Ernie Pyle Doll: Right Toy, Wrong College

By: Dave Astor Updated at 10 a.m. EST

The dean of Indiana University's School of Journalism is happy with Hasbro's new Ernie Pyle doll, but has a major problem with the packaging. It seems the legendary columnist is listed as having attended Indiana State University, not IU.

"It was a careless error," said Trevor Brown, whose Bloomington-based school is located in Ernie Pyle Hall. He added that the situation is "sort of amusing" but not totally trivial -- saying that he could imagine the outcry if a Larry Bird doll listed the basketball great as having graduated from IU rather than the Terre Haute-based ISU.

Brown wrote Hasbro, but heard it was too late to correct the packaging on the G.I. Joe series doll. Hasbro officials could not be reached for comment.

Packaging aside, Brown told E&P Online that "it's nice to see Ernie Pyle recognized this way. He is one of our most admired and revered alums." Pyle attended IU through the middle of his senior year, when he left to embark on a career that included roaming America as a Scripps Howard News Service columnist and writing dispatches from the front lines of World War II. He was killed by a Japanese sniper's bullet on April 18, 1945.

Brown does wonder how much the $20 Pyle doll -- which comes with a miniature typewriter, newspaper, and other items -- will appeal to young buyers. "Will Ernie Pyle become better known to another generation because of the doll? I suspect not," he said. "It's not an action doll. Ernie Pyle was more reflective." Brown said the doll might appeal most to adult collectors.

Some people think the doll is crass commercialism. For instance, Owen Johnson, an IU journalism historian who's compiling a book of Pyle's wartime letters, told the Associated Press: "I think Ernie Pyle would be appalled to have a doll made of himself."

But Brown said "it's still nice to see." And Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Dave Lieber added: "Before Ernie Pyle died, he worked with the producers of The Story of G.I. Joe movie. He may have been shy, but he certainly didn't mind popularizing his story."

Lieber is a big fan of Pyle's, and was the person who suggested April 18 as the day to celebrate National Columnists Day, started in 1995 by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.

The Star-Telegram writer said he's impressed with how much the Hasbro doll resembles Pyle -- and is happy it was made. He observed: "I don't think there's ever been a columnist toy before!"