When I was a little girl, I had a doll named Drowsy (image from pinterest.com) as seen here on the left. When you pulled the string in her back, she talked. No, that's not remotely accurate. When you pulled the string on her back, she whined. "I'm sleepy." "I want a drink of water." She annoyed the crap out of my father.
Now, my father was very interested in how things work. I had a lot of those pull the string and they talk dolls and as little kids do, I pulled the string and made them talk. I had Mrs. Beasly from Family Affair, who I later learned was voiced by Cheryl Ladd. The Mrs. Beasly on the television show didn't speak, but Buffy, the little girl who owned and loved her, would put the doll to her ear and advise as to Mrs. Beasly's wisdom. But, I digress. If you are at all familiar with the string pulling dolls (Think Woody from Toy Story, "Thar's a snake in ma boot!"), you know that all that string pulling and that very old school apparatus sewn into the doll have a limited life span, at least as far as sensible speech goes.
When my talking dolls started to skip or get a little possessed sounding, my father would perform his standard voiceboxectomy. My mom would carefully cut the fabric so that she could sew the doll back together when he was through and my dad would remove the voice box apparatus from the doll. I don't remember what he did with them after that. I mean, I know he didn't save them like serial killer trophies or anything. I don't remember if he started out actually trying to repair them, or just figured that they were weird and broken and removed them for the sanity of everyone in the house. I know that none of them ever made it back into a doll. My mom sewed them up perfectly and I don't recall being traumatized by all that doll surgery. The only doll that he didn't wait for to skip was Drowsy. She was so annoying that, even though her string pulled voice box was in perfect working order, he removed it anyway.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I still have my Raggedy Ann doll in my spare bedroom. I was careful for the almost 40 years that I've owned it, to not overly pull the string. To this day she can clearly tell you, "My name is Raggedy Ann," "My friend is Raggedy Andy," and "See my candy heart". She shares a place with the Holly Hobby doll my mother made by hand and is pretty darn perfect, but never spoke.
