Dolls with comical expressions

WARNING:  the Moon Girl is about to fangirl.  I have to do so to set up the reason for this post.  Pop in the eyedrops.  

"The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe" is NOT a shining moment for our dear time lord; indeed, WhoCulture listed it as the Eleventh Doctor's worst episode...and a legion of Whovians VOTED it as such so I'll take their word for it.  I admit that the episode left me shaking my head more than once, but the scene where Number Eleven's hijinks catch up to him made it worth it.  Watch the scene and you'll know what I mean; Doctor Matt hit the floor so hard I'm surprised he didn't regenerate right then and there.  

RIGHT!!!  That particular scene is also significant for me as a doll collector.  During his breakneck rundown of the children's' room, somewhere between the selection of torches and an enthusiastic endorsement of Cluedo, Number Eleven refers to "dolls with comical expressions," and the camera pans in on three of the little dolls he's referring to.  The catch is, when the camera panned in on said dolls, they were NOT the most comical in the world.  They were cute enuff, but they were generic, probably what the prop team could grub up without having to spend a lot of time and coinage.  It's rare when I'll say that I can do something better than the Doctor could, but I watched that scene, saw the dolls utilized in the scene, and I retorted "Awww, I can do better than that!"  So because I love fluff posts, here's another of those.  I'll be avoiding dolls that are deliberately made to look creepy (like my Living Dead Dolls) and dolls that are done in someone's likeness (like Beetlejuice and Pee Wee Herman).  Some of these dolls are mine and some aren't, and fair warning, some of 'em are more creepy than comical, even though they weren't MEANT to be creepy.  Also keep in mind that "The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe" was largely set in 1941, and thus most (all?) of the dolls I'm sharing wouldn't have been in the Doctor's lineup.  Or...maybe they would've.  The Doctor IS a time lord, after all, and if he wanted to drag a Cabbage Patch Kid back to 1941 he could've done so with ease.  Whatever, let's do this.

NAME:  Whimsies; the individual dolls had varying names.  Mine is Hedda Get Bedda.  Her review was last December.

COMPANY:  American Character
YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1960

LOL, I think that of all of the Whimsies I got the funniest one!  All of the Whimsies have goofy little smiles, but Hedda Get Bedda utilizes her sleepy face and her sick face as well.  Y'all have seen this already, but here's a rehash.

It should be noted that Whimsies were intended for an older mindset and not small children, but they're still goofy enuff that I included them here.  The vast majority of Whimsies look like Hedda's smiling face, with variations in the eyes.  Wheeler the Dealer and Samson the Strongman have hooded, mischievous-looking eyes, while Fanny the Fallen Angel has closed eyes altogether.  Fanny's face is different from Hedda's sleeping face, though.  Either way these are a fun bunch, if a bit (a lot?) homely.  

NAME:  Teenie Talk.  She has a "sister" named Baby Secrets who has the same face.

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1965

I think I've said in the past that Teenie is plotting my demise.  Teenie is one of Mattel's dolls that talks or has face gimmicks, and as such she's got a soft vinyl face that moves with the mechanism underneath.  Teenie can look a little goofy or a lot goofy depending on whether her mouth is open or closed; how it ends up after a phrase is a crapshoot.  For me it's the slant of the eyebrows that make Teenie look like she's about to tell me to pound sand.  Baby Secrets looks very much the same; her only aesthetic difference from Teenie is her red hair.

NAME:  Baby See 'n' Say, pet name "Elmyra"

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1965-1966

My Elmyra is a little funnier than other dolls of this type because she's got that lazy eye.  But even when both her eyes work Baby See 'n' Say is a funny little doll.  She's like Teenie Talk in many respects, the most obvious similarity being that her vinyl face moves as she speaks.  Ideally Elmyra's eyes would move too, but my doll needs a visit to a professional before that can be done.  Right now I'm just pretending that Elmyra needs an eyepatch for lazy eye, my usual explanation when my dolls have droopy or wonky eyes.  But under normal circumstances Elmyra's eyes would move as she talked.  Indeed, one of her phrases is "Can you move your eyes like this?"  LOL, yes, sweetie, I can!  And brave heart, because I too have a drifting eye.

NAME:  Baby Small Walk; pet name is "Carol."  I named this doll after Carol Burnett, thinking she was a redhead, but she's not.

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1967-1971
Baby Small Walk is just one of a number of small Mattel dolls from this era that had...either this face or one similar to it, one with a less open mouth.  Doll Reader had an article about them all one time, but I didn't pay much attention to it.  Not like I ever was gonna own any of those dolls, LOL.  The names that I remember are Baby Small Walk, Baby Small Talk, Baby Go Bye-Bye, and Valerie.  Valerie had "hair that grows and grows, right down to her toes."  How they got away with that without Ideal having kittens is anyone's guess, as that used to be Crissy's tagline.  Anyway, a lot of the Small Talk dolls were...well, basically the same doll, except for different eye and hair colors.  They had names like Goldilocks, Sister Small Talk, and Tiny Chatty Baby (no relation to Chatty Cathy and her blabbermouth bunch).  I like Tiny Chatty Baby because she's blonde and brown-eyed (Mama has made me a fan of that combo), but I digress.  Carol and the dolls with bigger mouths do have some angles from which they are...unflattering.  I don't recommend photographing Carol in half-profile, for example.  I think she looks kinda like a fish.

Otherwise this bunch is a cute bunch.  I particularly remember the Doll Reader article making special note of Baby Go Bye-Bye, because she had a car that she could "drive."  But even without the car she's cute.

NAME:  Tumbling Tomboy, pet name is "Jordyn."

COMPANY:  Remco
YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1969

Tumbling Tomboy's gimmick didn't rely heavily on her face.  Indeed, I don't think the owner was supposed to look much at her face at all, as Tomboy is...well, a tumbler!  If you have her controls and some batteries you can plug her up and make her do cartwheels.  However, Jordyn doesn't have her controls.  I'm pretty sure I could find a set, but I'm not looking too hard right now.  I love Jordyn for her face:  her green eyes, her freckles, and especially that Harrison Ford smirk.  As I've said more times than I can count, I too have a lopsided smile, especially when I'm up to some sort of mischief or if I'm telling or hearing a particularly corny joke (I love corny jokes).  Thus anytime I can find a doll that smirks, I get it.

NAME:  Baby Laugh-a-Lot

COMPANY:  Remco
YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1971

Killecrankie, I think we need the Doctor's help dealing with this one!  In this doll's defense a LOT of Remco's larger dolls had personality galore (two of Tam's examples can be seen here and here), but I think this one's pushing it a bit.  Jordyn's cousin Baby Laugh-a-Lot is a modified rag doll with vinyl hands and a vinyl head, and a push-button mechanism to make her...well, laugh!  The laughter sounds maniacal enuff on its own, but this particular doll has a face that only a mother could love.  Granted, no one looks like a Victoria's Secret angel when they're having a good belly laugh, but this little gal is still pretty creepy.  Oh, and when this doll's batteries run low, she even SOUNDS creepy!  Hmmm...I did once love scaring the snot out of my sister with dolls like this...and like the next doll.

NAME:  Saucy, pet name is "Alana."

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEAR OF PRODUCTON:  1972-1973

Mattel certainly had their fair share of goofy-looking dolls during the late sixties and early seventies, didn't they???  And my list is nowhere near comprehensive!  This one has the potential to be creepy just like Baby Laugh-A-Lot does, but I think she's hilarious.  When Saucy's left arm is turned her face shifts expression, like so.  She's got a soft vinyl face like Teenie Talk, Baby Secrets, and Baby See 'n' Say, and as a result she can emote very well.  Here's some highlights. 

Mama hates the cross-eyed look.  I think it's a scream.

Does anyone else look at this doll and hear Alana Thompson saying "The dolla make me holla, honey boo-boo!"  Shudder...poor Honey Boo-Boo.  She can't help how she was raised, but I do hope she'll find a way to make something of herself.  Last I heard she was studying to be a nurse (I like nurses), but I heard that from Wikipedia so take that news with about eleven grains of salt.  Anyway, Saucy reminds me a lot of Honey Boo-Boo when the latter was young, but the future is...decidedly brighter for Saucy.  Tam discusses this doll further on her blog, and if y'all want a review of mine, say the word and I'll do it.  

LOL, I make that face myself when something mildly surprises or dismays me.  My sister is going to HATE this doll if she ever sees her, by the way.  Dolls give her the creeps as it is, thanks to yours truly.  My thirty-six-year-old self is not as evil as my eleven-year-old self, though; I'll try to keep Alana away from her.

NAME:  Bedsie Beans, one of the Baby Beans dolls.

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1970-1984

All of the Mattel's Beans were cute, but the eternally-yawning Bedsie is hilarious...or hideous, depending on who you ask.  I think he's adorable, but then again I also think Hedda Get Bedda is adorable and she's...well, I think she's adorable.  I've seen a few folks compare Bedsie's mouth to the grille of an Edsel, which admittedly does look like it's yawning...or doing something else.  Keep it PG, Moon Girl!  I may have to up that rating to PG-13 with the language I sometimes use.  Anyway, like I said above Bedsie is the most unusual of the Beans, as most of them are smiling or looking innocent or curious.  Giggling little Booful Beans also could be considered comical, but he's not as goofy-looking as Bedsie is. 

Hmmm...maybe he's charismatic more than comical.  But either way I love Booful!

NAME:  Cabbage Patch Kids; the ones I've got here are Idalia Gale, Kory Aryan, and Iris Evangeline.

COMPANY:  Various; Idalia is a Coleco Kid, while Kory and Iris are Jakks Pacific Kids.
YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1983-present day

The Cabbies pictured are among the more extreme in my Patch, but there are Cabbies in this world with even goofier smiles (examples can be seen here and here).  In the early days their expressions were more sedate, like so.

A handful don't have much expression at all since they're sucking on binkies.

Or they don't show much expression since those binkies hide it.  They have nice little smiles when they're not sucking their binkies.

But I think Cabbies fall under the "comical" umbrella, for many of the same reasons that Whimsies do.  They're homely as sin, but they're also cute and they're pretty innocent (not all Whimsies are that innocent, LOL).  Cabbage Patch Kids didn't start life with mouths full of choppers, but as y'all can see more head molds were added and now a lot of 'em look like they're laughing out loud.  I love Cabbies like that, though as y'all have noticed I'm not too picky.  Idalia has her tongue lolled out and I welcomed her with open arms.  I was so determined to own a popcorn that Idalia could've had fangs if the price had been right.

NAME:  Baby Face; my particular doll is So Surprised Suzie, in the top center box.

COMPANY:  Galoob
YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1990-1991

Suzie is a frequent flyer here on the blog, and admittedly she's not as comical as some of her friends.  My mama calls her "one of your funny-lookin' ones," LOL.

Hey, Saucy can make that face too!

Truthfully I haven't seen a Mel Birnkrant-designed doll that WASN'T a character, though some of Olivia Reese's character comes from her ability to climb things and hang upside down.

Marta Angela, on the other hand...I think she'd classify as comical.  I think she knows it, too!

But yeah, regarding the Baby Face dolls, I think the funniest one is the deliriously happy So Funny Natalie, though again, some fans think she's creepy.  Admittedly, she IS pretty toothy.  Teeth can be hard to do on dolls; they can look sharky or rabbitlike or just plain dumb.  Or they can look adorable, like the teeth on my beloved American Girls, or innocent like So Innocent Cynthia, or sultry/snarky like a Bratz doll.  In my eyes Natalie is pushing the boundary between funny and sharky.

NAME:  Rotten Kids; my particular doll's name is Lucy, though I still sometimes call her "Belka."  I've not yet rooted Lucy out of storage, so this is a reused picture.

COMPANY:  D'anton Jos, apparently a division of Berenguer
YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  Sometime in the nineties, I presume; I still know very little about these dolls.

Believe it or not these ugly little goobers were meant to be collectors' items of some stripe!  Or I think they were, as that's the only way I can explain a price tag of sixty-five bucks for a lightweight doll that picks her nose and does nothing else.  Prices like that make a grown man holler (LOL).  To be perfectly honest I'm not sure if Lucy is one of the Rotten Kids or if she's just a D'anton Jos doll that looks a lot like the Rotten Kids.  Not all Danton dolls were Rotten Kids, you see, but the ones I've seen are still a riot.  As I said in Lucy's second post, she and her rotten brothers and sisters will never win any beauty contests, but I tip my hat to whoever sculpted these faces.  Capturing emotion is not easy without making the doll look stilted, and "stilted" is the last word I'd use to describe these dolls.  Plus, Lucy's lips have molded creases.  Such details are usually painted or left out.

Despite being homely as all get-out Lucy is a favorite of mine, both for her funny face and for the sentiment behind her (she was a gift).

I could also throw in Jumeau model 217, the one that's lolling her tongue out, but I couldn't find a picture that wasn't copyrighted.  But then again, that picture of Baby Laugh-a-Lot may be theft too.  Y'all if that's your picture and you want me to take it down, say the word and I'll do it.  Anyway, I don't know if Model 217 could be considered comical, crazy, or downright stupid, but there aren't many dolls in this world like her so she gets Honorable Mention.  I'll also give Honorable Mention to the Zwergnase bunch, particularly LOLing Kicky and sly, smirking Zwaantje.

My odds of owning a Zwergnase doll are about as long as Pete Townshend's nose, and I don't WANT to own Jumeau 217, so I'll end this by letting my kids ham it up a bit.  They're a happy bunch for the most part.

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987