bat and his sister Dream Bat play it straight.
• Punny Name: Many of them overlap with Meaningful Name. Tutulu is one meaningless example, based on "toodle-oo", an expression for "goodbye".
• Really 700 Years Old: Brip Drip's bio mentions in passing that he's afraid that he's too young for caffeinated drinks. He's 200.
• Red Shirt: Babo's Bird is portrayed as the Star Trek variant in the crossover series, complete with crossed out eyes.
• Remember the New Guy?: New Uglys are never treated as such, which becomes especially obvious when new family relations like Abima or Dream Bat are introduced later than their relatives.
• Rule of Three: Tray has three eyes, three brains, and three head lumps.
• Shout-Out: In Ugly Guide 1 after Ice-Bat freezes Wedgehead with a touch, the latter says, "🛑🔨🕙".
• Sibling Rivalry: Mij and her brother Tutulu have a bit of trouble cooperating, but often make trouble together.
• Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: The Uglys include relatively realistic animals like Uglydog, Uglyworm, and Uglycorn, and more humanoid ones like Gato Deluxe, Deer Ugly, and Cheesy.
• Split Personality: Bop n' Beep, who literally share bodies with each other. Also, Turny Burny and the Double Trouble Uglys, all of whom are double-sided Uglydolls alongside Bop n' Beep.
• Sticky Fingers: Ox and Wedgehead have a tendency to "borrow" without the intent of returning. They claim it's their magic trick of turning your stuff into their stuff.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Somewhat averted. The females of the Uglyverse have almost no indications of gender save for their descriptions, and even then, some descriptions don't even use pronouns. Tray, Gorgeous, Puglee, Niimah, Quippy, Hib Eyebeye, Flatwoodsey, and Dream Bat play it straight with their typically feminine colors. Exceptions are below.
  • Moxy and Winkolina are green, Mrs. Kasoogi is orange, Mij is light green, Suddy is orange, Sour Corn is bright red, and Jiker and Fibby are blue.
  • Peaco, Uppy, Wippy, Wrey Wrinko, Ugly Charlie, Heu Googeuy, Trunko, Gerry Berry Mr. Kasoogi, and TooDee complicate it further, as the first seven are guys in shades of pink, and the latter four are purple males.
• Toothy Bird: Babo's Bird has the Uglydoll-style buck teeth.
• Toyless Toyline Character: Most prominently, the white Uglydog-like all-purpose character and a few other Uglys that have only been in drawings.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Babo and cookies, Tray and blueberry pie, TooDee and "Grape Drink", and Pointy Max and cheese.
• Uncatty Resemblance: Babo and his bird have virtually identical faces.
• Unconventional Smoothie: Ninja Batty Shogun's smoothie to show off the ability of the Black Belt Juice Ninjanator. It is a week's worth of nutrition in a single three gallon glass of juice (something that both he and Ice-Bat agree is pretty dangerous). Inside it contains various fruits and vegetables, whole grains, quasi-legal nutrient power blends, and a pineapple cube for extra sweetness. The ensuing result is so vile that Ninja Batty Shogun's forced to scrape his tongue with donuts to get the taste out, and then passes out into a fetal position.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: UFOs? Nah, they're business as usual.
• Updated Re-release: Cinko and Target's original dolls were discontinued to be replaced with a darker, rounder Cinko and Suntan Target. Tray, Jeero, and Ice-Bat also had changes made. The updated dolls tended to recieve more saturated colors that were likely intended to appeal more to kids, while also having a few changes to better reflect the refined artwork of the franchise.
• Vague Age: Most of the Uglys have no defined age, letting them be used in various situations. However, it's known that Wage is old enough to hold down a regular job and that Target is the eldest of all the Uglys. Babo is also implicitly more young or childlike than the other Uglys despite indulging in some of the more adult privileges of the other cast members.
• Visual Pun: In the comic "Climb, Wage, Climb", Wage is groomed to be the replacement manager...as he gets his head shampooed and gets a facial.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Cinko is terrified of water, to the point he never bathes and can't even drink the stuff. Even things like watermelon and pool toys heighten his fear.
• Wingding Eyes: Some Uglys use "X" shapes for eyes, like Ox, Bop, Handsome Panther, and Nopy.

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