Tidbit #14 - April 9, 2011

Aren't bobbleheads peculiar? They have bobbleheads of so many different people, particularly sports players. Take all of those different bobbleheads of the Yankees or the Dodgers. Why do they make those? Where did they originate? When and why did they become so famous?

Question: Where did the bobblehead originate?


Answer: An easy-to-find answer, found on (what else?) Wikipedia.

• "The earliest known reference to a bobblehead is thought to be in Nikolai Gogol's 1842 short story 'The Overcoat,' in which the main character's head was described as 'like the necks of plaster cats which wag their heads.' The modern bobblehead appeared in the 1950s. By 1960, MLB had gotten in on the action and produced a series of paper-machié bobblehead dolls, one for each team, all with the same cherubic face." (Re: Wikipedia)
• As an added fact, bobbleheads were still available before the modern type was introduced in the '50s. In fact, there was a bobblehead created in the 1920s of a New York Knicks player.

So, what do we have as a condensed answer?

Bobbleheads are thought to have been introduced in Nikolai Gogol's 1842 short story "The Overcoat."