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Not a troll doll: it's Mercer Mayer's Little Critter
It is Mercer Mayer's Little Critter, the Kohl's Cares charity plush. Tan fur, two big flat front teeth, small rounded ears, blue overalls with button straps — the character from the "Just for You" and "Just Me and My Dad" picture books.
He is misfiled as a troll doll constantly. Ours did it too. The teeth settle it: trolls do not have any.
Why everybody says troll, and how to stop
We filed this plush as a troll doll on the first pass, so this is a correction rather than a lecture. The confusion is structural: both are small, both are tan, both have wild hair, and in a 200-pixel thumbnail that is all you get. Here is the separation, in the order that resolves fastest.
| Feature | Little Critter | Troll doll |
|---|---|---|
| Front teeth | Two large flat teeth, always visible | None |
| Ears | Small, rounded, set low | Pointed, set high |
| Hair | Fringe of fur around the face | Vertical plume, usually dyed |
| Clothing | Overalls or a footed sleeper | Usually bare, or a scrap outfit |
| Eyes | Embroidered whites with brown pupils | Jewel or gem inset |
| Tag | Mercer Mayer roundel, Kohl's Cares | Russ, DAM or unbranded |
Trolls get vertical hair; critters get overalls. That is the whole rule.
The Kohl's Cares programme, and why these are everywhere
Kohl's Cares sold books and matching plush toys at a nominal price — the Little Critter run sat at $5 — with proceeds going to children's health and education initiatives. That pricing has two consequences you can use.
- Supply is enormous. These were sold in volume at every Kohl's in the country for years. Nothing in the Kohl's Cares range is rare, and any seller telling you otherwise is hoping you do not know that.
- The tag is the only provenance. The Mercer Mayer roundel plus the Kohl's Cares tag is what separates this from a generic critter plush. Tag intact roughly doubles the ask.
What it costs
Prices checked September 6, 2026These five asks were checked against live listings on 31 August 2026:
| Retailer | Ask | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Kohl's | $3 | Kohl's Cares listing |
| Poshmark | $10 | "Brother" variant |
| eBay | $12 | 14" example |
| Whatnot | $13 | 15" Brother plush |
| Walmart | $21 | 12" marketplace listing |
The stat, with its method. Across US affiliate product feeds queried on 6 September 2026, 58 Kohl's Cares plush listings carried a usable price. The median ask was $14.00, the cheapest $6.00 and the dearest $75.00 — the dear end still being multi-item book-and-plush sets rather than single toys. Little Critter at $3–$21 sits squarely inside that band, and the two Little Critter plushes in this pull ask $14 apiece.
The judgement worth signing: do not pay over $20 for a single Kohl's Cares plush of any character. They were made in the millions, the resale market clears them at under $20 all day, and the only version that justifies more is a complete book-plus-plush set with both tags attached.
How to search for one
- Use "Kohls Cares Little Critter" without the apostrophe. Most sellers type it that way and the apostrophe version returns a smaller pool.
- Add "Mercer Mayer" as a second search — it surfaces the listings filed under the author rather than the store.
- Search the family names separately: Sister and Brother are listed as distinct products and are priced independently.
- Filter for "with tag" or NWT. Tagless examples are common and should cost about half.
Frequently asked
What is the buck-toothed plush in blue overalls?
Mercer Mayer's Little Critter, sold as a Kohl's Cares charity plush alongside the Little Critter books. Tan fur, two large front teeth, rounded ears, blue overalls with button straps, typically 12 to 15 inches.
How do I tell a Little Critter plush from a troll doll?
Teeth and ears. Little Critter has two prominent flat front teeth and small rounded ears; a troll doll has neither. Trolls also have vertical gravity-defying hair and bare bellies, where Little Critter is dressed in overalls or a sleeper.
What are the Little Critter family plushes?
The Kohl's Cares run included Little Critter himself in blue overalls, his Sister in a pink footed sleeper with a red polka-dot bow, and a Brother variant. Sister is the one most often mislabelled, because the bow reads as troll hair in a thumbnail.
What is a Kohl's Cares Little Critter plush worth?
Verified asks ran $3 to $21 when checked on 31 August 2026. Across 58 priced Kohl's Cares plush listings in US affiliate feeds on 6 September 2026 the median ask was $14.00, with a range of $6.00 to $75.00. These were $5 charity plushes when new, and the market has not forgotten it.
Last verified 6 September 2026, when the 58-listing median was computed from Kohl's Cares plush listings in US affiliate product feeds, excluding asks above $500 as seller placeholders. The five retailer asks were checked against live listings on 31 August 2026 and stand as of that date. The troll comparison table was built by reading marketplace listings. All figures are asking prices, not completed sales.
Sources
- CJ Affiliate product feeds, US advertisers, queried 6 September 2026 — the 58-listing Kohl's Cares plush census, the Sister plush listing and the Little Critter Storybook Collection listing, which carries the same Mercer Mayer roundel as the plush hang tag.
- Retailer listings for the Kohl's Cares Little Critter plush, read live on 31 August 2026 — the five asks in the table.
How this page was made. Drafted with AI (Claude); not yet independently re-checked. How we work