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Parents are loopy over Loopsy!
Adorable Mittens Fluff ‘N’ Stuff — one of eight dolls in the “Sew magical — Sew cute” Lalaloopsy line — is creating Cabbage Patch-like hysteria among holiday shoppers and it’s still a week from Black Friday.
The doll, which retails for about $25, is already sold out at most local toy stores — and is commanding as much as $89 on the Internet.
Nobody can seem to get his hands on the blue-haired, button-eyed doll — even though 1 million were manufactured.
“A lady snatched it before I could get it,” moaned desperate mom Jessica Marrero, 25, who tried to grab one at her workplace, a Staten Island Toys ‘R’ Us.
The quest for the rosy-cheeked doll reminiscent of Raggedy Ann led Marrero and her 1-year-old daughter, Allura, to Manhattan, where they stalked the aisles of the Times Square megastore.
But Mittens Fluff ‘N’ Stuff was again out of stock, and they settled on a pink-haired Lalaloopsy Crumbs Sugar Cookie.
Mittens’ medium-tone skin, the mom said, likely appealed to a larger, more diverse audience of girls. The doll is not the first toy to turn parents into children; Tickle Me Elmo left parents in stitches — from the aisle fights — in 1996. And the Cabbage Patch Kid shortage in the ’80s still remains a top holiday horror.
Mittens, said to be sewn from fragments of Eskimo scarves, was born on the first day of winter. Each doll in the collection is stitched together with material matching its back story, and they have coordinated birthdays. Orange-haired Lalaloopsy Bea Spells-A-lot shares a birthday with Dictionary Day — Oct. 16 — and wears an outfit crafted from a schoolgirl’s uniform.
But it’s the blue-haired, furry-vest wearing doll that’s scarce. On Friday it was even unavailable online at the Target, Kmart and Walmart Web sites, a Post survey found. Dozens were being sold on sites like Amazon and eBay — but at inflated prices.
The jacked-up black-market prices “really kind of bother me,” said CEO Isaac Larian of California-based doll manufacturer MGA Entertainment. “We want every girl to have one of these affordable dolls, especially in these economic times for Christmas.”
The modern rag doll’s “it” factor is rooted in the myths created for each one.
“Girls are very much into the personalities of the dolls,” said toy expert Jim Silver.
And it’s particularly popular because the Lalaloopsy look is new to a generation of young girls unfamiliar with the old-school Raggedy Ann.
But Larian thinks more girls go gaga over blue-haired Mittens because she has a broader appeal.
“It’s not yet another blond doll with a white face,” he said.