Board game
Category
Sports equipment, games and pastimes
Date
Unknown
Materials
Cardboard, printed paper and plastic
Measurements
Board - 295 mm (length); 235 mm (width), Pieces - 18 mm (min. height); 30 mm (max. height)
Order this imageCollection
Sudbury Hall Museum of Childhood, Derbyshire
NT 662462.1
Summary
A board game entitled 'Enid Blyton's Little Noddy Leapfrog Game'. The game consists of a stiff card board folded in two. The outside is covered in red paper and the inside has a coloured picture of animals and Noddy characters, including golliwogs, with paths that go round and to 'Home Pond'. There are eight plastic character pieces and four frog pieces in the primary colours. There are three small dice peach, black and green. Note on golliwogs: The Golliwogg character was created by American-born illustrator Florence Upton, in a series of British children’s books which she co-authored with her mother Bertha Upton. The character was not copyrighted, and ‘golliwog’ dolls based on it became popular toys in Britain from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. Upton based the character on a doll from her own childhood which was bought in the United States in the 1880s and was likely to have been inspired by minstrel entertainers who performed in blackface. The dolls share many characteristics associated with minstrelsy and racist caricatures of Black people, including their bowties, tailcoats, and exaggerated hair, lips and painted black skin. While the Uptons' Golliwogg was a sympathetic character, Enid Blyton's golliwogs were characterised as mischievous and malevolent.