A roly-poly toy, round-bottomed doll, tilting doll, tumbler, wobbly man, or wobble doll is a round-bottomed toy, usually egg-shaped, that tends to right itself when pushed at an angle, and does this in seeming contradiction to how it should fall. The toy is typically hollow with a weight inside the bottom

hemisphere Hemisphere refers to: * A half of a sphere As half of the Earth * A hemisphere of Earth ** Northern Hemisphere ** Southern Hemisphere ** Eastern Hemisphere ** Western Hemisphere ** Land and water hemispheres * A half of the (geocentric) celesti ...

. The placement of this weight is such that the toy has a

center of mass In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. This is the point to which a force may ...

below the center of the hemisphere, so that any tilting raises the center of mass. When such a toy is pushed over, it wobbles for a few moments while it seeks the upright orientation, which has an equilibrium at the minimum

gravitational potential energy Gravitational energy or gravitational potential energy is the potential energy a massive object has in relation to another massive object due to gravity. It is the potential energy associated with the gravitational field, which is released (conver ...

. Different toy manufacturers and different cultures have produced different-looking roly-poly toys: the ''

okiagari-koboshi is a Japanese traditional doll. The toy is made from papier-mâché and is a roly-poly toy, designed so that its weight causes it to return to an upright position if it is knocked over. Okiagari-kobōshi is considered a good-luck charm and a sym ...

'' and some types of

Daruma doll A is a hollow, round, Japanese traditional doll modeled after Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen tradition of Buddhism. These dolls, though typically red and depicting a bearded man (Bodhidharma), vary greatly in color and design depending ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, the ''nevаlyashka'' ("untopply") or ''van'ka-vstan'ka'' ("Ivan-get-up") of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eight ...

, and Playskool's

Weeble Weebles is a range of children's roly-poly toys originating in the US in Hasbro's Playskool division on July 23, 1971. Tipping an egg-shaped Weeble causes a weight located at the bottom-center to be lifted off the ground. Once released, gravity ...

s. Japanese ''okiagari'' means "to get up (''oki'') and arise (''agari'')"; the self-righting characteristic of the toy has come to symbolize the ability to have success, overcome adversity, and recover from misfortune. Traditional Chinese examples (called 不倒翁, bù dǎo wēng) are hollow clay figures of plump children, but "many Chinese folk artists shape their tumblers in the image of clownish mandarins as they appear on stage; in this way they mock the inefficiency and ineptitude of the bureaucrats". A toy manufacturer recommends roly-poly toys for small children just developing

motor skill A motor skill is a function that involves specific movements of the body's muscles to perform a certain task. These tasks could include walking, running, or riding a bike. In order to perform this skill, the body's nervous system, muscles, and br ...

s; a child can bat at it without its rolling away.Fisher-Price - All About Play ... stages, toys & tips: Roly-poly bat-at toys
/ref> Dynamogene Theater stages a performance called "Monsieur Culbuto", allowing the audience to interact with a human dressed as a roly-poly toy. The Noddy stories by

Enid Blyton Enid Mary Blyton (11 August 1897 – 28 November 1968) was an English List of children's literature writers, children's writer, whose books have been worldwide bestsellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies. Her books a ...

features the character Mr. Wobblyman, who is based on this type of toy. One of the puppets/non-human presenters in the TV show ''Playbus'' (later ''

Playdays ''Playdays'' (known as ''Playbus'' until December 1989) is a British pre-school television programme which ran from 1988 to 1997 on CBBC. The show was the successor to ''Play School'' and, like its predecessor, was designed as an educational pr ...

'') was a roly-poly clown called Wobble.

References

Traditional toys Wooden toys Toy figurines {{Toy-stub

See also

References