As you may know (whether you are American or not), this year is/was an election year. I'm not going to say too much about it, except that I lost my vote and I'm not too happy. LOL, negativity purged, I have in my possession a few new dolls that I'm chomping at the bit to share with you. Since my reviews tend to be rather long-winded, I'm going to break them down over a series of posts. I know I promised a rather large body review, but given the still-increasing size of said body review it may have to wait until my Thanksgiving break...or maybe even Christmas.
That being said, I'm going to get right down to business. Here is the focus of this review.
This is a basic Winx Club
Musa, from Jakks-Pacific.
I'm not going to do a long drawn-out in depth description of Musa, since these dolls are (once again) skillfully and thoroughly reviewed by Miss Emily at the Toy Box Philosopher. In a nutshell, this doll is supposed to be her character in human form...I guess. I've never seen the program she's from so I wouldn't know. Anyways, my Musa didn't come with wings. She wears this simple outfit and wears her pretty blue hair in plain but perky pigtails. She does have the hole in her back to accommodate wings, though. I happen to have located some wings in Dexter's Wal-Mart, so stay tuned. Oh, and as a note, this doll IS available (as are the other four main characters) in both this basic form and
fairy form. The basic dolls come with a simple outfit, a simple hairstyle, and are wingless, while the fairies have elaborate outfits and hair, and big sparkly wings. My Musa cost fifteen bucks at Jonesboro, Arkansas's Target, while her fairy self cost a little over twenty. I already had a new outfit for Meygana in my hands, so I bought the cheaper one. I need to review that outfit of Meygana's, by the way. It has an oversight that you, as potential consumers, need to be wary of.
Now to the point. In her blog Miss Emily reviews another character named
Bloom. Bloom was a bit different from my Musa; she was the more deluxe version with wings. If you read her review, you'll see that Bloom had some problems with her legs. They were bent so badly that Miss Emily called her "Banana Legs" at one point.
Move over, Bloom. Basic Musa is pretty bad too.
It's bad enough when she has her clothes on, but wait until you see her WITHOUT them!!! Okay, she won't be fully nekkid...she does have pink painted panties.
Her upper legs are straight, but her lower legs are bowed out and twisted to the right; the left leg is particularly bad. For the record, Musa does have jointed knees, but they don't have any rotational movement. The right-hand twist is a result of the warping.
Musa is the second doll I've got that's quite like this; the first was my second Barbie Fashionistas doll, a first wave Swappin' Heads Sassy. The root cause of both cases is the same; both dolls were positioned in a certain way in the packaging. (I also bought Sassy because of her purple hair, but that's beside the point, LOL)
Musa and Sassy as they appear in their packages
Musa's legs are bent up and to the left, then tacked to the packaging at the ankles. Sassy's legs are crossed and "shackled" together by some sort of plastic do-dad that's covered by the Fashionistas label. My Sassy doll (nicknamed "Artemis") looked exactly like this when she came out of her packaging...and her left leg is bent backward and to the right, in a manner a leg should NEVER bend!!!
Two Fashionistas: Wild (left) and Swappin' Heads Sassy
It may look like I positioned Artemis like that deliberately with her legs crossed, but in truth that's how she always stands. In the picture on the right you can see (to a certain extent) that her left leg is not even touching the ground. When standing she always looks like she's either in mid-step or doing the potty dance. Her warped leg is not as bad as Musa's, but it's definitely there.
Luckily, there may be a solution. A dear friend of mine suggested that using a warm hair dryer would soften the plastic enough for it to be bent back into shape. He told me he'd tried this method with Barbie Basics dolls (most of y'all probably know how stiff they are), and it worked like a charm. I'm also aware that one can remedy this with a plastic bag and boiling water, but I'm a total spazz when it comes to boiled water, so that method is out. It seems a little ridiculous to have to go to that extent anyway. Why not leave the doll stick straight in the package and forgo all this bending and heating and rebending? For some weird reason doll manufacturers seem determined to make their product look cute in the packaging, and I can understand that if the doll is meant for collectors, some of whom leave their dolls in the boxes. But is it really necessary for children's toys? It's almost like the doll has to whore herself in order to be bought! Whatever happened to the doll who stood straight in her package and let her cuteness be her selling point? Heavens, I didn't even notice Musa's legs in the packaging when I first saw her! I saw her cute face and her blue hair and thought "yep, gotta have that one!" If a twenty-five-year-old with an eye for nitty-gritties can overlook a toy doll's box appearance long enough to buy her, then do you really expect a seven-year-old to give a rip how the doll looks in the box? Alrighty, I'll admit that I know some folks who buy playline dolls and leave them NRFB (today's toys can be tomorrow's collectibles, after all), but there aren't that many.
Do any of y'all out there in Blogspot Land have any Jakks-Pacific Winx dolls or first-wave Swappin' Heads Fashionistas dolls? Do they have warped or twisted legs like my Sassy and Musa and Miss Emily's Bloom? If so, please comment in the area below. Give me your opinions, ideas, and possible advice on this situation. Were you disappointed, pissed, or did it not really matter to you that the doll's legs were bent? Did you try to fix it, or did you just ignore the situation and keep her as is? I welcome your comments (please keep them polite and respectful, both to me and to others).
Oh yes, and I'll post you on the results of the hair dryer test! Until then, enjoy your lives. Stay sober.
Cordially yours,
RagingMoon1987
Veterans' Day update: Due to the fact that this review appeared in the line up of Google queries about doll shoes, Musa will appear in the mass body review I have planned. That brings the grand total to seven dolls. Hmmm...I may have to break that review up a bit.
