Trivia / American Girls Collection

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: Kaya refers to her younger brothers' ages as "winters", saying they're four winters old. There's precedent for various Plains Native peoples measuring their ages by seasons (known as winter count), though it's not clear if the Nimiipuu (a Pacific Northwest tribe) specifically measured ages this way.
• Acclaimed Flop: Critics loved Kit Kittredge: An American Girl with many of them walking into the theater expecting to hate it due to the relation to the doll line and ending up gushing about it. Theaters didn't feel the same way about scheduling it to show, nor did audiences about seeing it if they even knew it was out. While it made back more than its budget, it wasn't by much—$10 million to make, $17.7 in box office. It made less money than the Bratz movie ($26 million)!
• Acting for Two: The Japanese dub of the Amazon Maryellen special had Yuka Maruyama voice both Maryellen's older sister Caroline and younger brother Tom Larkin.
• Breaking News Interruption: NBC aired Saige Paints The Sky on July 13, 2013; the final minute of the movie was cut on East Coast feeds due to the announcement of the George Zimmerman trial verdict. The outrage from the interruption may have accounted for why Isabelle Dances Into the Spotlight was aired on the Disney Channel, since Disney was far less likely to be disrupted by a broadcast interruption.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: The brand has been a hit amongst children in the United States since the 1980s and continues to make millions yearly, but has suffered some decline.
• Cast the Expert: Isabelle Dances Into the Spotlight has professional ballerina Jackie Sanchez played by Tanya Howard, a soloist with the National Ballet of Canada.
• California Doubling:
  • Toronto, Ontario stands in for upstate New York in Samantha's film; colonial Williamsburg, Virginia in Felicity's film; the fictional town of Jefferson, Illinois in Molly's film; Cincinnati in Kit's film; and Washington D.C. in Isabelle's film.
  • Winnipeg doubles for Seattle in McKenna Shoots For The Stars and Albuquerque, New Mexico in scenes for Saige Paints The Sky (though most of the film was shot in New Mexico, the setting of the stories).
  • Grace Stirs Up Success is set in the fictional town of Bentwick, Massachusetts and Paris, France. While some scenes were shot in Paris, others were shot in Romania and Hungary.
  • Lea To The Rescue uses South Africa as a stand-in for Manaus, Brazil and St. Louis, Missouri in the Bookend scenes of the movie.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Common misconceptions are frequently cited in news articles, by people who don't do the research and/or only remember things from their childhood inaccurately.
  • The claim of the modern dolls that launched in the 90s are custom-ordered or personalized to look like the recipient. American Girl didn't offer custom-design dolls until 2017 and the "modern" dolls that are assumed to be customized are actually picked from a set pool of options which aren't modified from however they're designed at release. There's often more options for white female children—the first twenty dolls were mostly light-skinned with the same face mold—so recipients who matched those looks or were given dolls to look like them may think they were customized. Or mistake them for another then-available brand, MyTwinn.
  • Any clickbait article that claims that American Girl dolls are worth thousands of dollars on the secondary market. The article will often link to eBay auctions that are listed for thousands of dollars for dolls and/or collection items. What's not said is how these auctions almost always end without a single bid or purchase. The majority of collectors searching on the secondary market don't want to or outright refuse to pay high prices for secondary clothes or much more than $150 for a new in box doll, and that's for unique dolls that are harder to find such as Cécile or Kanani; even they can be found at sensible prices with patience or through direct sales among collectors, especially as children who had them age up and sell off old collections. No one's paying $2000 for a incomplete used Samantha in messy clothes missing her shoes and stockings unless they have more dollars than sense.
  • This article about Lila states that "Josefine Montoya [...] struggles with the recent loss of her mother after the Mexican-American war." The Mexican–American War was from from 1846 to 1848. Josefina's series is set in the 1820s.
  • In an article by Entertainment Weekly, contributor Jessica Wang erroneously lists the first three Historical Characters — Kirsten, Samantha and Molly — as from World War II; Kirsten was a Swedish immigrant from the 1850s Pioneer era, while Samantha was from the Edwardian era during the turn of the 20th century.^note American Girl previously marketed her as a "bright Victorian beauty", even when Queen Victoria was already dead since before the start of her stories. Molly is the only one of the original bunch who actually represents the wartime era. This was later corrected by removing the incorrect paragraph; the original error can be seen here.
• Creator Backlash: It feels as though American Girl wanted nothing more to do with Cécile and Marie-Grace when their collection sold poorly, initially. Dolls and items went on heavy discounts soon after launch, they were retired three years in (as part of ending Best Friends lines) and for years the only references to them on the official website were in the Character archives. This has since changed as in 2020, the entire series and Cécile's mystery were made free as part of a diversity initiative, and in 2023 the long retired Marie-Grace face mold came back into rotation for other dolls. However, the characters are still not included in multi-character books, even if the books include characters such as Kirsten (who was archived in 2009, but as one of the first characters is likely seen as more iconic to older people and was rereleased in 2024).
• Dawson Casting:
  • The actors in the Addy play Addy:An American Girl Story for Addy, Sarah, Harriet, and Sam Walker were all played by adult actors. This was preferred over trying to direct children. (Esther was "played" by a prop doll.)
  • Shailene Woodley was 13 when she played as Felicity.
  • Canadian teen actress Erin Pitt was 13 when portraying the nine-year-old Isabelle Palmer.
  • The cast of American Girl Live are in their late teens to early adulthood. This is presumably to save both the production company and American Girl the trouble of having to deal with child labor laws as they will be on a nationwide tour, with different states having differing legislation concerning child performers.
• Diagnosis of God: In Kavi's journal, Kavi does not explicitly refer to herself as someone with ADHD; she does describe having several of the symtoms, such as being easily distracted and her mind going all over the place. There are two ADHD specialists on her advisory board (Rae Jacobson, MS, a specialist focusing in mental health, ADHD and learning differences; Allison Tyler, a counselor and social worker who provides strategies and tools for people with ADHD to thrive; and Anna Degroot, a 15 year old interested in understanding and raising awareness of mental health issues) that show this to have been intentional.
• Direct to Video: All the movie adaptations except Kit's were released as TV Movies that went direct to video or direct to streaming.
• Fake American: Maya Ritter and Erin Pitt, who played Molly McIntire and Isabelle Palmer respectively, are Canadian. Ditto with English actresses Rebecca Mader and Julia Ormond playing the role of Samantha's aunt Cornelia and Kit's mother Margaret, respectively.
• Fake Brit: The actress who plays Emily in Molly's movie, Tory Green, is actually of Australian descent.
• Fandom Nod: AG's official Instagram posted a shoutout to a Fandom VIP, Bella Muntean, on the anniversary of her death from an aggressive form of bone cancer. The post included a link to her account and a photo of dolls' wrists, wearing the cloth yellow bracelet that was part of Blaire's accessories, her being the then-active Girl of the Year. The bracelet is largely taken to be a nod of respect to Bella.
• Follow the Leader: In this case, them being said leader; while there'd always been some degree of "a doll with a story attached" and companion-age dolls around, American Girl was one of the first to take off the way it did. The success of the franchise led to myriad brands of 18-inch (or near to it) dolls, several with a similar premise of characters including Magic Attic Club. Some of them, like Target's Our Generation dolls by Battat or My Life As from WalMart, are intentionally compatible with their American Girl counterparts, making their accessories and clothes a suitable low-cost alternative to items sold by AG. A number of companies, such as the Canada-based Maplelea Girls, Australian Australian Girl, or British "A Girl for All Time", apply the AG formula of characters and/or history to suit their national tastes. Meanwhile others market their AG-like dolls as The Moral Substitute especially for devoutly religious or conservative parents, as in the case of Dolls from Heaven or the now-defunct Life of Faith based on the public domain Elsie Dinsmore series. Even Dear America briefly sold dolls designed by Madame Alexander.
• Franchise Killer: Kit's movie, AG's first and only theatrical release, flopped in theaters, making just above its cost back (Budget: $10 million; Box office total $17.7 million). This led to a moratorium on making historical movies, including a rumored Julie musical movie. The next movies released were all direct to video/made for TV movies focusing on the Girls of the Year characters. The next historical films were short films free to watch on YouTube focused on Julie and Maryellen. This was later followed by Amazon specials for Historicals, but these were shorter than the full feature length movies with lower budgets.
• Franchise Ownership Acquisition: The first dolls released in the line were made by Germany-based Götz using existing molds from the company that Pleasant Rowland bought the rights to for the Pleasant Company line. The line moved to China for production in the mid 90s, and in 1998 Pleasant Rowland sold the line to toy giant Mattel; they took over in 2000 and have owned and manufactured the brand since.
• Inspiration for the Work: Pleasant Rowland gave three personal stories as inspirations for creating the line: a trip to historic Colonial Williamsburg where she saw people interacting with living history; an inability to find dolls for relatives that were not either baby/child dolls or adult dolls, rather than companions the same age as the intended recipient (though these existed, they were not as prominent as Barbie or Cabbage Patch Kids, which were the dominant brands at the time); and a story of her finding an old, well-loved doll in an attic in a storage trunk and being inspired to continue with the project, which was often posted on the back of catalogs. The last story is Very Loosely Based on a True Story; while the doll exists, the doll was actually a mint condition museum piece donated by the owner decades prior and part of the Wisconsin History museum and was borrowed, then posed with the damaged trunk for the advertisement.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • When the Short Stories were taken out of American Girl Magazine and published separately, two of Kirsten's short stories, "Kirsten and the Thief" and "Kirsten's New Teacher,", were not included in her set or reprinted. This is also true with the short plays for Kirsten, Molly, Samantha, and Felicity which were printed in the magazines and never reprinted elsewhere.
  • Flash and App games released for the brand are no longer legitimately available online both due to website revisions that removed the games, removal of games from the Apple App Store and Google Play, and the depreciation of Flash in 2020. This means the savvy American Girl fan has to find an APK, IPA or ISO installer for their phones or tablets. Some of the Flash games have also been archived by BlueMaxima's Flashpoint, a Web Game preservation project.
  • Many older books such as the Short Stories (though Addy's were later Rereleased for Free), History Mysteries series, and the Travel Adventures have also been out of print from American Girl for years, as are the books for retired dolls (though they were originally kept available). These are common on the secondary market, and the American Girl website has older character first volumes on the site in their online Bookshop for free download.
  • In 2023 movies on Amazon Prime for Maryellen, Melody, Ivy and Julie, and Z were removed. Since they were all only released on the service, this makes them unavailable through common means. Z's movie, Summer Camp: Friends for Life, as well as Melody's movie Love Has To Win was later restored on the official American Girl YouTube account.
• Licensed Game: Five games from THQ games were released—three for PC (Julie Saves the Eagles, Kit: A Treehouse of My Own, and Mia Goes for Great) and two for the Nintendo DS (Julie Finds a Way and Kit: Mystery Challenge) The DS games were not very good.
• Market-Based Title: An American Girl: McKenna Shoots for the Stars was released as American Girl: Shooting for the Stars in PAL regions and Asia, as the American Girl line is not as prominent in those locations. The brand is probably better-known to foreign audiences than the actual characters, especially limited-edition ones like the Girls of the Year.
• The Merch: From historically accurate underwear to doll-sized cellphones, the dolls have everything. However, it was missed with the BeForever revamp: the My Journey books feature various tokens from their eras in the plot as the time-travel item, but none of them were made available—while the coins were taken out of the accessories sold for the Historical Character dolls. Thus, at the same time that a doll-sized coin from 1864 would have been a great thing to play with, the coins were no longer available.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: Of the medium-shift variety. While prior films were been live-action, Courtney's short film was released in 2020 when COVID-19 made filming live action too hazardous especially for child actors. Her half-hour short film was done in stop-motion animation with the dolls, something the brand had only done in promotional YouTube shorts before.
• Milestone Celebration: Several have been made:
  • The 10th Anniversary in 1996, while mostly a quiet affair, did have the release of special anniversary shirts for doll and child. This also included the launch of the American Girl Historical Club, which rewarded people who completed book tasks and activities with a unique set of charms for an included bracelet.
  • The 20th anniversary had no special products but did have an interview with the now-adult model who displayed children's sized clothing for Kirsten on a catalog cover, as well as interviews with other adults who had childhood memories of American Girl.
  • For the 25th anniversary in 2011, the company released special-edition miniature dolls of all the the characters in holiday or winter wear; this also included the launch of new characters Marie-Grace and Cécile.
  • Caroline, the War of 1812 character, was released on the 200th anniversary of the war in 2012.
  • The 30th Anniversary in 2016 had eight of the then-active BeForever characters released as mini-dolls in unique outfits from their collection; their stands posed them in a position similar to the walking pose on the first-edition books. (Kaya, who had a very limited outfit selection, was given the same dress she had in 2011: her special deerskin dress.)
  • During the 35th anniversary in 2021, the company rereleased the first six Historical Characters in "classic" (original) versions of their meet outfits, many of which had been retired with BeForever. These sets also included their accessories, boxes similar to the first edition ones (only now with open windows) and first edition updated reprints of their meet books.
  • In celebration of Kit's 100th birthday in 2023, she was rereleased in the Classic version of her meet outfit with accessories and the first edition of her meet book, similar to the 35th Anniversary dolls. This also includes rereleased versions of selected outfits and items from her collection.
• No Dub for You:
  • The video games were only released in English with no alternate-language soundtracks, subtitles or game UI languages available.
  • However, most of the films, despite American Girl being not nearly as known overseas by those besides toy collectors, have been dubbed. A Hungarian dub of Samantha: An American Girl Holiday has surfaced on YouTube, and Unterganger Venkyra21 discovered a Czech dub of the Felicity movie whilst looking for sources to be used on one of his Hitler Rants parodies. Japanese, German and Italian dubs of the BeForever and contemporary character movies can be found in their respective Amazon marketplaces, as well.
• No Export for You:
  • When the line was restructured to have select Chapters-Indigo locations in Canada carry a selection of AG products beyond the books, not all items were sold in Canada or could be shipped there from AG's site, even though they'd shipped everything before (as the law requiring items sold by a Canadian retailer to have bilingual packaging now applied). The blockaded items slowly were adapted and now nearly everything can be sold in Canada (though the stores closed in 2023, orders can be placed online). Josefina and her collection were the last to get past the embargo, despite the fact that you'd think it would have been Caroline since she represented the opposite side of the War of 1812.
  • The Android versions of the apps are only available in North America and several other select markets. This is in contrast to the iOS versions of the apps which are available worldwide with no restrictions.
  • Due to design, 35th Anniversary dolls and the Kit 100th Birthday release couldn't be sold outside of the US market.
  • As of Brexit, while dolls can still be ordered and shipped to the UK, they cannot be sent in for repairs due to the fees in returning them.
  • By 2020 all American Girl retail outlets outside the States and Canada were closed, meaning those outside of those two countries (Canada can still have items shipped, if not purchased in-person) have to have items they want imported or purchased from the local secondary market—if there's anyone collecting those dolls in the area at all.
  • Likely due to licensing with the Disney company, no items in the Disney Princess collection can be shipped outside of the US and Canada.
• No Port For You: Several of the company's mobile games are iOS exclusives, with no discernible reason. This is no longer the case with newer game releases, although there is often freemium stuff tacked in.
• Playing Against Type: Marcia Gay Harden, best known for her Aloof Dark-Haired Girl, Deadpan Snarker, Ice Queen roles, played the warm and motherly Mrs. Merriman in Felicity: An American Girl Adventure.
• Post-Release Retitle: After the BeForever branding was dropped and the books abridged to add illustrations back in, books were retitled to add in the character's first name prominently e.g. Nanea's first book, Growing Up with Aloha was retitled Nanea: The Spirit of Aloha.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Abigail Breslin, a fan of the American Girls brand, played the main character role in Kit's movie.
  • Sidney Fullmer, who was discovered at an American Girl store, landed the main role in the Saige movie.
  • AG community member 5hensandacockatiel has been featured in multiple promotional photoshoots to coincide with product launches, including the the release of the Z Yang doll whose stories are set in Seattle. She and another creator also were the hosts on the short-lived American Girl fan podcast.
  • African-American author Brit Bennett penned the Claudie Wells books and was inspired to be a writer from meeting Connie Porter—creator of the Addy series—and told of this in the introduction to Meet Claudie, including that she owned an Addy doll, performed in the short version stage plays sold, and played The American Girls Premiere as a child.
• Quietly Cancelled:
  • Unlike the BeForever launch, the end of the rebranding was quietly made and mostly done via the changing of labels for the Historicals and slowly transitioning books from from the text-only two-volume books (which still contained all six volumes) to the abridged illustrated volumes that added pictures but removed stories and scenes.
  • Some behind-the-scenes details of a movie based on the stories of Tenney Grant leaked in late 2016; however, the movie was quietly canned as Tenney was hastily retooled as a "Contemporary" character to give way to Gabriella following calls for greater diversity within the doll line.
• Real-Life Relative: Nan Merriman (in Felicity's movie) was played by Eulala Scheel, daughter of Marcia Gay Harden who played Mrs. Merriman.
• Refitted for Sequel: Holiday books were originally going to be called A Surprise for (Character) before ending up with (Character)'s Surprise instead. Ten years after the title naming scheme, Caroline's holiday book was called A Surprise for Caroline.
• Rereleased for Free:
  • During the COVID-19 Pandemic, the company re-released select books from their back catalogue as free PDF downloads for children to read and pass the time as numerous cities and locales have implemented quarantine protocols, which kept the young ones from playing outside or attending school.
  • The George Floyd protests led to American Girl re-releasing the series for their African-American characters for free in a bid to promote greater racial equality and diversity.
  • Older books for characters that are no longer for purchase are available on the website in their Museum Bookshop and can be downloaded at no cost as well as read online. Along with excerpts for books available for purchase, the files include the first (or singular) book in the full text.
  • After they were pulled from Amazon, American Girl put Z's movie, Summer Camp: Friends for Life and Melody's movie Love Has To Win on their YouTube account.
• Saved from Development Hell: Rumors of a new American Girl doll, Rebecca, began to surface in the adult collector community as far back as 1998 when Mattel trademarked the name of the character. Eventually details leaked that she'd be the first Jewish historical. However, she seemed abandoned with dolls for Native American Kaya and 1970s girl Julie (and the entire Best Friends line) appearing instead. Rumors of prototypes of Rebecca being seen by company insiders floated the entire time with various descriptions given of her appearance, but most of the collecting world had given her up as an idea dumped on the drawing room floor. Following the retirement of Samantha in 2008, American Girl finally confirmed they were producing Rebecca, who was released in May of '09. According to this article, Rebecca was planned to be released in 2004, but then was pushed aside as the company focused on the American Girl movies and the then-success of the Best Friends Line.
• Screwed By The Studio: Kit's movie was screwed over by theaters, many of which barely advertised it or waited up to a month after it came out and what hype there was had died down to show it (and even then, sometimes for less than a week!). Public opinion is that the theaters had been burned the previous year by a doll movie and didn't want to take a chance on another one.
• Show Accuracy/Toy Accuracy: Molly and Ruthie both had brown eyes in the books, but both of their dolls have grey eyes (despite the grey eyes originally being prone to a manufacturer defect). A possible reason for Molly having grey eyes was to further distinguish her from Samantha, who also shared a similar hair color when they and Kirsten were the only three, but none was given for Ruthie.
• Troubled Production:
  • Lindsey was released only ten days before September 11, 2001, and struggled to sell well through her year and a half of availability—in part due to a small collection and the idea of a limited modern character being new (and disparaged by the fandom, which often prefers the Historical Characters and considers them more "realistic".)
  • It's basically an open (but unconfirmed) secret that Tenney was likely planned to be the 2017 Girl of the Year. Following public complaints about the lack of diversity in the line on CBS (including a reporter asking a representative on-air, during an interview about Melody's release, why there had never been a Black Girl of the Year and pointing this out) one of the Truly Me dolls was turned into the Girl of the Year, Gabriela, while Tenney was delayed before being part of a short-lived new Contemporary line that only lasted as long as she was available. Stills surfaced online for a Tenney movie that was cancelled, likely to keep people from asking why the new white character got one while the black Girl of the Year didn't. There were also rumors of a Jaya doll that was supposed to be produced.
  • Corrine's movie—the first live-action movie since Lea's release year in 2016—was scheduled to be released December 2022 during her focus year in a partnership between American Girl and HBO. However after the merger between Discovery and Warner Bros. resulted in the cancelling of multiple completed projects, the movie wasn't released with rumors it would be written off. The movie was finally released quietly on Prime Video in July 2023 with nowhere near the fanfare that it had been planned for.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Valerie Tripp admitted in an interview that her first draft of writing the last three books of Samantha's series (which she took over from the first two authors) had her kill off Grandmary so Samantha could then move in with her Uncle Gard and Aunt Cornelia. She showed the draft to her husband who said the idea was heartless, so she changed it so Grandmary instead married the Admiral (an admirer who had been asking to marry her for years) and they left on a cruise around the world for their honeymoon. Grandmary narrowly avoided dying so Samantha could move in with her aunt and uncle.
  • One prototype for Mia resembled Sonali instead of the white redhead released; there were two dark skinned prototypes.
  • This video shows preliminary design sketches for some of the older historical characters' book covers and outfits, revealing details like (Name)'s Surprise books were originally going to be called A Surprise for (Name) and that a lot of characters' wardrobes had plenty of discarded concept art. Kaya's concept art is especially varied and seems like the company considered many different tribes for her to be from before settling on the Nez Perce.
  • A historical fashion activity book shows a mock up version of Rebecca's cousin, Ana. Since the Best Friend line was discontinued, Ana was never made.
  • It's widely suspected that Tenney was supposed to be the 2017 Girl of the Year. Hints include Gabriela's thrown-together collection and recycled character design (a near-identical modern line doll, 46, was pulled from shelves shortly before her release and recent purchasers were offered Gabriela's meet outfit at no cost). This is compared to Tenney's unique design and elaborate collection, including the first boy doll and a large set piece at launch as had been done for several years, and early peeks of an upcoming movie on social media (but production was silently ended after Tenney was released). However, during the promotion for Melody in 2016, a CBS reporter asked a representative why there had yet to be an African American Girl of the Year in the fifteen years of the line. It's suspected that, along with years of campaigns for more diversity in the limited-edition line, this made the company pivot to Gabriela as an course correction. This also explains why Tenney was then used to launch a new line—the Contemporary Characters—which included her own sidekick, Logan (when they'd never had a boy or a teenager as a doll before outside of non-18" lines and the Best Friend line had ended years prior) and a pre-existing character, Z (who was also reused from a Truly Me doll). The year also promoted Nanea, Gabriela, and a re-release of Felicity as part of a Chose Your Character branding, with all six characters released before the mid-point of the year. We'll never know how Gabriela could have been designed if given more time or what a year with her own full focus might have been.
  • Kit was originally intended to be wearing a differently-designed meet outfit including a straw cloche hat. The change to a knit-cloth cloche was done after learning the initial batch of straw hats fell apart easily. As explained by redditor and former cover-art model Caitlin Waite (who originally lent her likeness to Kit) in a post at /r/americangirl, the company did the photo shoot for Meet Kit in its entirety with the pre-release meet outfit, but she and the illustrator were called in to redo the shoot following the production issue.
  • According to this article, Donald, the racist bully from Melody's movie, was supposed to be named Douglas. Somebody misread the script, and since he was a Canon Foreigner anyway, the name stuck. Helps that the obvious implications of the name in 2016 got the film some publicity.
  • Early illustrations of Evette by the illustrator Olivia Duchess, named "Daisy", show a darker tone of skin and hair for Evette than were released.
• Working Title: Kit's movie was originally Kit: An American Girl Mystery, which matches the preceding three movies' title style.

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