By complete accident, I managed to solve one mystery from my childhood today.
I had a very overactive imagination as a kid. Also, as a neurodivergent kid in a household (and era) where mental health wasn't talked about or properly understood, I tended to be the "oddball child" who was left to entertain myself for a large majority of my childhood years. And, to be honest, that was 100% okay with me. I spent most of my time spinning elaborate daydreams and crafting imgainary worlds to play in.
All this to say, my adult self is often left to wonder what parts of my childhood were reality and which parts were all in my imagination. Well, today I finally learned the answer to at least one of those mysteries.
I was patrolling ebay in search of a furby to buy (don't ask; sometimes you just need a furby in your life) when the website decided to toss a WuvLuv listing into the recommended products section. I was overjoyed to see it; I haven't thought about those toys in ages. Naturally, this sparked a nostalgia trip for me and I decided to browse around online for more information about WuvLuvs. I was young enough when they were a thing that the only details which stuck in my memory were their name and the fact that they could hatch babies in their pouches. (Yeah, in hindsight they were a bizarre toy -- but kid me absolutely loved them!)
During my rabbithole deep dive, I eventually came across a website that researched and documented vintage toys, with a special emphasis on toys from the 80's and 90's. This was like a candy store for someone like me, so I had a blast randomly clicking around the site. And I just happened to click on a page about Tiger Electronics -- which is, coincidentally, the company that used to make Furby... I guess it all came full circle.
And there it was: Shelby!
A little backstory might be needed on how Shelby first came across my radar, and became a permanent fixture in my life growing up.
When I was younger, my family frequently participated in those box top give aways companies used to do. Mostly cereal companies and pop tarts. They'd advertise some cool new toy on the back of the box and you could collect and send in a certain number of box tops to get it for free -- or, for the more expensive items, purchase it at a discount. We got so many toys, computer games, and even a few DVDs through those campaigns.
I don't remember what company was running this particular campaign, but I remember immediately falling in love with the toy being advertised. It was a small electronic toy named Shelby -- an adorably ugly little creature with a shell that was advertised as being able to talk to you. Naturally, I had to have it. Around this same time, my younger brother also found a boxtop prize he wanted: a singing t-shirt. (Yes, you read that correctly. It was a t-shirt with an iguana on the front that sang when you pressed it.) My brother begged my mom for permission to save up the box tops and get his shirt. Seeing his success, I made a similar plea for Shelby. Mine wasn't as successful. I genuinely don't remember what reason I was given, but I'd now guess that the Shelby toy must have been quite a bit more expensive than my brother's silly gimmick t-shirt.
I never got my Shelby friend, but the mysterious little shelled cryptid would remain a part of my life regardless. I made so many sketches and doodles of Shelby, which eventually evolved into little comic strips about her adventures. After I hit ten, those comic strips then evolved into written stories. As a teenager, Shelby guest starred in a few children's books I was trying to write. Even now, as an adult, I occasionally will name a bug that wanders indoors "Shelby" as a little tribute to the childhood friend that never was.
Until today, however, I never knew if Shelby was real or not. I still have a lot of my childhood drawings of the creature, but I didn't know if it was made up from my own imagination or if it was based on a real toy I had seen on the back of a cereal box. It didn't help that I couldn't remember what company ran the promotion or even if Shelby was the real name of the toy.
I guess I have my answer now. Over two decades later, and I finally have proof of Shelby's existence. Maybe I'll grab one on ebay at some point just to satisfy the kid version of me that never got to have one.
(If you're curious what Shelby looked like, I checked youtube and found this video demonstrating the toy.)
Background Image by Valentin Salja