Plush toy

In the late 19th century, Margarete Steiff and the Steiff company of Germany created the first stuffed animals. In 1902, a political cartoon of Theodore Roosevelt inspired the idea for "Teddy's bear". In 1903, Peter Rabbit was the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy. In 1921, A. A. Milne gave a stuffed bear to his son Christopher, which would inspire the creation of Winnie-the-Pooh. In the 1970s, London-based Hamleys toy store bought the rights to Paddington Bear stuffed toys. In the 1990s, Ty Warner created Beanie Babies, a series of animals stuffed with plastic pellets that were popular as collector's items. Beginning in the 1990s, electronic plush toys like Tickle Me Elmo and Furby became fads. Since 2005, beginning with Webkinz, toys-to-life stuffed toys have been sold where the toy is used to access digital content in video games and online worlds. In the 2020s, plush toys like Squishmallows, Jellycat and Labubu became fads after going viral on social media.