As frequent Twin Peaks Blog readers have surely surmised, my approach toward identifying props and set decorations is to leave no stone unturned. I may never run out of things to write about, because the Hurley house has A LOT of stones.
NADINE’S KOALA FIGURE BY RUSS BERRIE
One of Nadine Hurley’s plentiful knickknacks is a ceramic koala bear holding a basket of flowers produced by Russ Berrie & Company.
Russell Berrie (1933-2002) founded his namesake company in Palisades Park, New Jersey in 1963 after spending several years as a toy salesman. His experience showed that there was untapped potential in the “impulse gift” market, so Berrie set out to sell inexpensive trinkets that might catch the shopper’s eye while in line at the cash register. These items included stuffed animals, toys, and decorative tchotchkes often containing friendly messages like Nadine’s figure, which reads “Happy Birthday To A Special Friend.”
The operation outgrew Berrie’s New Jersey garage and, over time, became a $300 million company. While Twin Peaks was airing in the early 1990s, Russ Berrie was capitalizing on the troll doll craze. As indicated by this Etsy listing, there is still a sizable second-hand market for these.
I was able to track down an inexpensive replica of Nadine’s koala figure, and to my delight, the underside provided a copyright date of 1979 and product number of 809. I wish all of my Twin Peaks replicas had such clear identifiers.
APPEARANCES IN TWIN PEAKS
The koala spends most of its screen time deep in the background. We first see this figure on a corner shelf behind Big Ed as he tramples Nadine’s drape runners and she takes her anger out on her rowing machine in episode 1.002.
Later in the episode, Nadine sprints toward Ed and the figure is slightly more visible in better lighting.
The koala is still present on the corner shelf in episode 1.006 as Ed finds Nadine eating consolation bonbons.
Several episodes pass with no shots of the corner shelf, but when Nadine greets her nephew/schoolmate James in episode 2.005, the koala is still in place.
This is closest shot of the figure so far, and the last time we see it on the corner shelf.
In episode 2.016, it is promoted to the main trinket shelf. The camera pans left as Nadine enters the room.
Finally, a clear shot of the koala. This was the scene in which I first noticed this decoration, causing me to go back and track it through previous episodes. There are more shots of this shelf after episode 2.016, but none of them are clear enough to confirm the figure’s whereabouts.
I know this is probably not a decoration most Twin Peaks fans have fantasized about owning, but nothing brings me more joy than tracking these items onscreen and finding replicas with manufacturing information that allows me to place them in a real-world context, blurring the line between reality and fiction. So consider this stone happily turned.
