Creepy Dolls & Toys: Museum of Childhood, Edinburgh Scotland

When you wake up suddenly in the night to the sound of thunder, are you comforted by the sight of your loving little doll babies staring right back at you? Does it relax you to see their calming little faces? Are you reminded that you are in a safe place?

Hi there! Wanna be friends?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then you should visit the Museum of Childhood in Edinbugh Scotland. There are a lot of toys in there, but I find the ones from the 1800s and early 1900s to be the most fascinating. This was clearly a time before Walt Disney taught the world what cute looked like.

Pretty much everything in this room was horrifying!

Think of all the fun we will have together!

When you look at these old dolls, you can see a clear lack of understanding as to what is cute vs what may induce a panic attack. Of course, I am looking at it with a modern eye. It's very possible that children in those days, having nothing to compare them too thought that they were quite lovely.

I am just a normal fun loving clown. Play with me!

I have noticed this same issue is a lot of really old paintings and sculpture. The subjects that are meant to be children just look like adults in small bodies. Often they have gnarly adult hands and feet. I have been told that this is because they had to use adult models when creating the babies.

Maybe the old dolls are like that for a similar reason. It just seems to me when looking at this things that the creators have never actually even looked at a child.

Hey buddy, just open that glass door. We will have so much fun together.

Some of the toys and puzzles looked kind of fun. This was not much different than some of the stuff I played with when I was a kid. Well, until I got my Atari 800xl!

Who wouldn't love a Schwede?

Smile and wave to the peasants!

Unnecessarily complicated Lincoln Logs

Clearly the creator of this next toy was visited by aliens from Beta Reticula. His repressed experiences manifest through his art. Poor guy.

Tell everyone! No one will believe you, human.

Of course the toy that took first prize in my opinion was this awesome meat market. I just really did not know how to feel about this. It is certainly funny when you look at how things have changed in such a short time period, relatively speaking.

This makes me oddly uncomfortable

Below is a quick video clip I did while scanning the room. I never really expected to put it only anywhere so it's a bit shaky. But please check it out, there is much more weirdness to be seen to help make you uneasy. Enjoy!