Not the same Mia

Y'all may or may not remember that I own three Mia dolls from Nines d'Onil, seen in this post and in this one.  I love 'em, not gonna lie, but for reasons I'll never know, I got attached to the idea of bringing THIS Mia home.

This Mia is Ideal and belongs to the Crissy clan as one of Velvet's friends. 

She doesn't talk or move around like my other Crissy and Velvet dolls did, but she makes up for it by being uber-cute in the face.  And free of mold.  No more mold for me, please.

Blue eyes, dark hair, kinda like me, though my hair isn't this dark OR this thick.  I've learned that uterine fibroids can sometimes cause hair to be thin, so maybe that's my issue.  Anyway, in addition to Mia I own one Crissy, one Cinnamon, and two Velvets, but Mia is the only one to come in her original outfit, complete with shoes.  I love these little shoes that Crissy and her framily wear.

However, look carefully at the buckles of these shoes.  Both fasten on the right side of the shoe.

Sure enuff, they're both right shoes!  They both fit Mia just fine, but I thought I'd throw this out there. 

I'll never know 100% for sure if these are Mia's original shoes, but I have no reason to doubt it.  Crissy and her crew often had mismatched shoes.  For the record, though Mia's default color is blue, she also looks amazing in red.  One of Tam's Mia dolls wears a red dress and she's really cute.  Tam got her two Mia dolls for a buck fifty each, by the way.  I thought paying ten dollars for my Crissy was a steal, but you can't get much for a buck fifty nowadays. 

Crissy and Beth doesn't explicitly say this, but if I were to guess then I'd say that Mia is related to Crissy's friend Tressy.  Tressy (only a very, very distant relation to the American Character doll) was a Sears exclusive and has dark hair, blue eyes, and a dominantly blue outfit, so the two dolls certainly LOOK related.  I don't like Tressy as much as I like Mia, though; she's kinda bug-eyed and tight-lipped, like someone poked her in the butt with a stick.  But I'd still grab her if I saw her for a good price, LOL.

In other news, my dogs, Bella and Sonic, are now living at Casa Pizarro and are settling in nicely.  Sunday was stressful because they were nervous and unsure of their surroundings, but they're getting the hang of it.  That said, they now sit in the area of the couch where I used to take pictures of my dolls for the blog, so I'm gonna have to rethink how I get the blog done.  No biggie, but I may go quiet for awhile.  And maybe I won't.  After all, I do have a coffee table right in front of me that is a good place for pictures.  I can also use the floor if I prop the doll in question up with a pillow, like I did with Mia.  See?

XOXO,
RagingMoon1987

YouTube speaks: twenty-four "weird" dolls of the sixties and seventies

This one is another post inspired by YouTube; I'm always on YouTube, so I may make this a series.  Anyway, during one of my nightly YouTube benders I found this video about twenty-four dolls from the sixties and seventies that might be considered odd, either back then or now.  I thought it was interesting and decided to issue my opinions, because my opinions are SOOOOOOO important!  The video can be found here, and spoilers:  some of 'em aren't that weird in my book.  Kinda like...

ROCK FLOWERS

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1971-1973

Rock Flowers were kinda Mattel's answer to Dawn, small dollhouse-sized dolls that wore bright, trendy-for-the-era clothes, bent their arms and legs, and danced on record players.  The dolls were music-themed and came with their own records, but otherwise they look pretty innocent to me.  The narrator wasn't a big fan of how their doll smelled, and the doll wouldn't sit up for tea parties either.  Legit gripes, both of those.  One of my "scented" dolls stunk up her whole box, and I HATE it when I want my dolls to sit up and they won't.  The narrator also critiqued the Rock Flowers' staring eyes, and I think that critique IS dumb because all dolls stare.  Smart Dolls, Mumpy Terri Lee, Cabbage Patch Kids, American Girls, Barbie, they all stare.  

WEIRD FACTOR:  2 out of 10.  I don't really find these weird at all, in fact.  They're dated a bit, yes, but then so are many dolls of this era.  My review on Heather can be seen here.

DUSTY/SKYE

COMPANY:  Kenner
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1974

Dusty and her friend Skye were sports-themed dolls, apparently designed to get girls active.  The duo could ski, play golf, and play tennis.  The narrator says that when their friend's Dusty did ski she made a "nails on a chalkboard" noise.  They also weren't in love with the dolls' faces...or their hair, or their clothes.  Dusty and Skye apparently had nice sets of joints, but those joints cracked louder than my knees do when I'm struggling to stand.  I wouldn't have liked that as a kid; when a doll's joint cracked too loud I was immediately afraid that I'd broken something.

WEIRD FACTOR:  6 out of 10.  I can only presume that Dusty and Skye were created to attract boys and tomboys...kids that don't usually play with dolls, period, even if the doll in question is sports-themed.  If my presumption is correct then the gimmick fell flat right out of the gate.  I personally also find the duo homely, and I know I'm not the only one who feels that way.  Tomboys aren't always plain of face, though they are often depicted as such.  Tam discusses Dusty here and Skye here.

JODY

COMPANY:  Ideal
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1975

Copper topped Jody, also called Jody the Country Girl, this doll represented country life in the Victorian era.  Kinda fitting, since Little House on the Prairie was big back then.  Once again, the narrator said their Jody smelled funny, had stiff hair, and stared.  She also could apparently look pretty menacing when wielding a pitchfork.  I personally love her period-accurate accessories,  though, especially her old-timey wall-mount telephone.  

WEIRD FACTOR:  3 out of 10.  Country living was kinda a thing in the seventies, and it still is to some extent today.  The only thing I don't really like about Jody is her skirt, which is impractically long for country life.  But then again, she does represent an era where skirts WERE that long.  Like the Rock Flowers, Jody is a hair dated, but that's all.  Tam also has featured this doll on her blog.

SMARTY PANTS

COMPANY:  Topper
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1971

This one is one I wasn't familiar with, and I'm already not in love with the name.  "Smarty pants" is usually thrown around in a derogatory manner.  I'd have liked the trivia factor, though.  Yes, Smarty asked trivia questions, and if you got it right she'd congratulate you.  The narrator called her "bossy" and stated that Smarty was not the most cuddly thing.  Worse, she asked multiplication questions, so that wouldn't have pleased me as a kid.  Multiplication was the bane of my existence when I was Smarty's target age.  Smarty also wore glasses that could throw light wrong, and she wasn't dressed very stylish like.  As a result, the narrator said she looked like a "mean teacher."  Oh, and guess where Smarty's batteries go???  Right up her butt!

WEIRD FACTOR:  5 out of 10.  She's cute, but who wants to be asked questions when they're trying to relax and play?  I don't, even if I do like trivia!  I had a laugh at the battery placement, though.

SWINGY

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1968

Our resident Paul Revere and the Raiders fan!  Swingy is a little go-go dancer, styled for the era, and I freaking love her.  The poor love is quite noisy when she moves, though, and apparently her hair would get caught in her joints too.  And guess what else?  The narrator reported that Swingy smelled funny.  Hell's bells, my mama's old Barbie smells funny too, kinda like crayons.  I think that was the norm for dolls of the era, because that's how plastic was and still is.

WEIRD FACTOR:  1 out of 10.  I don't find Swingy weird at all, but then I'm a bit biased because I like her.

CRISSY

COMPANY:  Ideal
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1969-1974

Ah, Crissy, of whom I'm very fond.  Crissy and company had hair that grew and could retract again, and if you were good with styling you could give her curls or updos or what-have-you.  Unfortunately, Narrator reports that in addition to feeling nasty right out of the package, their Crissy's hair would break and they'd be left holding shanks of hair.  Funny, I've not had that issue with my dolls' hair, but then I usually just braid it to avoid tangles.  I wonder if Narrator's doll was one of the first issue dolls; Crissy and Beth says that that hair was different from the hair of later dolls.  I've also gotta admit that pulling a doll's hair to make it grow sounds excruciating, but I can't think of any better way to get the hair out.  Hardcore readers of my blog will remember my main gripe with Crissy:  her eyes are ridiculously dark, darker even than the darkest American Girl eyes.  Mia, one of Velvet's friends, has the exact opposite effect; her eyes are a smidge bright.  And yet Mia is one of my favorites of the bunch due to her exuberant smile.

WEIRD FACTOR:  Mmmm...4 out of 10, mostly for the eyes.  Crissy's eyes are WAAAAY too dark.  I might bump the Look Around variants up to 6 out of 10, as the "look around" feature is kinda creepy.  Y'all can read my review of Crissy here; I also own two Velvets and a Cinnamon, and I'm keeping my eyes peeled for Tara.  Tam has a few of these dolls too; indeed, one of my Velvets belonged to her!  

THIRSTEE WALKER

COMPANY:  Horsman
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1964

Yes, that is a screenshot, LOL.  Several of these images are.  Thirstee Walker walked, drank, and cried, which is admittedly an unusual combo of gimmicks.  None of my walkers drink, for example.  The water proved problematic, as it sloshed around, leaked from the doll in various unusual places, smelled stale, and undoubtedly caused the doll to mildew.  I'd have kept water a million miles away from this gal.

WEIRD FACTOR:  6 out of 10.  She looks innocent enuff, but why make a doll drink when she can't pee it back out???

CHEERFUL TEARFUL

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1965

Cheerful's name says it all:  she could be happy or sad depending on how her arm was positioned.  She could cry real tears like Thirstee Walker, but she had a pee hole so the water wouldn't build up inside and get icky.  Like Dusty, Cheerful made a racket when her arm was moved, and sometimes she'd get stuck between happy and sad.  The smaller variant, Tiny Cheerful Tearful, had sunken eyes that attract dust, throw funny shadows, and make the doll look sick.  I'd know, because I own her!  My review of Tiny Cheerful Tearful can be found here, and if you watch the video, you may notice that one of the pictures of Tiny looks familiar. 

WEIRD FACTOR:  6 out of 10.  That shifting face is admittedly a little freaky.  Tiny Cheerful Tearful also looks a little ill with those hollow eyes.

BABY FIRST STEP

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1964

Another walker, though this young lady walks the same way Swingy dances:  by shuffling her feet and swinging her arms.  Like Swingy she's noisy when she walks, and the narrator claimed that this doll could spontaneously walk by herself.  Knowing mechanical items like I do, there's probably some truth to that.

WEIRD FACTOR:  1 out of 10, just like Swingy.  The two could be sisters, except that they don't look the same in the face.  Tam has discussed this doll on her blog.

CHATTY CATHY 

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1959-1965

Chatty Cathy?  MY Chatty Cathy, weird?  Well...if you ask my sister then she's worse than weird.  Most doll fans are at least vaguely familiar with this doll, either because they lived in the era, because they saw the GEICO commercial, or because they like The Twilight Zone.  As for weird...well, Cathy doesn't blink when she talks (most dolls don't), her mech made an ominous grinding sound when activated, and...yeah, I can see why some folks would be a bit weirded out by Chatty Cathy.  Nonetheless, to date she is Mattel's second most popular doll, behind only Barbie.

WEIRD FACTOR:  I'll give her a 5 out of 10.  I've gotta admit that it's freaky how she stares and talks without blinking.  To be fair, I don't like that about Amazing Maddie or my other talking dolls either.  Furthermore, I always thought it was odd that some of these dolls declared "I hurt myself!"  Another of my chatterboxes, Teenie Talk, says something similar, but she then asks me to kiss it, so it makes a bit more sense.  Big surprise, Tam also has a few of these, and two of 'em have pigtails.  I think the ones with pigtails are cute.

CHARMIN' CHATTY

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1963-1964

Chatty Cathy's sister of sorts, Charmin' relied on records to speak, and that right there is a smidge problematic.  Fans of old vinyls know how records can get scratched, and when that happens they skip or repeat.  This sometimes happened to Charmin' Chatty!  She also was a little goofy in the face, to the point that some folks think she's ugly (I think she's hilarious).  I will say that Charmin' isn't as quiz-kid as Smarty Pants is; one of her records has her making animal sounds, which kids love to do.  So Charmin' had a goofy side.

WEIRD FACTOR:  I'll give her a 4 out of 10, a little lower than Chatty Cathy.  She doesn't blink when she talks either, but as I said above few dolls can do that.  The skipping records are my main reason for her landing a 4.  Once again, please take a look at Tam's doll.  She's missing her glasses, but she's still cute.

TINY TEARS

COMPANY:  American Character
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1950-1965

One of the more well-known vintage dolls, Tiny Tears is a crier and could wet her diapers as well.  Narrator says that this doll's voice sounded too realistic at times (so do Cry Babies!) and that she'd go off at random sometimes.  If not properly dried her tears would gather dust and make the poor poppet look unwell.  Hmmm...I never had that problem with the handful of criers that I played with.  She apparently also reeked after being fed.

WEIRD FACTOR:  2 out of 10.  She's a crier, no worse than the Cry Babies of today, though as with Thirstee Walker I'd be concerned with mildew over time.  Thus why I keep water away from Ayla and Kathy Cry Baby, even though they were meant to have water inside them.  Tam has this one too, and hers is really cute.

BETSY WETSY

COMPANY:  Ideal
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1937-1983, give or take

Killecrankie, I had no idea that Betsy Wetsy had been around that long!  Narrator says that this doll retained water like Thirstee Walker (and probably Tiny Tears) did, and predictably that started to smell after awhile.  Her hair could also turn green from the chlorine in the water.  Interesting, I knew that could happen to polar bears, but apparently it can happen to dolls too!  Narrator didn't add that unlike Tiny Tears, Betsy's nose runs when she cries, adding another orifice to be cleaned. 

WEIRD FACTOR:  4 out of 10.  She's a crier like Tiny Tears, but the runny nose bumps the weird factor up a bit.  Yeah, we've all had a runny nose from time to time, but it's not a common feature on our dolls unless they're little sickies, which Betsy is not.

BABY ALIVE 

COMPANY:  Kenner
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1973-present day (sort of)

We're talking the original one here!  Baby Alive is still very much alive in the present day, but boy howdy, has she changed!  Y'all have seen my little trio, and they look nothing like the doll of the seventies.

The original Baby Alive ate more-or-less real baby food, and she could drink from her bottle as well.  Our narrator hero states that feeding the doll AND changing her diaper were jobs for a biohazard team, and her chewing and sucking mechanisms made ominous grinding noises.  Having seen the food, I have to agree that it doesn't look the most appetizing in the world, and I wouldn't want to change that diaper either.

WEIRD FACTOR:  6 out of 10 for a doll that eats colored sludge and calls it food.  Even Snackin' Sara's Play-Doh turdlets looked more like something a doll could eat.

FLATSIES

COMPANY:  Ideal
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1969-1973

Flatsies, Flatsies, they're flat and that's that!  I thought that these dolls were...well, flat, but it turns out that there's more to them than that.  Flatsies could apparently be inflated like little balloons, or little blow-up dolls, take your pick.  They didn't always inflate fully, and over time their air would leak out, which Narrator said was freaky because of the noise it made.  Hmmm...the Flatsies I'm familiar with don't inflate.  They just are...well, FLAT, with legs and arms that bend like Tutti and Todd dolls.  They live in picture frames and thus can double as a wall hanging, so that's something.  Score one for storage!

WEIRD FACTOR:  Ohhhhhh...5 out of 10.  They're cute, they're flexible, they've got rooted hair...and they're flat.  That's kinda strange, but not outrageously so.

BABY SECRET

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1965

Narrator's frequent comparisons of Baby Secret to a stupid spy didn't contribute to my enjoyment of this segment.  Baby Secret DOES whisper secrets, but they're innocent little messages that normally wouldn't give kids the all-overs.  Now granted, the whispering voice does freak me out a bit, and some of her phrases sound a mite R-rated to someone with a dirty mind (I admit it, LOL).  Baby Secret also has a mouth that moves, just like Teenie Talk and Baby See 'n' Say do.  Some find that disturbing, but I think it's cute.  The doll's eyes look ever so slightly pissed though, making Baby Secret look like she's about to whisper "Go jump off a cliff."

WEIRD FACTOR:  5 out of 10.  Talking dolls are nothing new, but the whisper sounds a mite sinister, and the doll looks like she might be a biter.  Kinda like Teenie Talk, the same one who asks me to kiss her finger.

I love Teenie, but I never have fully trusted her.  She looks like she'd like to bite a plug outta my arm.  Hmmm, I need to give that dress a bath.

SPORT AND SHAVE KEN

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1980

Ken had already had facial hair by the time this guy came around; Now Look Ken had fuzzy stickers that allowed him to wear a mustache, sideburns, or channel his inner Barry Gibb.  Whatever you wanted; I thought it was a riot, by the way, that Now Look Ken's commercial equated a mustache with a villain.  But we're talking about Sport and Shave Ken, whose beard came from this gommy black marker.  You drew on his face and then shaved it off with a razor that didn't actually cut anything.  Now, if you had a man in your life that wore a beard (like I did), then you knew that beards require a fair amount of maintenance, just like the hair on our heads, and you knew what razors were for.  So a Ken with a razor doesn't weird me out much, but the gloppy paint that made this particular doll's beard was kinda gross.  The narrator agreed.

WEIRD FACTOR:  4 out of 10.  The marker looked weird when it was in place.  Indeed, this is the only Ken I've seen with facial hair that looked better without.  Shaving Fun Ken looks amazing with a beard...drat it, I miss being able to take my dolls outside like Tam and Miss Emily do!!!  As an aside, Jenjoy notes that this Ken was the only one with his particular head mold.  Kinda cool!

SALLY SECRETS 

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1992-1994

Sally is a glitzy toddler doll from the nineties...wait a minute, I thought we were doing the seventies and earlier.  But as I've stated in the past Sally has a number of artsy little items that were trendy in the nineties, and she carries them on various parts of her body.  Her shoes and earrings hide little stamps, and stickers come out of...wait a minute, her body???  Yep.  I gotta admit that that's kinda weird.  Sally's sister/friend (I'm not sure which) Penni Secrets carries her stickers in her hair bow, which makes a tiny bit more sense.  I bet Penni's bow would be a heavy one though, and I know of old that heavy hair bows are extremely uncomfortable.

WEIRD FACTOR:  6 out of 10.  The child does have stickers coming out of her chest, after all.  I love this doll, though!

MY PRETTY BALLERINA 

COMPANY:  Tyco
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:

Also not an oldie, but she is highly similar to Dancerina and Dancerella, who ARE products of the Me Decade.  My Pretty Ballerina sometimes appears on lists of glitzy toddler dolls, and...I guess she could count as such.  Narrator states that this doll danced semi-on her own, and she'd continue to do so after her music stopped, which they found kinda disturbing.  I'll add in my two cents and say that the doll looks a smidge stoned.  Since she's a doll My Pretty Ballerina also looks robotic when she moves, but...well, she's a doll!  They don't move exactly like we do.

WEIRD FACTOR: 2 out of 10.  I think she's cool.

HUGO, MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES

COMPANY:
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:

Okay, now THIS one made me raise an eyebrow.  Hugo is actually a puppet and is geared towards little boys, and he has facial features that one can attach to make him look like someone/something else.  He's even got SCARS!!!  I love the concept, but Narrator says that it was hard to get the pieces on straight, and they left a sticky residue.  I wonder if that sticky stuff didn't wear off after awhile, and I know darn good and well that the sticky stuff gathered debris with time.  All sticky stuff does.  Narrator also notes that Hugo is weird-looking even without his extra features, with them big ol' eyes that stare.  

WEIRD FACTOR:  8 out of 10.  Hugo is a very interesting concept, but he's still pretty odd to look at.

BABY SOFT SOUNDS

COMPANY:  Fisher-Price
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1979

According to Narrator this doll recorded your voice, but the playback wasn't great.  She oddly could pick up on conversations while one thought she was off, and she also smelled like "old batteries," as the video put it.  Now the dolls that I've seen make no mention of an internal recording device, but they were out-of-box so I have no way of knowing for sure.

WEIRD FACTOR:  Mmmm...3 out of 10.  To me she's no weirder than Little Miss Echo.

BLESS YOU BABY TENDER LOVE 

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1975

Bless You Baby Tender Love.  She looks pretty innocent, if a little orange.  Bless You Baby Tender Love sneezes when her belly is squeezed, and because she takes a bottle her sneezes are realistically wet.  Narrator stated that they owned this doll, and in addition to sneezing the little doll sounds like she's wheezing too (which she does).  They felt bad for this doll because she was always sick and couldn't be made better.

WEIRD FACTOR:  7 out of 10.  Sick dolls are nothing new, but usually they show some other symptom besides the sneeze, and a lot of 'em alternate between periods of illness and periods of wellness.  Tam thinks this one is weird too, by the way, and...well, obviously I think she's kinda weird, or I wouldn't have given her a 7 out of 10!  I intend to review this doll eventually, but life keeps getting in the way.

GROWING UP SKIPPER

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  1975

The infamous Growing Up Skipper, the doll who goes through puberty with a twist of her arm.  Skip and her friend Ginger were both in on it, and the backlash against these dolls was so great that Ginger never appeared again.  Anyway, Narrator notes that like several of these other dolls Skip smelled funny, and I think she clicked, and sometimes she'd get stuck between her short/child self and her tall/teenage self.  Poor child, sounds like she was the type who got tall and awkward as she grew.  I don't know which is worse, being chubby during the gawky stage or being tall with big klutzy feet.  I was chubby, my best friend got tall and gangly, and we both HATED it.

WEIRD FACTOR:  7 out of 10.  Puberty is a natural, normal part of life, but I'll admit that a doll that goes through it is kinda odd.  Oh, and by the way, My Scene revisited the growing up gimmick with the Growing Up Glam line.  I'd rank them the same, 7 out of 10 on the weird scale. 

TUB AND TOOT 

COMPANY:  Toys R Us
YEARS OF PRODUCTION:  2014

This doll is modern, not a seventies thing, but otherwise she belongs on this list.  Why???  Because she FARTS IN HER BATHTUB!!!  Let's be real, we've all farted in the bathtub at some point, and the racket it makes is hilarious.  But...is it really worth it to make a doll that does it?  I mean, this doll is completely innocent-looking, but press that button on her belly and...oh, not only does she make the noise, but she also apparently blows bubbles with her butt.  Sigh...I have no other words.

WEIRD FACTOR:  9 out of 10.  What the actual heck???  A farting doll???  Miss Emily discussed this one once, and she too was pretty weirded out.

I'm surprised that Saucy wasn't on the list!  Blythe isn't either, and she was so weird that peeps didn't buy her.  Neither of them are as weird as Hugo with his funny faces, and even he's not as weird as Tub and Toot, but still...I'd rank Saucy a 7 out of 10 and Blythe an 8 out of 10.  Keep in mind that I'm a big fan of both dolls.

Other good candidates for the list would've been Susie Sad-Eyes, Emerald the Enchanting Witch, Little Miss No-Name, and Joey Stivic, the last of whom was...don't quote me, but I think he was one of the first mass-produced anatomically correct boy dolls.  His commercial made a big deal of this aspect.  Furthermore, I don't think All In the Family was geared towards kids, not with the language Archie Bunker used!  I think All In the Family is a riot myself, but then I'm 37 and won't be confused or horrified by the situations on the show.  Thus I think the Joey Stivic doll probably was way over the heads of seventies kids.  Now, disclaimer: I mean no shade towards ANY of these dolls, not even Tub and Toot.  Indeed, Little Miss No-Name is very high on my wish list, and I own several of the others already.  But y'all gotta admit, they're not your average dolls.

What say y'all?  Do you know of any little weirdoes that belong on this list?

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987

Throwback Thursday review: Hasbro Aimee

We're going back to 1972 for this one.  The Oakland Athletics won the World Series that year, "Rocket Man" made it to #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington both got hit by a tornado (rare in that part of the country), and Jon Pertwee reigned as the foppish Third Doctor.  From this...admittedly boring-sounding year the doll world got Aimee, a Hasbro entity whose big gimmick kinda failed her.  Indeed, my initial intention for poor Aimee was to rob her of her clothes to see if they could fit any of my dolls, but I ended up taking pity on her.  As y'all can see, she doesn't photograph very well.

Take that back:  Aimee can look cute if done up the right way.  I thought she looked adorable with that band around her head, for example.  Indeed, for some reason she reminded me a bit of Walk Lively Steffie with her hair like this....even though Walk Lively Steffie didn't have bangs.

Hair band or no, Aimee is not the looker that Hasbro claimed she was.  However, after handling her I gained some respect for the product Hasbro was trying to make, and I decided to review her.  Aimee represents the early 1970s and is seen by some as Hasbro's answer to Ideal's Crissy.  Indeed, Aimee is a hair play doll like Crissy, but she went about the hair thing in a completely different manner.  Instead of having "hair that grows and grows" like Crissy did, Aimee had hairpieces that could plug into her head.  Yeah, y'all heard that right:  PLUG into her head.  I've discussed two other dolls in the past with hair pieces that plug in, Cutie Pops Candi and Wild Hair Sindy...and I guess my LIV dolls count too since their wigs are held in place with pegs.  Either way, Aimee had hair that plugged into her head, and she also came with items that could be bobby-pinned in place.  I unfortunately can't show how this is done because I've been unable to locate any of Aimee's extra hair.  Aimee herself is not hard to find, but her extra outfits and accessories are trickier.  I have been able to find one of Aimee's extra outfits, the red velvet dress that would be nice for fall or winter.

In the matter of the doll herself, Aimee is supposed to be an older teen or possibly a young adult (unlike the preteen Crissy), and as a result all of her extra outfits were of the formal or semi-formal style.  NONE of them were slacks or pantsuits, which surprises me a little since it wasn't out of the question for women to wear pantsuits to nice occasions in the seventies.  Also surprisingly, none of the outfits came with extra shoes, meaning that Aimee is stuck with her plain black open-toe sandals, but that's not a huge deal since black goes with just about everything.  In general, online opinions of Aimee are fairly lukewarm, citing her "dress-up" gimmick as awkward and her face as unattractive, but we'll cross those bridges when we come to them.  Aimee is eighteen inches tall like an American Girl, but her measurements are about as different from Rita Cheryl's as night is from day.  I also threw in Crissy, who was also available in 1974 (though starting to fade in popularity) and sometimes gets compared to Aimee.  These two are pretty different at first glance, I can tell y'all that right now. 

Aimee has black/dark brown hair, and she wears it...in sort of a mullet!

Y'all probably can't see it, but the upper layers of Aimee's hair are drastically shorter than the lower layers!  I've said in the past that a mullet can look nice if done right, but this ain't it.  It's not terribly obvious, though.  The lower layer of Aimee's hair is worn to the shoulder and is curled up at the ends, kinda like Lucy Van Pelt's hair, or Lindsey Bergman's, take your pick.

I had Aimee with Rita Cheryl for a brief period during the beginning of the summer, and I noticed that their hair is similar.  I put them together to see just how similar.

The results reminded me of the time I compared Lindsey's hair to Rita Cheryl's.  When she's alone Aimee's hair looks Hesston tornado-level black, but under the proper lighting it's easy to see that that's not the case.

Regarding the fibers, since they're short the fibers are easy to brush out, but they still have a mind of their own.  This is most prominently seen in Aimee's bangs.  She apparently had them either parted or squished at some point, and they've stayed parted.  I've had only limited success in trying to brush this out, though the elastic band helped some.

Hopefully the fibers will remember that they're not being shoved under a wig.  Yes, in order to accommodate some of Aimee's hairpieces, her bangs had to be pushed back under her wig.  I don't see what difference that makes, but anyway...Aimee's root job is pretty thick, and her scalp is painted black.

Better take it easy on the hair dye, sister, unless you want to die of lymphoma like one of my mother's friends did.  Scientists and doctors haven't definitively linked hair dye to lymphoma, but when it comes to chemicals it's always best to err on the side of caution.  Usually in a doll's case a painted scalp is usually better than a bare scalp shining through, but in Aimee's case it also made her gimmick notoriously hard to use.  Remember when I said that a lot of her hairpieces plug into her head?  The holes that accommodate those plugs are very hard to find.  I did eventually find a couple, but I had to go through Aimee's hair like I was picking out cooties.  This one is on Aimee's right temple.

Some of these holes have hair rooted in, making them even harder to find.  I think this is what one of those holes looks like; it's located right in the middle of Aimee's forehead, just inside the hairline. 

Compare those to the holes in Wild Hair Sindy's head (seen below) and Cutie Pops Cookie's head (linked doll belonged to Miss Emily; I never photographed the holes in my Candi's head, but they're just like Cookie's).

Cutie Pops didn't have any rooted hair, so their holes are impossible to hide without a hat.  Sindy, however, has a full head of rooted hair, and even though the holes in her head are large they can be hidden and found again with ease.  Since Aimee has thick, dark hair bigger holes would've been possible, but I guess Hasbro didn't think of that.  Either that or they just didn't want to make them bigger.  Either one is a possibility.  My point is that Aimee's holes are hard to find, and Crissy and Beth adds that the plug on Aimee's wiglet doesn't fit in the hole well (the plug is teeny-weeny and the holes are even teeny-weenier).  The Bold Doll confirms this.  So right out of the gate Aimee's main selling point is rendered difficult to use.  How difficult I do not know, but it reminds me of my What's Her Face review, the one where you could stamp the doll's face on.  What's Her Face's big selling point was her big downfall, and while I can't confirm this with Aimee, I'm reading that the same is true for her.  Her rooted hair, though?  It's nice enuff.  My doll may need a hair washing to get the fibers to calm down, but that's about it.

Now, to quote the Wizard of Oz, COME FOREWARD!!!

Look at that!  Look at that!!!  <sobs wildly>  I WANNA GO HOOOOOME!!!  LOL, okay, Aimee's face isn't that bad.  She's not stunningly beautiful either, but I don't oft run into dolls that are stunningly beautiful.  Some Aimee dolls are prettier than others since they went a little easier on the eyeshadow, but my Aimee...looks like I did back in high school, minus my Egyptian-themed eyeliner and woolly worm eyebrows (Aimee's look penciled in and overshadowed by eyeshadow, typical of seventies eyebrows, while mine tend to look like Xenia's).

When it comes to eyeshadow, chica, less is more.  Unless you're Jem and the Holograms or Barbie and the Rockers, that is.  Further, I think some other color would've fit Aimee better since her eyes are a very unique shade of brown.  Very, VERY unique, in fact.  Many a time I've seen blue doll eyes that throw back a lot of light (usually said doll is a Madame Alexander doll), but this is the first time I've seen brown doll eyes do this.  Usually I'm griping about brown doll eyes being too dark, but...well, I'll ask y'all.  Which is better/worse:  Crissy's too-dark dead-looking eyes, or Aimee's glow-in-the-light eyes?

Y'all gotta admit that they look cute together!  I myself will admit that I like Aimee's eyes quite a bit; the flash from my camera overexposes them and makes them look weirder than they really are, but IRL they're not so bad.  Kenner Blythe had this same problem, by the way; her brown eye chips have a nasty penchant to look orange and possessed, especially as she ages.  Must've had something to do with the type of plastic used back then.  Regardless, Aimee's eyes sleep, and her thick eyelashes don't interfere with opening and closing like they do with some of my other dolls.  Notice though that her eyelids don't have any eyeshadow.  Y'know, where shadow is SUPPOSED to go.

I wonder if Aimee would've been more attractive if she'd had painted eyes?  Two of Crissy's friends, Dina and Brandi, had painted eyes rather than sleep eyes, and I have a few dolly friends who say Dina and Brandi are the only members of the Crissy family that they like.  I myself have Cinnamon, who also has painted eyes, and...again, I'll ask y'all.  Which do y'all prefer:  the sleep eyes of Crissy (left) and Velvet (right), or Cinnamon's painted eyes (center)?  Cinnamon's eyes aren't that red IRL, I promise!

As much as I love Crissy, I have to admit that I like Cinnamon's eyes the best.  But let's face it, Cinnamon's just a cute doll, period.  This is one of the few dolls that my mom all but begged me to get.

Oh yeah, Cinnamon also can't get mold in her eyes.  The reason why Crissy and Velvet are currently staying with me and thus available for comparison is because I'm doctoring them (and God knows who else) for mold.  Velvet is the one that brought it in, but I thought it would just spread to Crissy and I could treat them both.  Yeah...do not pass Go, do not collect $200, go directly to jail.  Chatty Cathy is sick and Kissy is sick (much to my mother's chagrin), the Little Miss Revlon crew is sick and the Gerber baby is sick...I could kick myself.  I'm just glad I learned before I moved Sandy into that room (so far I've kept it contained to just one room).  The fix is easy...but I should've just fixed Velvet right then and been done with it.  Live and learn, dang it.  

Oh yes, I also overdid it with the rubbing alcohol.  I put too much in Crissy's eye sockets, and...well, the glue that caused the mold has now come undone.  It's not uncommon for me to find Crissy looking like she overindulged on magic mushrooms. 

Poor dear, it's a good thing Crissy and Beth has tutorials on how to fix eyes!  And now I know what NOT to do when I work on the rest of my sickies.

Spleen vented, let's look at the lower part of Aimee's face.  She has shapely nose and a watermelon-slice smile with nude lips.  The lips are a nice shape, and the paint is even, but as usual I'm not a huge fan of the color.  Something a little darker might've done better.

This is another case of the promotional pictures looking different from the real deal.  The prototype had...well, it had slightly darker lips (plus a completely different head), but...well, we see what we got.  Aimee isn't hideous, but like I said once or twice above she's no knockout.  I wonder what she'd have looked like with darker eyes and with darker lips.  As an aside, both the Bold Doll and Crissy and Beth note that Aimee's box illustrations looked a LOT better than the doll herself did.  I wonder why that is?  Anywho, both sites also say that Aimee's face has a charm of its own, and I have to agree.  While not beautiful, she's not really ugly either.  She looks...well, kinda like your ordinary person, and she looks darn happy to be that way!  As another aside, the Bold Doll notes that Aimee had a black self, and her face was significantly more attractive than that of the white version.  The Bold Doll wonders how Aimee would've performed in stores if her white self had been sculpted the same way.

Oopsie, I forgot ears!  Aimee's ears are ordinary-looking ears, complete with heavy-looking bangles.

I admit it, I'd have worn 'em like that once, but if they're heavy nowadays, FORGET IT!!!  Anyway, Aimee's earrings can come out...

...and they're a bitch to put back in!  Crissy and Beth warned of this, but I had to try anyway.  Aimee did have extra earrings that came with her new wigs, but I've been told they're no easier to insert than her stock earrings are.  The Bold Doll further warn that many of these earrings ended up broken because they were so hard to put in.  Indeed, my dolls' earrings are bent at the top, and I don't think they're supposed to be that way.  I'll have to see what I can do about that; hard as they are to use these earrings do add a lot to Aimee's overall look.

Being a fashion doll, Aimee's build is semi-predictable.  She's got a developed chest, a comparatively narrow waist, and long, graceful limbs.

For comparison's sake, here's what her build is like compared to Sasha (right) and my victimized Crissy.

Aimee has six joints:  the usual five plus a waist joint.  She can turn her head but she can't tip it.

Her arms are rotational, meaning that she can move them up and down but not out to the sides.

The waist joint is where things get interesting.  It can tip from side to side, like so...

...and it can also spin 360 degrees, though I didn't show that.  This here looks painful enuff!

I was able to get a teeny peek at what this joint looks like up close.  Basically the upper half of Aimee's torso fits into a slot in the lower half like so.  That allows for side-to-side motion as well as rotation.

The waist has no back-and-forth movement, but that's NBD because Aimee's hips move back and forth very well.  She can do full splits, like so.

I wanted to get a better look at these arms because they're...kinda noodly.  The molds are not mirror images of each other, though that's hard to appreciate here.

Aimee's hands are delicate and well-molded (nails and knuckles and the like), but they're also a little clawlike!  I was also kinda bummed that Aimee doesn't have any nail polish.  A fashion doll normally has painted nails.

During Crissy's review I talked about Crissy's dainty hands, so here's what they look like next to Aimee's.  I also threw in Sasha's mongo paws.

Because I like dolly feet, here's what Aimee's feet look like.  She's got ten little toes with visible nails (which again are not painted).

Aimee's heels are elevated, not much, but enuff that she can't stand without her shoes.  Aimee and Crissy have that much in common. 

Again, here's what Aimee's feet look like next to Crissy's and Sasha's.  I always thought Crissy had dainty feet, but compared to Aimee she's pretty well endowed.

Not a bad body!  That waist joint has the potential to be fragile, but right now my doll's joint is holding strong.  Crissy and Beth warns that eventually these dolls do get floppy due to aging of the plastic, but for now my Aimee is fairing pretty well.

As I stated above several times Aimee is supposed to be a fashion doll, and her dress screams seventies.

How hippie can y'all get!  Aimee was supposed to be a glamour girl rather than a hippie, but if you're from the seventies you can't escape swirly colors.  There's a lot of foliage in there, and the leaves appear to be blue rather than green.  The other dominant colors are red, pink, and black, with gold serving as a nice accent color.  The fabric itself looks like plain old cotton, but since this WAS the seventies it could also be polyester.

The neckline is...I think that would classify as a mandarin collar, but I'm not 100% on that.  The collar, the waistline, and the bodice are all decorated with this loopy gold trim.  The bodice is trimmed diagonally, sort of like the seam on a kimono, except that if it were a kimono it would be wrapped the wrong way.

Aimee's sleeve cuffs are also decorated with this gold stuff.

The cuffs of these sleeves are extremely fitted, and I was dreading taking them off over Aimee's hands, but then I found that the sleeves have snaps.

In fact, so does the back.  These are still sewn pretty tightly, unlike the snaps on Little Honeymoon's dress and on Crissy's dress.  I'm thankful for the snaps because Velcro and that gold trim would not have gotten along.

The hem of the skirt is neatly done (the skirt is maxi-length), though I do see a few raggy ends that I'll need to trim.  These ends are from the raw edge of the fabric, and not from a sloppy seam.

To my delight, the dress is tagged on the inside.  There'll be no guesswork about who owns it.

Not a bad dress overall!  I love the colors, and my mom just likes the dress, period.  LOL, she probably remembers when styles like that were trendy!  Now Aimee's shoes, I do not get along with.  They're black vinyl high-heeled mules that go with everything...

...but in order to fasten them you have to run this...well, this phallic-looking little tab on one strap through the hole on the other.

That wouldn't be a huge deal, except that the tab is so soft that it bends rather than going through the hole.  So add that to the list of items that are frustrating about Aimee.  The hair plugs don't plug, the earrings don't slide in easily, and now there's these shoes.  Oh yeah, and Aimee's underpants got caught in her waist joint.  Getting THAT untangled was fun!  Yep, Aimee's got little white drawers underneath.  They don't fit her too well.

So my Aimee is mostly complete, at least in terms of clothes.  She's missing her extra wiglet, the braided headband, and the side curls that would've accompanied her fresh out of the box, and I have had no luck replacing these items.  I hope one day to find these so I can say for certain if styling her hair is the big pain that Crissy and Beth says it is.  CB is a pretty good resource, but I still wanna see for myself.  Except for those frustrating shoes Aimee is well-dressed.  Don't pull too hard on that gold trim and her dress should hold up for another forty-plus years.

Now...since I have Crissy, Velvet, and Sasha on hand, I'll play Dolly Dress Shuffle with them though I have my doubts about all three of them.  Indeed, Sasha is already politely bowing out.  

She says her huge hands would never go through those narrow sleeves. 

Crissy, however, is bound and determined to try.  With her eyes being out of whack she doesn't have much to lose.

Well, I did get Aimee's dress ON Crissy, but that was as far as I got it.  It bunches up at Crissy's waist and cannot be fastened.  Even when unfastened the shoulders were too tight for Crissy to move her arms.  Hence the slightly zombie-ish stance.  Aimee looks halfway decent in Crissy's dress, but the waist is too big.  Not that anyone can really tell, LOL.  Shoe sharing is out of the question for these two. 

Velvet's measurements are similar to Crissy's except for height, so I'm expecting more of the same.  Velvet's current outfit is a B.F.C. Ink outfit, by the way, so that will be what Aimee tries on.  Before I started dressing Aimee and Velvet up I noticed the difference in their hands.  Velvet has shorter fingers, but her hand is thicker overall than Aimee's. 

Alright, let's trade clothes.

Velvet is smaller than Crissy, but Aimee's dress was even tighter on her than it was on Crissy.  It's also too long, but why worry about length when the shoulders are way tight?  As for Aimee's, to my disappointment the B.F.C. Ink outfit was too big for her willowy frame.  So much for having modern-day clothing options. 

When I took Aimee's dress off Velvet,  I discovered that an underarm seam had busted.  I can fix that, but it still pissed me off.

Under normal circumstances I'd hop on Etsy and dig up a few custom-made fashions for a doll like Aimee, but unfortunately there's no such thing to be found.  I found plenty of Hasbro dolls on Etsy (most of whom were NOT Aimee), two loose Real Baby dresses that I promptly snapped up, and even some things for Crissy, which shows y'all that I'm not the only collector to associate Crissy with Aimee.  But there were unfortunately no handmade fashions for Aimee herself, and the store-made clothes are also hard to come by. 

Yes, extra clothes.  Hasbro did have Aimee covered there, though the extra outfits are proving tricky to come by.  Aimee had six admittedly lovely outfits, all utilizing long sleeves and heavy fabrics like velvet or brocade.  I consider myself very, very lucky that I found the red dress.  

Okay, it's a very deep shade of cranberry, but I'm still calling it red (indeed, the package called it "red velvet gown").  Like I said in the beginning, this would look awesome for a Christmas gala or something of that stripe.  For the record, Gold Clinger is my favorite of Aimee's extra outfits, and I'm keeping my eyes peeled for that one.

BAD
*Aimee has some of the craziest eyes I've seen on a doll.  Not everyone hates them, but not everyone loves 'em either.
*The extra hairpieces that this doll had were hard to put on, as were the earrings...AND the shoes.
*Very hard to find clothes and accessories.  Aimee herself is easy, but her accessories are not.
*To add insult to injury, she can't share clothes with any of the dolls I own!

GOOD
*From what I can tell, Aimee is well-constructed.  Both she and her clothes stood up well to my use and abuse...until I shoved Aimee's dress on Velvet, that is!  Don't do that if you have both Aimee and Velvet.
*Online images suggest that once Aimee's hairpieces were in place she was a decent-looking little dolly, but I can't test that yet.

Poor Aimee, she had a good idea, but the execution was sadly not very good.  Even though I've heard horror stories about Aimee's fall and wigs being hard to use, I'm still dying to find some of the pieces so I can see how my doll looks.  There sadly aren't many owner pictures showing Aimee modelling her stuff, just a few images on Crissy and Beth and some stock photos provided by the Bold Doll...and we all know how unreliable stock photos can be!  Crissy and Beth suggests that this doll's concept might've been lost on children, as it largely consisted of "glamming up a rather plain doll" for some sort of formal event.  I give Beth that, because unless their parents were filthy rich most kids never saw adults dress up super-fancy for a night out.  But then again, I loved to play dress-up myself when I was young.  Tomboy that I was, I did love the idea of princesses and balls and the like, so a doll like Aimee might've gotten my attention.  That said, the gimmick apparently was not easy to use.  I had a terrible time getting Aimee's shoes to fasten, and her earrings did not want to go back in once I took them out.  Like the What's Her Face dolls, Aimee's big gimmick was her big downfall, and that's a shame, because Aimee herself is a well-constructed doll with well-constructed clothes.  My particular doll also gets along well with her peers, big or small (LOL), and she hopes that one day there will be more clothes to wear.  I hope I can keep her eyes from molding over!

Much love,
RagingMoon1987