The Simpsons, Friends, and The Lord of the Rings Are Reimagined as Polly Pocket
Remember Polly? She was this tiny girl who lived in a tiny house that could collapse and fold into a tiny compact. Polly and her tiny friends were your older sister’s best friends, and one time when no one was looking, a very young you picked up Polly and ate her. Your sister was furious, Mom was worried, and Nanny had the pleasant task of encouraging you to poop and then digging Polly out of your oopsie.
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Yup, that Polly. The ’80s and ’90s Polly (the relaunch doesn’t count). Well, she’s received a makeover—sort of. The Toy Zone, the toy review site whose mission is to “help more kids end up with the toys they love,” has taken the throwback plaything and refashioned it as characters and settings from modern TV shows and movies.
The site sees its adaptations as akin to those of Lego, which has been doing a splendid job of latching on to popular franchises like Star Wars, Batman, and even Frozen. And so we have six new Polly-fied worlds: Monica’s apartment in Friends, Homer’s house in The Simpsons, the hobbit house in The Lord of the Rings, the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, the Byers’ residence in Stranger Things, and the Tenenbaum’s residence in The Royal Tenenbaums. Take a look:
The West Village apartment of Monica Gellar in Friends features the iconic orange couch.
742 Evergreen Terrace in The Simpsons shares the same poppy colors of the original Polly Pocket.
Bilbo Baggins’ hobbit house in The Lord of the Rings has a patch of the Shire (and Gandalf).
The recreation of Overlook Hotel in The Shining makes sure to include the maze that was added in the movie.
Joyce Byers’ house in Stranger Things is a portal to the Upside Down (peep the creatures).
The Tenenbaum’s residence in The Royal Tenenbaums has the tent, of course.
This is awesome but here’s the bad news: These are just renders—no toy has been produced.
The Toy Zone partnered with CGI artist Jan Koudela, who, guided by a scrapbook of images and videos from the titles, used Cinema4D to create the fictional Polly Pocket editions. He made sure to employ a virtual texture that feels like plastic, include the language of Polly Pocket (stickers, trap doors, Plexiglas windows) in the builds, and get the colors of the fictional worlds right with some fiddling in Photoshop.
Again, the toys do not exist in the real world but, maybe, if we’re all good, someone (Santa?) will produce the designs in plastic soon.
