Childhood incarnate!
Adorable cloth animals with insides of soft, squoooshy stuff (usually cotton but you'd have to be a sick fuck to find out). Stuffed animals seemed to be the kind of toy that crossed gender boundaries, which is quite a feat in the four to ten year old set. Sure, there are definite boy animals and girl animals that could get someone teased pretty bad if they ended up in the wrong menagerie... but as far as my youth went, 90% of the stuffed animal population was neutral that way.
Somehow the word plush is oftend used to describe stuffed animals. I never understood the word plush but it always seemed apropos more to a car interior than a toy.
Common traumas involving stuffed animals include:
- Mom washes the stuffed animal and it comes out all nubbly and weird
- Loosing an eye (usually the toy, not the kid)
- Curious neighbor kid tries to find out what's inside...
- Mom decides to pare down the menagerie by holding a garage sale.