OVERVIEW: Kooties

Healthy Kootie beanie, keychain and 10" size

Kooties were made in 2001 by Star. I can't remember exactly when it was, but I came across a wicker basket full of the beanie-sized ones when I stopped at Bob Evans during a road trip. I can't even remember who else was there aside from my mom. We may have been travelling with others, because I seem to recall that, but whatevs. Anyway, I bought the beanie Cuddly and Healthy at Bob Evans ages ago.

Healthy is my favorite. I can't even tell you why, because he's the most neutral-colored and I usually go for flashy or dark. Maybe it's his wavy hair. I dunno.

Healthy and Cuddly beanies. The original pair.

I can't remember why I picked Cuddly either. He's cute and blue? But they're all cute, so who knows?

Kooties come in four different styles. You can see in the first picture the size difference between the keychain, the beanie and the 10". I recommend the 10" size and every Kootie I add to my collection from here on out will be 10".

After getting home, I found the Kooties website and ordered 2 Healthy keychains (1 to use and 1 to keep in nice shape), Bad Kootie in both the beanie and 10" size, a couple stationery products, and an 18" Healthy Kootie.

Bad Kootie beanie-sized

I thought Bad Kootie would be my fave along with Healthy, but honestly, I never really bonded with him. And I thought I'd love the 18" Healthy and he'd be super-huggable, but instead, his head was enormous and he was so top-heavy that he was hard to cuddle, so I don't recommend buying the 18" ones at all.

When we were getting ready to move, both I decided to donate 18" Healthy and 10" Bad. I regret getting rid of the 10" one now, because that's the size I'm choosing to collect, but hindsight blah blah.

Cutie Kootie 10"

I thought of Kooties for an entry here, because I don't think many people have heard of them. I wanted to expand my collection a bit before writing this, so I did some online searching and mostly found beanies and the 18"ers. But then I stumbled across Cutie, who I fell in love with, and got the seller to relist the completed auction. I don't think Bob Evans had this girl on the day I discovered these, because she would have made it home with me.

Smoochy Kootie 10"

I had my eye on a 10" Healthy and eventually ordered one on Amazon. Then one night I was bored and decided to search for "star plush" on ebay, just in case someone happened to get one of these and not know the line name. I got super lucky and found Smoochy!

Tag with all the characters

So that's my little Kooties collection. I'd like to get the others eventually, but I'm really happy having Healthy in the 10" size because he's darling and the two lovely ladies.

If you do a little Googling, you can see pics of most of the characters on the tag here on the left.

PHOTO CREDITS: All mine, except the tag picture, which came from ebay.