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Peel Here 134: The Muppet Babies Edition

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With all of this quarantine time that a lot of us are mired in, I’ve been trying to be as productive as possible around the house. One of the things that I’ve been doing in the mornings is going through boxes and drawers of paper ephemera that hasn’t been cataloged or scanned and I’ve been trying to tidy that stuff up a bit. While sifting through a pile of miscellaneous stuff I’ve been sent by others over the years, I found a package of vintage Muppet Babies scratch and sniff stickers that I snagged in one of Dinosaur Dracula’s Funpaks from a couple of years ago. I’ve picked up a bunch of these scratch and sniff stickers over the years individually, but this was the only one I have that’s complete in the package, a nice perk of that Funpack. So I thought I’d scan it in and add it to the other stack of other Muppet Babies stickers I’ve accrued over the years for a much overdue edition of Peel Here.

Let’s start with the scratch and sniff stickers themselves. These were released by Diamond Toymakers back in 1985 and they were part of a series of similar sticker sheets for brands such as Cabbage Patch Kids and My Little Pony. The Muppet Babies stickers were available in 6 different scents, Perfume, Lilac, Banana, Lime, Peppermint and Bubble Gum.

Each pack contained 4 stickers, so there were 24 total stickers available. I thought it was interesting to see what characters got a bit of short shrift, and which were featured the most. By far Rowlf has the least amount of stickers at two, next is a tie between Animal and Fozzie at three, then surprisingly Kermit at four. The two characters with the most stickers are Gonzo at five and the big winner, Piggy with a whopping seven! Below are the Lime stickers…

I think the distribution of the characters kind of points to who these stickers were marketed towards. Even though the Muppet Babies cartoon and comic book series was aimed at all kids, these stickers seems to tip towards the girls. You can see that in the brands Diamond Toymakers licensed for these sets of scratch and sniff stickers (again, the others being My Little Pony and the Cabbage Patch Kids.) I think the scents point to this as well as it seems like a bit of overkill to have both Perfume and Lilac (pictured below.)

Another interesting aspect of some of these illustrations is that the characters are sometimes shown as less toddlers and more like babies just in their diapers. I don’t remember anytime the characters were shown that way in the cartoon, so it’s a little weird to see it in these stickers.

Peppermint above, and Perfume below…

The last set, and most infantile are the Banana stickers below. Is it me or is it a little weird to see Gonzo and Fozzie without their jumpers?

In addition to the scratch and sniff stickers, I also have a few sheets of some of the later stickers that were distributed by (of all folks) the Post It Notes company in 1989 and 1990. Though it kind of makes perfect sense for Post Its to try and edge their way in the the sticker game, it’s also kind of weird, especially with stickers aimed at kids. I think it would have seemed more fitting to offer stickers that worked with their trademarked Post Its, like category labels or funny sayings.

I know that there were also a couple of sheets offered by Hallmark at some point in the 80s, as well as puffy stickers, but I’m still on the hunt for those sheets…


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