Happy Easter!

Ah yes, it is Easter and Resurrection Day.  This day and Christmas are the reason followers of Christ have hope even after we're off this mortal coil.  And if you're not religious, Easter egg hunts are still a heckuva lotta fun.  I love watching the children prowl the grass for brightly-colored plastic eggs and have some innocent fun, and when I was young I always liked watching my friends at church dress up.  We almost always had something nice and new to wear if the weather wasn't too rough.  That said, I never have liked it when Easter comes early.  When I was little an early Easter usually meant a rainy and/or cold Easter.  That will not be the case today; it's cloudy, but the high is predicted to be around eighty.  Not that a little rain would've stopped Idalia Gale and Kory Aryan from having fun.  The muddy front yard kept them inside, but they still managed to have an Easter egg hunt.

Both dolls are wearing new clothes, of course.  Idalia's outfit came from crawford176 (an Etsy shop) and Kory's came from 77CabbagePatchLane (another Etsy shop).  LOL, I learned very quickly after discovering Etsy that Barbie and American Girls could be fun to dress, but I didn't really learn until last fall that Cabbage Patch Kids could be fun to dress too.  Since there are quite a few boy Cabbies out there it's a little easier to find nice options for boys.

This getup would've been good for St. Pat's, but I ordered it the day before St. Pat's so that's that.  It's got Oscar the Grouch on it!

Oscar the Grouch is my fellow!  He's delightfully blunt like I can be, and he's green like I like, AND he's a slob like I am.  I've always loved Oscar the Grouch.

Kory's getup is good for just about any part of the year except the dead of winter, but Idalia's clothes are strictly Easter.

The getup came with two little bows, but Idalia only has one thick ponytail so I...crammed both the bows over said ponytail.  I dread getting them out again.

As usual, Idalia is ready to stuff her face.  Cabbies with #11 heads are always ready to eat.

Idalia and I are two of a kind in that respect; I freaking love Easter candy.  Heck, I like candy, period.  The carrot contains one of my favorite candies, Reese's Pieces.

The plastic eggs are not candy, but rather poppers.

They're full of those little white things that you throw down and they make snapping sounds.  I loved those growing up.  One Independence Day I even threw them at my sister!  Interestingly, the backs of the eggs have...this.

Mmkay...I guess they mean that the egg can't be sold if it's opened?  Seems like a goofy thing for any label to say.  Maybe "DO NOT EAT" would've been better, since these little snappers can look like tiny, wrapped candies...at least to a dumb kid.  Smart kids know better, LOL.

Happy Easter,
RagingMoon1987

A look back

I had a Flickr page before I was active with this blog, and I was finally able to access my old page earlier today.  Most of the pictures are crap and need deleting, but I did find some oldies of Daniela, my neglected but loved LIV doll.  These are old pictures, taken before I'd had a lot of experience photographing dolls or anything, so some of 'em are of questionable quality.  That said, the fall of 2011 was a magical time.  The weather had finally stabilized after a year of near-constant rain and waves of violent tornadoes.  My family had successfully transitioned to our new house (the one we will ironically be leaving soon), and I learned to love cocker spaniels.  I'd always heard that cocker spaniels were dumber than dirt, and indeed Maggie was dumb, but she was also affectionate and mellow.  We had Maggie three months before she died in sudden, frightening fashion, but that was the only dark part of that autumn.  Since we DID move my expertise was called upon to store and move my already large doll collection, and I fell back into the hobby.  LIV doll Daniela was the first one I bought, and I never looked back.

Truth be told, Katie was aesthetically my favorite LIV doll, because she had dark hair and green eyes.  However, Daniela's music-loving persona led me to choose her over Katie (the prerequisite athlete of the bunch).  Here's the first halfway decent picture I got of her, in a red wig and a pink dress with a fuchsia bolero.  One can see Daniela's painted hair peeping out from under the wig, but Daniela didn't let that bother her.

Next pic...I freaking love this dress, but maybe not with the wig.

I thought maybe the purple accents in the dress would jive with the wig, but it ended up being a little too much for my sensibilities.  As we'll soon see, the dress worked out better with a simpler wig.

The next picture was taken during a rainy day in...anywhere from late fall of 2011 to late spring of 2012.  I know because the pool was covered, as seen in the background.  Daniela's little raincoat came with a working umbrella, so I took her outside to see how she looked with it.  This wig unfortunately shows more of her painted hair than the red one did.

Unfortunately the umbrella proved too small for Daniela to get honest-to-God under it, but I could make her look like she was putting it up.  Overall I wasn't impressed with that rain set; the coat felt stiff and cheap.

Here Daniela is almost all-original, except for yet another new wig, and a chunky necklace that I threw on her.

I called these unnatural wigs "Crayola wigs," because the colors were nice and bright like crayons.  I am not a strict Crayola snob, by the way.  Any crayon will do me, LOL.  Anyway, this next Crayola wig became a favorite of mine, both for its bright red color and for the way it jived with Daniela's new beach getup.

My sister was rocking a red 'do around that time, so that shade is kinda special to me.  My brother-in-law says that the first time he saw Sister her hair was red.  In reality my sister's hair was and still is dark brown (like Daniela's, LOL).

I called this next wig the Hannah Sluttana wig, because it looked like something Miley Cyrus would've worn...and because I thought and still think Miley Cyrus is a cheap little trollop.  Daniela looks okay, though.

That coat was one of the themed coats, by the way.  There were five of 'em, one for each of the LIV girls.  The camo one is...I think that one belonged to blonde, blue-eyed Sophie.  I liked it because it reminded me of a jacket I had and lost during college.  This next coat was usually modelled on Hayden.

It ended up looking nice with the pink purse from the last jacket.  I also have Alexis's coat, and it was my favorite because it had a functioning hood, but for some weird reason I never took a picture of Daniela wearing it.  Go me.  I never found the coats meant for Daniela herself, or for Katie.  Katie's coat was the most like what I myself owned at the time (red and water-repellant).

The last decent picture I got of Daniela was this one, and admittedly it's not great.

Her hair fades into the background, and the business end of my computer cable is visible by her left leg, but at the time I didn't think about crap like that.  All I cared about was whether her face was in focus and whether or not she stood up.  But it's possible to see that a plainer wig looks best with this dress.

I also have Jake and another Daniela in my LIV box, and I got some good pictures of Jake, but those pictures didn't make it onto my Flickr post for some reason.  One picture from that session did make it here, though.

These two are NOT romantically involved, by the way.  Both dolls were from the Making Waves line, and I pretended that Jake and Daniela were good friends who swim and hang out together.  Spin Masters kinda did Jake dirty, I think; I can only name one outfit that they did for him.  Usually my Jake ended up in Fashionistas Ken clothes, which fit him like a glove.  It was early fall of 2012 when I put that picture together, by the way.  I think the LIV dolls had been discontinued by then.  I freaking loved these dolls though, and I still have them carefully stored away, waiting for daylight to come again.  It WILL come again.  Some day daylight will come again for my bunch.

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987

Under the cabbage leaf: E-doption Kids!...and a big box!

I've still got a LOT to learn about Cabbage Patch Kids!  Blogging buddy Treesa contacted me on March 1st about adopting this little Cabbie, mentioning that she is an E-doption Kid.  Now y'all could've wadded a shotgun with what I knew then about this line, so through the time vortex I went, barf bag in my hand, blue bow in my hair (blue is always for the past, why I don't know), and Lucey Dena on my hip.  The barf bag bit above actually has a fragment of truth to it, by the way.  I had one beer, ONE, to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.  That single beer gave me a mondo headache, and then I threw up everything in my stomach.  Beer has never done that to me before, but I doubt I'll be doing that again.  Now, Lucey Dena.  A name that has not yet appeared in the blog.  This is her.

Here's her papers.  "Lucey Dena" is her actual name, unlike some of my other dolls.  If she had a birthday neither Treesa nor I know it, so I'll...oh, Groundhog Day is easy to remember!  

Treesa apologized for her being blonde and blue-eyed, but I can get over that.  Some folks really like that aesthetic!  I just happen to be the type who prefers red hair and green or brown eyes...or dark hair and blue or gray eyes, take your pick.  I always like it when a blonde doll comes with brown eyes, like Kailey and Julie and Terri Lee did.  Anyway, Iris Evangeline is also blonde and blue-eyed, but I can tell her and Lucey apart easy peasy.

Now, to quote Max Headroom, nitty-gritty time, and the reason for whizzing through that time vortex (the Doctor can keep that, thank you).  E-doption Kids were a Mattel thing, where one apparently logged onto a website to learn all about the doll one owned.  There were four subcategories, with one being a series of Barbie-themed Kids.  Lucey is one of those; she probably looked a lot like this at one time.  There were also soccer stars and...is that one in black on safari?  Oh, here's a peep at the back of a box.

The one in black and yellow is apparently a budding environmentalist, while the one in the baseball jacket is the traveler.  I almost had it right!  Then there's the Barbie girl and the aforementioned soccer nut.  The box also shows what one could find when one accessed the website with their doll's code.  Apparently each doll had its own secrets and its own scrapbook "and so much more!"  Alas, the website is no more, just like many other dot-com-era websites.  Shame, because it sounds like it would've been a lot of fun for kids (or teens, like I was fast becoming in 1999).  As to the dolls themselves, they were/are a cute bunch, with charismatic faces that rival those of the Jakks Pacific bunch.  Lucey is a fixer-upper (Treesa was honest about this), but look at that face!  She's not as big a character as the Jakks Pacific Kids are, but she's certainly got more personality than Cara Raelean does.  

According to the back of her neck Lucey's head mold is MK-1.  The date is 1995, which tells me that Mattel used this head for several years (remember that Lucey is a millennial thing).  She looks a little like a Kissin' Kid, which I really like.  Those Kissin' Kids are equal parts adorable and hilarious; the boys have their hair styled in mullets or in rattails.  It's a scream.

Speaking of hair, Lucey's hair is...actually not as bad as I thought it would be.  Treesa warned me that her hair was mussed, but I've definitely seen worse.

The last time I had to control hair like this I used plain old Dawn dish soap, warm water, and my bare hands.  For stubborn tangles I use a salad fork, but I don't think I'll need to do that this time.  Ooo, I can't wait to wash her hair, though!

Can ya move it along?  I'm all outta time cards.  The end result?  One clean, less-scruffy Lucey.  She's still got some flyaways, but she really cleaned up well.

One of the fun things about Cabbage Patch Kids is that they can take a lot of punishment.  We all know how hard kids are on their things, and yet a lot of times Cabbies need little more than a hair tidying and a redress.  Admittedly Candela Laura has a few popped stitches in her arm, but those too are...well, they're not fixable, but I can stabilize them so they don't form holes.  And they never show.

Since Lucey was the victim of a moth attack she doesn't have all of her original clothes, but A, I've never let that bother me, and B, Treesa sent her in something really cute.  Mama has seen her fair share of doll clothes over the years, and she even commented that Lucey's dress is cute.  It's Mattel-era like Lucey herself is, so it fits her like a glove.

I love how it brings out her eyes.  At the same time there's touches of pink that hint at Lucey's past life as a Barbie fan.  This dress would look good on any Cabbie girl Lucey's size, but to me this is just...well, just right, like Goldilocks.  As to Lucey's original outfit, she still has parts of it.  She's got her skirt, her jacket, her shoes, and her fuzzy purse that I love.  These items are clean and unravaged by destructive little insects.

The shoes have platform heels!  Too stinkin' cute!  I'd have worn these at one time, back before I broke my ankle and gained a ton of weight.

By the way, I was NOT wearing platforms when I broke my ankle.  I was wearing pink plaid Converse, LOL.  Anyway, I'll see if I can't find a pink dress for Lucey to wear under that bolero jacket.  It's too cute to go to waste.  But Lucey looks just fine in what she's got, and she acts like she's comfortable in it.  The dress needs a nice steaming, but that's about it.  I'll get some nice new things for her from Etsy too when I'm not watching my money so close.  I always do that for my Cabbies when I can.  Sort of a rite of passage for the new Kid, LOL.

As usual Treesa went above and beyond to make my package extra-nice.  I knew ahead of time about these pink shoes.  Treesa warned that they were too big for Lucey's feet, but they ended up fitting Candela Laura just fine.  They even match her elephant outfit. 

Imagine my surprise when I pulled this little gal out!

That, kiddies, is a Dawn doll!  A REDHEAD with freckles, no less!  Treesa put the freckles on herself. 

This particular Dawn's name is Shannon, and she's by a group called Checkerboard.  As such she's a hair bigger than her Topper friends, but she's got the aesthetic down pat.  I'll do a little more research and get back to y'all on those; I had no idea they existed!

Next is another little redhead, a Playmate from the Coleco days.  

I think these were the ones that came in little frames and could serve as wall hangings if so desired.  As she is this little doll would make a fabulous dolly's doll.  With those red pigtails she could be Valencia Rose's mini-me.  <pauses to look it up>  Oh, these WERE supposed to be dolls for dolls, LOL.  How adorable!  In keeping with my tradition of naming these dolls after shipwrecks, I'll name this one "Titania."  Thanks for the idea, Tam!  ("Titania" is also a moon of Uranus, so that works too.)

This little guy is a Build-a-Bear from McDonald's.  His name is Dimples Teddy.  I love his coloration!

Courtney has been after me to get her her own Build-a-Bear, so she's going to be very happy when she sees this.

Next...Hattie.  Not my old bisque friend, but a little gal from Wendy's. 

Deedle, deedle, dumpling, my son John!  Hattie is a Furskin bear.  If I read it right Furskin bears were also Xavier Roberts creations, and didn't sell as wildly as the Cabbage Patch Kids.  But they are perfectly nice teddy bears, and some folks collect them with the same enthusiasm that I collect Cabbage Patch Kids.  Miss Hattie will likely go with my own personal collection. 

Also a Furskin is this feller.  He's a little figurine, and he's Farrell, the Furskins' mailman.

My boss doesn't want dolls at my workplace, but she said nothing about teddy bears or figurines.  So Farrell will be joining my other bric-a-brac at my workstation. 

This is a puppy dog.  Specifically one that accompanied those 30th Anniversary Family Portrait sets (Jakks Pacific era).  Look at those cute feet!

I presume that it's a girl due to that pink hair bow, so I named her "Ginger" after my favorite The Far Side cartoon.  Yes, I like The Far Side.  Grew up with those little daily calendars. 

If you're a dog owner then you know what this is like.  You can bitch and moan at your dog until the world goes flat, and they don't and won't understand a word of it.  

Rounding out the soft stuff is this Monster High keychain purse.  Treesa loves keychains, so this is her all over!

I probably will use the big skullette as a cushion for my Monster High dolls to sit on, since it's so soft.  It does have a ring inside, though.

I love costume jewelry!  Unfortunately this doesn't fit my fat little fingers, but someday it will.

Next item.  Cititoy pet carrier, with a cute white dog and some treats inside.  I love pets for dolls!

Cindy Lou Who will probably own this little feller since (spoiler alert) Airy and Jemma will not be staying in my collection. 

Of course no box from Treesa is complete without some bobs for Build-a-Bear.  There's this cute bucket hat for Floppy Kitty...

...and a Dairy Queen blizzard for the critters to fight over.

Malden had an eat joint named Dairy Queen at one time, but guess what?  It wasn't a real Dairy Queen!  I don't know why, but it had the signage and the branded cups and everything!  They did eventually change the name to something else, and then the shop...disappeared.  Weird, huh?

Right!  The smallest doll is this pet, a Zapf Baby Born Surprise mini baby.  Treesa remembers that I love dolls that can suck their thumbs.  These mini Zapf dolls are significantly smaller than the ones I picked up in 2019 (the ones that started my love for boy dolls).  But isn't she cute!!!

I think I'll name her "Narcissa," because I love that name (and because I love daffodils).  Narcissa arrived at just the right time, as I'm giving tiny dolls like this a lot of attention at the moment.  It'll be closing in on the end of the year before I tell y'all why, but let's just say I have plans.  Plans that involve very small dolls.

Well!  I didn't think Treesa could top the last box, but she did it!  I love everything in the box, though I'll admit that Lucey was the star of the show.  Sadly Lucey admitted last night that she was a little homesick, despite making fast friends with Iris Evangeline.  Ginger understood. 

Funny that Ginger was part of a Jakks Pacific set, but she belongs to a Mattel Cabbie now!  When Lucey is feeling a little less overwhelmed I'll introduce her to the rest of the Patch.  I know she'll be pleased as punch to see Leslie Emily and Summer Daisy again.  

Thank you once again, Treesa, for the nice things!  I especially love Shannon and that little Zapf baby.  I need to find something nice for you, for reals.  So say the word and I'll be on the hunt!

All my love, 

RagingMoon1987 

What Mattel did to Tyco

Well, maybe things will be quiet around here and maybe they won't.  True, I won't be reviewing stuff left and right like I did, but that makes room for more "just for the helluvit" posts.  This post concerns a random picture I recently took, of these three.

From left, Marta Angela, Shelley Fred, and Olivia Reese.  These three are staying at Casa del Luna unless I say different, and as far as I know they're disinfected and ready to move to Rent House.  Disinfecting consisted of dumping rubbing alcohol on both Marta and Olivia, and as a result they're still damp to the touch and slightly smelling of chemicals, but then I happen to like the smell of rubbing alcohol.  I don't know dousing my dolls with it will keep mold from spreading or even if these two were moldy; the mold in my house is pretty fickle.  It only wants...IT ONLY WANTS MY VINTAGE DOLLS, DAMMIT!!!  Why, why, WHYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem, where was I?  Oh yeah, the bulk of this post will concern the unusual relationship (or lack thereof) between the Cabbage Patch Kids and Cuddle On Delivery, but Mel Birnkrant-designed dolls are like Christmas lights.  When one goes out they all go out.  Photo op!

Dammit, Moon Girl, get to the point!  Ardent followers of this blog probably know a little history of the Cabbage Patch Kids by now.  Initially produced by Coleco, became ridiculously popular in 1983, stayed popular throughout the eighties, Coleco went under in 1988, Hasbro took over production of the Cabbies, all that jazz.  I'd estimate that about half of my Patch is from the Coleco era, largely because they're the easiest to find at a reasonable price!  LOL, people were killing each other to get just ONE of these dolls in 1983, and now they're pretty much everywhere.  Shelley Fred, Cara Raelean, and Hugo Jack are just three of mine!

Hmmm...there's them three, then there's Idalia Gale, Andrea Doria, Valencia Rose, and Stella Rae.  Seven Coleco Kids, in a Patch that will soon number twenty-one.  So a third of my Cabbies are Coleco, not half.  As I've said before, I'm not particularly picky with my Cabbies.  I will admit though that I prefer the ones with yarn hair...or with short hair, like Leslie Emily and Kory Aryan have.  Short hair is easy to maintain, as is yarn hair.  Just ask Olivia Reese.

Not that I hate Cornsilk Kids, of course!  They're just a little higher maintenance. 

Back on topic, Cuddle On Delivery didn't pop out of their magic mailboxes until 1997.  <pauses to think>  I think I was in third grade by then, but I don't s'pose that matters much, LOL.  Anyway, Tyco was the toymaker who took on the Cuddle On Delivery gang.  They had a lot of similarities to the Cabbage Patch Kids, being soft dolls with vinyl heads that came from some magical, far-off venue, but they weren't dead ringers.  See?  It's easy to tell them apart.

Expression is kinda a big deal for me, so I'll note that both Cabbies and C.O.D.s had plenty of that.  I think Marta's brothers and sisters had...eleven or twelve different heads.  I counted twelve, but two of the heads are the same, and two of the heads were prototypes so I guess technically there were ten heads.  And I don't know how many heads Mattel had for the Cabbies, but they also varied a lot.  None of them were ever sad, though.  Some Cuddle On Delivery dolls had sad little pouts.  Or they lolled their tongues out like Idalia Gale does, OR they have their first tooth, like Hugo Jack does.  Marta Olivia is one of those last ones.  

Like Cabbies, Cuddle On Delivery had codes assigned to their varying head molds, though they utilized letters instead of numbers.  Hugo Jack has a #4 head, while Marta's head is Cuddles Mold A.  PrillyCharmin says this mold is called So Innocent, though I think she may have done that to tie Cuddle On Delivery in with their Baby Face cousins.

The Cuddle On Delivery dolls were ridiculously popular.  As far as I know parents weren't getting into fights in stores over these, but they WERE good sellers.  Mattel didn't like that.  By 1997 they had the rights to the Cabbage Patch Kids, and while people weren't fighting each other in the isles for Cabbies by then the chipmunk-cheeked poppets were still pretty darn popular.  But mystery names and genders were unheard of for Cabbies; indeed, it would be another twelve years before dolls like Taniyah Yasmin popped out of Mother Cabbage.  Cuddle On Delivery dolls, on the other hand...their gender was a secret when they were in their box, and so was their name.  If you reread my review of Marta Angela, then you will know that the stamps on C.O.D.s' diapers were what determined gender.  Blue was for boys, and pink was for girls.

On the doll's wrist is a...well, it's kinda like a hospital bracelet, but I don't remember any of mine having that long of a tag.  Either way the name had opaque tape on it, and one had to peel the tape off to reveal the doll's name.

The name "Marta Angela" pleased me greatly, by the way.  I have a good friend named Marta, and I once had a good friend named Angela.  I don't know where the hell Angela is now, but I certainly wish her the best.  We were both about twenty when we saw each other last.  ANYWAY, the doll also came with a little baby book that could be decorated with stickers, and I don't know if the stickers varied from character to character, but it was still a cute touch.  

So that was all stuff that Cuddle On Delivery had and the Cabbage Patch didn't, and Mattel didn't like that.  Not one little bit.  Soooooo, 1997 rolls around, Mel Birnkrant and Tyco have some awesome things planned for Cuddle On Delivery...and then Mattel took Tyco over.  They bought Tyco, laid off a good portion of Tyco's original employees, and put an end to the Cuddle On Delivery bunch.  Keep in mind that Tyco was the third largest toy company in the U.S. at the time!  They were by no means crashing and burning, the way ValuJet (literally) was when they merged.  Oh, they still exist...as a branch of Mattel.  But Cuddle On Delivery can only be found on the secondary market now.  In-box examples aren't too hard to find, as my review of Marta showed.  Suddenly those Cabbie eyes look kinda sinister...

Or not.  LOL, I don't think Cabbie eyes can ever look sinister.  But yeah, the hypothesis is that Mattel dropped the axe on Cuddle On Delivery because they HAD outsold the Cabbage Patch Kids.  I don't know if that's true or not, but the timing is kinda convenient.  We all know that Mattel just HAS to be on top, after all!  If they're not they find some way to make trouble, as they did with MGA Entertainment and the Bratz.

Alright, alright, I'm positive that Cuddle On Delivery's success wasn't the only reason why Mattel bought out Tyco.  Oh nooooo, far from it!  I suspect that Tickle Me Elmo might've also been a factor.  Tickle Me Elmo was THE TOY for Christmas of 1996, just as Cabbage Patch Kids were for Christmas of '83.  Guess who produced Tickle Me Elmo?  Tyco.  Tickle Me Elmo DID survive to see the 1997 Christmas season, and...yeah.  I remember Daddy laughing that year because the stores were full of Tickle Me Elmos, but the hype had died down.  Neither my sister nor I ever wanted a stinkin' Tickle Me Elmo, by the way.  That was the year that Daddy moved Heaven and Earth to find my sister a stuffed Wishbone.  It took him the better part of the Christmas season, but by jove, my sister got that Wishbone!

Interestingly, Play Along found room in their roster for both the Cabbage Patch Kids AND the Play Along Club!  The Play Along Club didn't sell anywhere near as well as Cuddle On Delivery did, but the coexistence of the two lines shows what Mattel COULD have done.

Seriously, if Mattel had let Cuddle On Delivery survive they could've made a killing.  But nooooo, I guess they were expecting to make a killing with just the Cabbies.  I don't really no if Mattel DID make a killing with the Cabbies, but they had the license for 'em for a good chunk of time.  Regardless, the world of dolls and toys can be a bizarre and fickle place.  

Love,

RagingMoon1987