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New York » The little girls gazed intently at the deserted display case, as if convinced that a familiar fair-haired doll must be hiding somewhere inside.
Slowly, their eyes lit upon the sign taped to the glass: "Soon, we'll say farewell to Kirsten. Bring this brave pioneer girl home for the holidays -- before she moves into the American Girl archives."
It was the day before Thanksgiving, and a doll had gone missing from the American Girl store on Madison Avenue, a sprawling, twinkling mecca for dolls of many-colored tresses and the girls who collect them like baseball cards.
"They don't have Kirsten anymore?" asked a surprised 6-year-old named Piper Ehrlich, who had come in search of a bed for her own Kirsten doll. "I'm lucky I got her."
Kirsten Larson -- "a pioneer girl of strength and spirit growing up in Minnesota in 1854" -- is the latest creation to be retired by American Girl, the doll-making franchise famous for churning out wholesome dolls, books, clothing and movies steeped in history for more than two decades. Carefully timed to coincide with the holiday shopping season, the company's decision sparked a run on the doll and anguished "Save Kirsten" video tributes online ("First Samantha? Now Kirsten? This is too soon," one blogger moaned.)
While retail experts chalk it up to a classic marketing ploy, some die-hard doll fans fear the company is moving away from its historical roots in favor of its more recent "Just Like You" line, which allows girls to purchase dolls engineered to look, well, just like them.
The company insists it is simply clearing room on the shelves for new historical characters like Rebecca Rubin, its first Jewish doll, who debuted earlier this year.
Losing Kirsten was all the more painful because almost exactly one year ago, the company retired what was arguably its most popular doll. Archiving Samantha Parkington -- "a bright, compassionate girl living with her wealthy grandmother in 1904" -- was the retail equivalent of sidelining a star quarterback at the peak of his career.
Samantha's enduring popularity was partly why she was first to go, said company spokeswoman Julie Parks. Like Kirsten, her departure generated buzz on the Internet, particularly among women who are now grown and having children of their own.
The strategy paid off, at least from a sales perspective. After Kirsten's retirement was announced in September, by mid-November the inventory was almost completely gone. So it went with Samantha.
The company refused to say whether more dolls will join them in toy obscurity.
Ashley Hendel, 11, of Woodstock, Ga., posted a tribute to Kirsten online.
"It just didn't really, like, feel right not to make a video," she said. "Because she was one of the original dolls. She needed a tribute because she's special."
Her mother, Dawn Hendel, was equally upset about historical characters being phased out, but for a different reason.
"The kids these days, they don't know as much about history," she said. "They don't know what makes America."
But the girls who seemed truly upset, like 13-year-old Shannon Barry, are in their teens and 20s.
"I am really going to miss the dolls," said Barry, of San Diego, who owns -- count 'em -- 23 American Girl dolls.
The original historical characters' popularity may have already peaked, said toy consultant Chris Byrne, who likened the archival process to the Walt Disney Co.'s practice of placing classic films in a "Disney vault."
"They put the princesses in the vault, and every seven years they bring them back again," Byrne said. "How many times has Sleeping Beauty come back? Or Snow White?"