Squishmallows are a franchise of stuffed animals produced by Kellytoy, owned by Jazwares, LLC. The toy line began in 2017 with eight characters: Cam the Cat, Fifi the Fox, Hans the Hedgehog, Hoot and Holly the Owls, Wendy the Frog, and Puff and Piper the Penguins. Since then, hundreds of distinct characters have been produced.
The toys are notable for their egglike shape and being filled with soft polyester stuffing, which allows them to return to their original shape after being squeezed. Their tags contain a short description of the character in question, similar to the poems on the tags of Beanie Babies.
While modestly successful for the first few years of their existence, the line exploded in popularity in early 2020.
Tropes featured by the Squishmallows include:
- Animal Gender-Bender: It varies, but several designs for Squishmallows will tend to use pronouns you wouldn't expect with how sexual dimorphism usually plays out for a given species. As a few examples;
- Cam the cat uses "he", and is a calico - a breed whose fur pattern is expressed almost exclusively in females.
- Cazlan the cardinal uses "she", and is primarily red and black, a pattern usually seen on males to get the attention of mates.
- Connor and Ronnie are cows that use "he", and look like otherwise-typical dairy cows rather than bulls.
- Lianne the lion used "she", and has a mane. note
- Artistic License – Marine Biology:
- Eric the Blobfish's design is based on what blobfish look like
◊ after they're subjected to lower atmospheric pressure than they're used to, not as they appear in their natural environment◊. The drop in pressure results in the fish's anatomy distorting and they usually perish not long after. - Easton and Deezo the Anglerfish have lures and are both male. The common image of anglerfish as big ugly fish with a glowing lure is only applicable to females of the species; male anglerfish are lureless and tiny in comparison.
- Eric the Blobfish's design is based on what blobfish look like
- Artistic License – Ornithology: Calzan the Cardinal is female, but has bright red coat of feathers that are only seen in males.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: While there are several Bigfoot characters, Benny's description harks closest to their original appearance in popular culture: he likes running around in the woods and has an interest in photography.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Cherry the Cherry.
- Don't Fear the Reaper: Otto is the very image of a classic Grim Reaper, but grows pumpkins on a farm and regularly wins "giant pumpkin" contests.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The earlier characters lack complex patterns and printed fabric, and for the most part are the same color as the animals they represent. Later characters are more likely to invoke Amazing Technicolor Wildlife.
- The original squad has birthdates mentioned in their bio tags, similar to Beanie Babies. This was quickly dropped.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: There are dragons, Bigfoots, fairies, gnomes, unicorns and pegasi, aliens, witches, and elves, among other fantastical creatures. This isn't even getting into the otherwise regular animals with traits of fantasy beings, like skeleton bunnies or caticorn mermaids.
- Informed Species: Elda is an ostrich, but doesn't look the part due to her shaggy rainbow feathers and beak that looks like the snout used for horse and cow Squishmallows.
- Kangaroos Represent Australia: Keely the Kangaroo's favorite place to visit is stated to be the Sydney Opera House.
- Letter Motif: The witches released in 2020 have names that begin with a W to create alliteration: Wexla, Whitney, Wilma, and Winnie.
- Messy Pig: Reese the Pig loves playing in the mud, to the point of spring being her favorite season because the rain creates lots of mud puddles for her to play in.
- The Movie Buff: Georgios, a king crab, enjoys watching films both good and bad, and swears against abandoning a film partway through. He thinks that there's something to be had even out of mediocre films, as he can learn a thing or two about filmmaking and storytelling from them.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Jingles the Cat's tail has stuffing inside, curves around to their front and is sewn on as to be unmovable. All other cats have unstuffed shorter tails that are only sewn on to the plush toy in the back.
- One-Steve Limit: Sometimes characters will have names that are only slightly different from those of other characters, like Jingle (a Christmas tree) and Jingles (a cat). There are also cases where multiple Squishmallows share a name.
- Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The original squad has a pair of penguins named Puff and Piper. Puff, the blue one, is a boy; Piper, the pink one, is a girl.
- Santa Claus: Several distinct characters are supposed to represent not only Santa, but Mrs. Claus as well.
- Shout-Out:
- Hans the Hedgehog shares his name and species with the protagonist of a story collected by the Brothers Grimm.
- The first line of Buzz the Sloth's bio is "If you give a sloth a donut, he's sure to want more!"
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Subverted. While eyelashes are a possible design variant and are usually seen on girl characters, there are noted exceptions in both the "not all girls have them" and "not all boys lack them" senses.
- Winged Unicorn: Some horse characters have wings and a unicorn horn. What these beings should be called is inconsistent; Raquel's bio calls her a pegacorn, but Aja and Henley's bios refer to them as alicorns.
