Trivia / Squishmallows

• Cash-Cow Franchise: It took a few years, but the COVID-19 pandemic and a sudden following on social media may have helped turn these cute and squishy pillows into a global phenomenon. There's now Squishmallow variants of Mickey Mouse, the Disney Princesses, Winnie the Pooh, Frozen, The Lion King, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Lilo & Stitch, Monsters, Inc., Dumbo, Star Wars, Marvel Comics, Hello Kitty, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sesame Street, The Muppets, Seaworld, Peter Pan, Ryan's World, SpongeBob SquarePants, Hocus Pocus, Chuck E. Cheese, Pokémon, Cars, The Incredibles, Inside Out, Godzilla, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Up, Sonic the Hedgehog, Peanuts, Harry Potter, My Hero Academia, Stranger Things, and so on. Chances are the list is going to grow even further in the future.
• Follow the Leader: Following Squishmallow's sudden burst in popularity, several other squishy pillow plushies have made it to market, most notably Ty's Squish-A-Boo line and Build-A-Bear's Skoosherz line. These two are the most notable due to Kellytoy suing both Ty and Build-A-Bear for copyright infringement. The former lawsuit was unsuccessful (though it may have caused Ty to rename the line to "Squishy Beanies"), and the latter is still ongoing as of this writing.
• In Memoriam: Nellie the parakeet is named after the grandmother of one of Jazwares' copywriters.
• Kids' Meal Toy: McDonald's had a Happy Meal toy run in the UK in October 2023 for the Halloween season. The run had to be extended to November because of the high demand.
• Milestone Celebration:
  • To commemorate the sale of over 100 million Squishmallows, two versions of Hans the Hedgehog wearing a hat and bow tie were made available to preorder. One version has gold trim on his accessories and ears, while the other is made entirely of golden fabric.
  • Jack the Black Cat was made to celebrate the 500th unique character, and the first in the Select Series, a squad that's only available on the official Squishmallows website. Only 500 were made, and he was sold out within 2 hours.
  • A 5-year anniversary box set was made available exclusively at Walgreens, which was the first retailer to sell them.
• No Export for You: The Squishmallows web store only ships within the United States. Anyone who lives outside the US and wants to get their hands on any of aforementioned Select Series squad will need to rely on a workaround, such as a package-forwarding service, a family member who lives there, or a reseller.
• Referenced by...: In Turning Red, Mei's has a few plushies that look like Squishmallows on a shelf in her room.
• Teasing Creator: On May 9th, 2023, the brand's official Instagram posts this innocuous picture of Patty the cow, in front of another cow with a never-before-seen pattern that took inspiration from the night sky. Fast-forward to October 13th, where her name was revealed to be Rivka, and she would be part of the Select Series as part of the month-long celebration called Mallow Mash. When she was released on October 30th, she was sold out within 40 minutes.

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