page_title: Kewpie
section_title: In popular culture
hierarchical_section_title: Kewpie / In popular culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise bought from an Asian food store in The Hague, Netherlands. The bottle is made from a surprisingly soft plastic, making it feel more like a plastic bag.
context_page_description: Kewpie is a brand of dolls and figurines that were conceived as comic strip characters by cartoonist Rose O'Neill. The illustrated cartoons, appearing as baby cupid characters, began to gain popularity after the publication of O'Neill's comic strips in 1909, and O'Neill began to illustrate and sell paper doll versions of the Kewpies. The characters were first produced as bisque dolls in Waltershausen, Germany, beginning in 1912, and became extremely popular in the early 20th century.
  The Kewpie dolls were initially made out of bisque exclusively, but composition versions were introduced in the 1920s, and celluloid versions were manufactured in the following decades. In 1949, Effanbee created the first hard plastic versions of the dolls, and soft rubber and vinyl versions were produced by Cameo Co. and Jesco between the 1960s and 1990s.
  The earlier bisque and composition versions of Kewpie dolls are widely sought-after by antique and doll collectors, who especially want those hand-signed by O'Neill. Kewpies should not be confused with the baby-like Billiken figures that debuted in 1908.
context_section_description: To "win a kewpie doll" is a common English idiom in the US, meaning that one has won a modest prize.
  This idiom is used in numerous fictional works, including Get Smart, The Monkees, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Law and Order: SVU, and The Outsider.
  In season 3 episode 5 of Seinfeld, "The Library", the Library Cop Bookman refers to the librarian Kramer is involved with as "Kewpie doll".
  The Kewpie doll is the mascot of Kewpee Hamburgers, a chain of fast-food restaurants founded in 1923 in Flint, Michigan, by Samuel V. Blair under the name Kewpee Hotel Hamburgs.
  Since 1927, it has also been the mascot of Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri.
  A song titled "Kewpie Doll" was written by Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett in the 1950s. The song was recorded by Perry Como and Frankie Vaughan in 1958 and became a hit in both the United States and Europe.
  A song titled "Kewpie Doll" was written by Nick Cave and recorded by the Alternative Rock band The Birthday Party on their album Junkyard in 1982.
  Andrew Bird's song "Masterfade" from his 2005 album Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs features lyrics about watching a "Kewpie doll parade."
  Kewpie Corporation is a Japanese food manufacturer, famous for its popular brand of Japanese mayonnaise sold in plastic squeeze bottles with a Kewpie doll logo.
  Kewpie Fusion is a popular Japanese anime whose characters are based upon O'Neill's Kewpie dolls.
  The time capsule at the 1939 New York World's Fair contained a Kewpie doll.
  In Stephen King's 1980 short story The Mist, character David Drayton finds a Kewpie doll with "glazed dead man's eyes."
  In the 1989 Japanese RPG MOTHER one of the first enemies is a possessed Kewpie doll.
  In Ray Lawler's acclaimed play  Summer of the Seventeenth Doll two itinerant workers present Kewpie dolls to their girlfriends every year for 17 years.
  The song "Androgynous" by The Replacements includes the line "Kewpie dolls and urinal stalls will be laughed at the way you're laughed at now."
  In season 7 episode 15 of The Good Wife, Marissa says she sewed (things she founds like bullet shells and) Kewpie dolls into the purses that she made.
  The Joker has occasionally thrown exploding Kewpie dolls at his victims.
  In the video game L.A. Noire, while investigating an arson case, the main character Cole Phelps theorizes that the victims were moved into the house after it was set on fire, which makes his partner Herschel Biggs remark that the culprit "lined them up like Kewpie dolls".
  In the video game Harvester (video game), the player must win a Kewpie doll to proceed through the Lodge.
caption: Kewpie mayonnaise from Japan
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