Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears' Very-Cleveland Origin Stories

Strawberry Shortcake is more than a character: It’s an entire franchise, developed at American Greetings in the 1970s by a team of creatives. The greeting card line, first drawn by Barbi Sargent, quickly transformed into children’s toys, a television show and movies, many of which continue to be rebooted today.

Muriel Fahrion, an artist born and raised in Cleveland, developed much of Strawberry Shortcake’s signature style, first drawing the character in 1977. Today, she continues to make sketches of Shortcake and friends like Apple Dumplin’, Blueberry Muffin and Huckleberry Pie — plus Care Bears, another franchise she helped to develop during her years at American Greetings. You can see her whimsical work on her website, outtathinairstudio.com

We talked with Fahrion in an episode of The CLE Connection, Cleveland Magazine’s podcast that takes a look at Cleveland’s surprising ties to major pop culture moments. Below, read a snippet of our conversation surrounding the development of Strawberry Shortcake.

To hear more about Fahrion’s life and work — including the development of Care Bears at American Greetings — listen to the full episode.

Muriel Fahrion: A lot of people back then pooh-poohed greeting cards. "That’s not real art, not the stuff." The way I looked at it is, like, they're paying me to draw. I had a wonderful mentor, Maxine Masterfield Smith — fabulous, fabulous artist. I don't know if she's still around, but after she left American Greetings, she became a fine artist. Anyway, she took my portfolio, she went to every single department and said, "You’ve got to hire this person." And so Humorous and Juvenile Planning hired me. It was a perfect fit. That's where I bloomed. 

I was in Humorous and drawing blue elephants and pink elephants and hillbilly cards, which could be banned now. The artists that would come in, I'd be training them, no extra money, but I enjoyed it, and I still enjoy moving art forward, influencing, helping people grow in their art.

There was a thing called "free time," and this was a time where you can do your own character, and my director at that time said, "I want you to do a rag doll." Well, the Raggedy Anne & Andy animation had just come out, and we all went to see it, and so I was influenced. He says, "I want a rag doll character, but I want it to be pink and red with daisies and hearts, and strawberries." He gave me this whole verbal explanation of what he would like to see. He tried other people on it, but I don't know all the people he tried on it. I did my first drawing in 1977 of what was to become Strawberry Shortcake; that was the first one I did, it got the thumbs up.

Then I had to go and design 14 more designs with Strawberry Shortcake, and since it was Valentine's Day, I introduced Huckleberry Pie — she had to have a boyfriend, right? To share that soda with. And Apple Dumplin’. That was my idea, because I looked at Apple Dumplin’ as her little sister. And she had a best friend, of course, and that was Blueberry Muffin. 

And then, like, some crazy thing happened. Bernie Loomis, who was a head of General Mills in the creative division; he is the one that made Star Wars a big deal in licensing. Under him was Kenner (Products), the big toy company, and Fisher-Price, eventually, I think. He came to American Greetings and talked to Tom Wilson, known for Ziggy. We in Ohio know who Tom Wilson is. Brilliant, creative man. (Loomis) came to him and said, "What do you have that’s for girls, which will be just as big as Star Wars is with boys?" and he had a briefcase. The first thing he took out was Ziggy, and they go, "No way, not for girls." And then he took out the other ones that had scored high. Shortcake was really number five that he pulled out of the briefcase. 

Bernie Loomis says, "That's it. It's going to be toys, it's going to be clothes, it's decor, it's going to be animation, and it's going to be an amusement park." It never became an amusement park. But everything else. Everything.

Hear more of Fahrion's story in our podcast, which is streaming on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and more.

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