Amy Schumer is starting a terrifying family tradition by passing on a retro toy to her 7-month-old son, Gene.
On Saturday, Amy took to Instagram to share a throwback photo of one of her old playthings, along with an image of what the toy looks like now. In her first snapshot, a young Amy was pictured reading a paperback copy of The Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #4: Babysitters’ Island Adventure . She was smiling as she laid back and enjoyed her book, and she didn’t seem at all bothered by the odd-looking stuffed animal that had its strange face pressed up against her cheek.
The toy looked like a cross between a human and an animal. Its hard plastic face was flesh-colored, but the creature had a pointed snout like a mouse. It also had two black spots painted around its glass eyes. It was dressed in white baby doll clothes trimmed with lace, and it had a bonnet on its head with two round, black ears attached to it. It looked a bit like a panda.
In Amy’s second photo, the toy was pictured lying beside baby Gene. Amy used a cartoon image of hands making a heart shape to cover up her son’s face, but she didn’t censor the toy. The much clearer photo provided a better look at the creature’s eyes, which were almost red. Amy’s old plaything was extremely worn and tattered, and its white clothing was stained and yellowed with age.
In the caption of her post, Amy revealed that the toy’s name is “Pokey,” and she joked that it’s been “scaring children since 1948.”
Amy’s images of Pokey garnered over 57,000 likes in the span of a few hours, but many of the responses to her post were about the toy’s nightmarish appearance.
“Children? I’m an adult and that is HORRIFYING,” read one response to her post.
“I would have died if I had that as a child,” another fan wrote.
“I may not sleep tonight…just saying,” remarked a third commenter.
“That is the creepiest doll ever!” wrote a fourth fan.
There’s no word on how baby Gene feels about his new friend. Amy and her husband, chef Chris Fischer, just welcomed the little boy in May of this year, so their son has plenty of time to bond with Pokey.
During an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon , Amy shared a different picture of Pokey. She insisted that the stuffed animal is “cute” and “adorable.” When Jimmy argued that it belongs in a horror movie, she explained why she’s so attached to it.
“That doll has comforted me through several divorces,” Amy joked.
However, she said that she was “never invited to a slumber party” as a kid.