Denise Holly Hobbie (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Ulinskas; 1944) is an American writer,

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

ist and illustrator. Holly Hobbie is also the name of a fictional character she created.

Personal life

She is from

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

and married Douglas Hobbie in 1964. She resides in Conway,

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. Born Holly Ulinskas from Watertown, CT

Career

Author

Hobbie is the author of the popular ''Toot & Puddle'' children's books and the creator of the character bearing her name.

Namesake character

Origin

In the late 1960s, at the encouragement of her brother-in-law, Hobbie sold distinctive artwork of a cat-loving, rag dress-wearing little girl in a giant

bonnet A Bonnet is a variety of headgear, hat or cap Specific types of headgear referred to as "bonnets" may include Scottish * Blue bonnet, a distinctive woollen cap worn by men in Scotland from the 15th-18th centuries And its derivations: **Feath ...

American Greetings American Greetings Corporation is a privately owned American company and is the world's second largest greeting card producer behind Hallmark Cards. Based in Westlake, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland, the company sells paper greeting ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. The artwork, based on Hobbie's own children and with rustic

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

style of a bygone era, became popular, and her originally nameless character (identified earlier as "blue girl") became known as Holly Hobbie. As a contract artist, Hobbie worked with the Humorous Planning department at American Greetings under art director Rex Connors, who was responsible for launching "blue girl" as the most identifiable of the Hobbie characters.

Doll and other product licensing

Also working in Humorous Planning at that time (1973-74) was Bob Childers, a veteran humorous concept artist and designer. Childers insisted that there should be a

doll A doll is a physical model, model typically of a human or humanoid character, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have also been used in traditional religious rituals throughout the world. Traditional dolls made of materials such as clay and ...

of the character. Since no one seemed to listen, Childers went home and, on his own time, hand-stitched the first prototype and presented it to Connors, who took the cloth doll to Tom Wilson, Creative Vice President. American Greetings approached

Knickerbocker Toy Company A Knickerbocker is a person from Manhattan (New York City, before 1898). A modern synonym is “New Yorker”. Knickerbocker or Knickerbockers may also refer to: People * Knickerbocker (surname), including a list of people with the surname, and ...

concerning the Holly Hobbie license. In 1974, Knickerbocker Toys licensed the Holly Hobbie character for a line of rag dolls, launched in 1975. These were a popular toy for young American girls for several years. Additional products were licensed and produced, including fabrics, furniture, ceramics, games, and stationery. Holly Hobbie products were later marketed by American Greetings in association with

Carlton Cards Carlton Cards Limited (french: Cartes Carlton Limitée) is a greeting card company in Canada. Its lines of cards include Carlton, Gibson and Tender Thoughts. It also distributes the American Greetings line of cards in Canada. Since 2009, "Carlton ...

. In 1976,

Coleco Coleco Industries, Inc. was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company. It was a successful toy company in the 1980s, mass-producing versions of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game console ...

produced a toy oven similar to

Kenner Kenner Products, known simply as Kenner, was an American toy company founded in 1946. Throughout its history, the Kenner brand produced several highly recognizable toys and merchandise lines including action figures like the original series of ' ...

Easy-Bake Oven The Easy-Bake Oven is a working toy oven that Kenner introduced in 1963 and currently manufactured by Hasbro. The original toy used a pair of ordinary incandescent light bulbs as a heat source; current versions use a true heating element. Kenner ...

called the Holly Hobbie Oven. It was shaped like an old-fashioned wood-powered cookstove, used an incandescent light bulb for heat, and came with packaged mixes that could also be bought separately. In 1980, Holly was featured in ''The Adventures of Holly Hobbie'', a novel by Richard Dubelman. In this book, Holly Hobbie is a ghost who lives in a painting from 1803. She comes out of the painting to help a descendant, Liz Dutton, find her missing father, an

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

who has vanished in

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

Updated versions

Beginning in 1989 and into the 1990s, Holly Hobbie dolls were produced by

Tomy is a Japanese entertainment company that makes children's toys and merchandise. It was created from a merger on March 1st 2006 of two companies: Tomy (founded in 1924 as Tomiyama, changing the name to Tomy in 1963) and long-time rival Tak ...

. Knickerbocker Toys also began producing dolls, but these were vinyl doll heads with soft bodies, unlike the original cloth dolls (rag dolls). In 2006, a redesigned Holly Hobbie was introduced with the launch of ''

Holly Hobbie & Friends ''Holly Hobbie & Friends'' is a series of American animated specials produced by Nickelodeon and American Greetings. It is the first series to star the Holly Hobbie doll, albeit redesigned from her traditional look. The specials aired on both Nic ...

'', a series of specials that were broadcast on

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...

Nick Jr. Nick Jr. (known on-air as the Nick Jr. Channel) is an American pay television channel spun off from Nickelodeon's long-running programming block of the same name. It is run by Paramount Global through its networks division's Kids and Family Gr ...

block and the separate

Noggin Noggin may refer to: General * Noggin or gill (volume), a unit of volume * Noggin (cup), a small cup * Noggin, slang for head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, an ...

channel. They were also released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

. The traditional line still exists, with the back story that the "original" Holly is the great great grandmother of the "new" Holly. Concurrently, Mattel released an updated Holly Hobbie doll line, which includes Holly (blue eyes and blonde hair), Amy (green eyes and red hair), and Carrie (brown eyes and black hair). The dolls feature all-new face sculpts, a new body style, and flat feet. There is also a series of smaller Holly, Amy, and Carrie figures; each of these figures includes a companion animal: Holly a

cocker spaniel Cocker Spaniels are dogs belonging to two breeds of the spaniel dog type: the American Cocker Spaniel and the English Cocker Spaniel of which are commonly called simply Cocker Spaniel in their countries of origin. In the early 20th century, Cocker ...

named Doodles, Amy a pig named Cheddar, and Carrie a cat named Bonnet. Separate doll outfits were available, and each outfit could be customized. Porcelain dolls were available, made by the Ashton-Drake company. The specials feature songs with music and lyrics written by lead guitarist Sheriff Mandy Collins and keyboardist Charlotte Spencer of the English rock group the Hyper Girls. The cartoon features three pop songs, two sung in her own voice, "Just Like You" and "The Things That Make You Special."

LeAnn Rimes Margaret LeAnn Rimes Cibrian (born August 28, 1982) is an American singer, songwriter and actress. She originally rose to success as a country music artist at age 13 with 1996's "Blue". She has since crossed over into pop, contemporary Chris ...

sings the third song, "Twinkle in Her Eye," the show's

theme song Theme music is a musical composition that is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at so ...

. In fall 2018, Family Channel and

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television serie ...

released an updated live-action series simply titled ''Holly Hobbie''. It features Ruby Jay as thirteen-year-old Holly Hobbie, a country girl who enjoys playing the guitar, hailing from a small town and seeking to save her grandmother's Calico Café. The series draws loosely upon past elements created for the Holly Hobbie franchise, but includes modern elements, such as Holly's use of a

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

page.

Works

''Toot & Puddle'' series

Toot & Puddle are best friends, even though Toot likes to travel and Puddle likes to stay at home in Woodcock Pocket.

Books

* ''Toot & Puddle'' * ''A Present for Toot'' * ''You Are My Sunshine'' * ''Puddle's ABC'' * ''I'll Be Home For Christmas'' * ''Top of the World'' * ''Charming Opal'' * ''The New Friend'' * ''Wish You Were Here'' * ''The One and Only'' * ''Let It Snow'' * ''How Does Your Garden Grow?''

Television show

A TV series based on the books was made in 2008 by

Mercury Filmworks Mercury Filmworks is a Canadian independent animation studio based in Ottawa, Ontario. The studio was originally founded in Vancouver by Clint Eland, the current CEO, in 1997. Mercury Filmworks has produced animated television series and feature ...

National Geographic Kids ''National Geographic Kids'' (often nicknamed to ''Nat Geo Kids'') is a children's magazine published by the National Geographic Society. Its first issue was printed in September 1975 under the original title ''National Geographic World'' (whic ...

, and

Treehouse TV Treehouse TV is a Canadian English-language specialty channel for preschoolers aged 2 to 5 that was launched in 1997. Its name comes from YTV's former preschool block, " The Treehouse". The channel is owned by YTV Canada, Inc., a subsidiary of ...

. It was titled '' Toot & Puddle''.

Film

In December 2006, ''Toot & Puddle: I'll Be Home for Christmas'' aired on Treehouse in Canada and on

in the US. It was released on DVD by

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...

Holly Hobbie & Friends

A series of specials starring the Holly Hobbie character. The DVD releases were: *Holly Hobbie & Friends: Surprise Party 7 March 2006 *Holly Hobbie & Friends: Christmas Wishes 24 October 2006 *Holly Hobbie & Friends: Secret Adventures 6 March 2007 *Holly Hobbie & Friends: Best Friends Forever 18 September 2007 *Holly Hobbie & Friends: Fabulous Fashion Show 12 August 2008 *Holly Hobbie & Friends: Marvelous Makeover 3 February 2009 *Holly Hobbie & Friends: Hey Girls! Fun Pack 12 August 2008

Other books

* ''Elmore'' (2018) * ''A Cat Named Swan'' (2017) * ''The night before Christmas (Text by Clement Clarke Moore)'' (2013) * ''Gem'' (2012) * ''Fanny'' (2008) * ''Fanny & Annabelle'' (2009) * ''Everything But The Horse: A Childhood Memory'' (2010) * ''The Art of Holly Hobbie'' (1980) * ''Holly Hobbie's the night before Christmas'' (1976)

References

External links

* of the TV series {{DEFAULTSORT:Hobbie, Holly 1944 births American children's writers American illustrators Artists from Massachusetts Living people Writers from Massachusetts People from Conway, Massachusetts