President Barbie review

This is the second of my Barbie/Barbie-sized Christmas dolls.  She is the President...or at least, what Barbie would look like if she were President.  WARNING:  this doll has a unique set of joints and is partially nude in some pics to show these joints.  Proceed with caution.

BarbieCollectors.com says that she is no longer available, but some versions of this doll are still in stores.  Mattel released four versions of this doll:  white, black, Latina, and Asian.  Mine is the Asian version; I thought she was the prettiest, and I love Oriental dolls.  She reminds me of one of my favorite political figures, the beautiful and intelligent Michelle Malkin.  And Michelle she has become.

Before I get into the review, it's time for my usual tangent.  Note how I said in the last paragraph that some versions of these dolls are still in stores?  I have been to five different Wal-Marts, one K-Mart, two Targets, two Big Lots, and one Toys R Us, and the vast majority of the dolls in stock are the Caucasian version.  To compound matters, the Caucasian doll is your typical cookie-cutter Barbie:  blonde, blue-eyed, with a big dippy grin on her face.  Why, oh why, must the majority of white playline Barbie dolls look like that?  There ARE brunettes and redheads in this world that like to be represented too.  Anyway, during my search I occasionally saw a couple of black dolls or Latinas in stock, but TRU was the one and only place that had my beautiful Asian doll.  Lo and behold, I didn't have money...but my sister did.  On the day that I obtained Moonlight Dance Daniela, my sister nipped over to TRU, found my coveted Asian president...and ripped the very last one out of another woman's hands!  According to Sister, said woman was furious and yelled various explicatives down the isle, insisting that the doll was "for her granddaughter."  My sister gave her some sass right back and left the store with the doll.  My doll.  The last one in the store.  I feel pretty darn lucky to have her...and such an awesome sister!

Tangent over, let's look at Michelle:

She's a lot more simplistic than Lucy is.  Her hair is straight and black with a deep side part.

She has a very attractive face, with brown, almond-shaped eyes.  Her eyes are highlighted with pink eye shadow and an outer layer of shimmery stuff.  She has brown eyebrows and long painted eyelashes.

I'm not a huge fan of that pink crap around her eyes.  I'm not a makeup expert, but I don't think the pink eye shadow matches.  Brown or gold would've been better.

Michelle's mouth has an open smile.  Her lips are pink.

Again, I'm not a huge fan of the color.  It is washed out in this pic; the color matches the clothes that she's wearing, but I don't find it particularly flattering.

Speaking of what she's wearing, let's take a gander at Michelle's clothing.

Michelle wears a three-piece suit, or rather, an outfit that looks like one:  she has a jacket, blouse, and skirt.  The "blouse" is actually a panel of baby pink stretch material sewn into the front of the jacket.  It has a slight sparkle to it.

The rest of the jacket and skirt are made of thick hot pink material that I can't visually identify.  The pink has an acid-washed effect to it.  It looks almost like it was hand-dyed, which I love.  This material has no stretch to it whatsoever, and I don't love that.

The jacket has a gathered patriotic edging on each seam.

There's also this button.

It's the Barbie logo, but in this case it serves as a campaign button.  It is sewn on.

The skirt is a pencil skirt.  It has three horizontal gathers at the top and fits Michelle very tightly.  The skirt is so tight that I had difficulty maneuvering it over her shoes.  These dolls are best left dressed.

Michelle's jewelry is minimalistic.  She wears a plastic "pearl" necklace and matching earrings, both of which proved to be near impossible to photograph.  Not that there was much need anyway; the jewelry is plain white plastic.

What Michelle lacks in jewelry, she makes up for in some very interesting footwear.  Check these shoes out:

Pink, of course...no shock there.  They are enormous slingback wedges with a very unusual shape.  There is a good reason for their odd shape.

The 2012 President dolls are billed as the first Barbies that can stand on their own.  Michelle can do this, but she has to be carefully balanced on a hard, flat surface.  She does faceplant sometimes, but like all play dolls she can take the abuse.  One other thing of note is that those shoes are molded to Michelle's feet.  She can't take them off AT ALL.  I've seen molded shoes on Barbie dolls before, but they were always flat shoes.  This is the first time I've ever seen molded high heels on a Barbie.

That takes us into the body.  Again, I have never seen a Barbie body like this.  Michelle has a one-piece torso with the standard swivel neck and ball-jointed shoulders.  Her arms are jointed at the elbow and wrist:

The range of mobility in these joints is lousy, however.  This is as far as I can bend either joint, and I even took her tight jacket off to free up those joints!

These joints are so hard to pose that even the position below is a challenge:

Compare this to Katniss and Alexandria (Barbie Fashionistas Wild), both of whom have similar arms.

Breathe easy, Katniss...this isn't President Snow.

Alexandria can fold her arms like a champ.  Katniss cannot cross her arms, but she can bend her arms to a much sharper angle than Michelle can.  Overall, Michelle's arms are more similar to Katniss's than they are to Alexandria's.  It's a bit odd that Michelle the toy would have similar arms to Katniss the collectors' item, and not to Alexandria the other toy.

Odd as Michelle's arms are, they were nowhere near as big a surprise to me as her legs!

They look normal at first sight, but these dolls do NOT have the rubber click-knee legs that the majority of my other playline Barbie dolls do.  Nor does she have external knee joints like Alexandria and Katniss do.  Heck, she doesn't even have the wimpy peg joints that Musa and Artemis have!  Michelle's legs are all hard, probably hollow, plastic.  The knees do not bend AT ALL!!!

Michelle does have mobility at the hips, obviously.  However, this movement is drastically restricted by that tight skirt.  In all, Michelle has nine joints.  That's more than the three that my Stardoll has, but it's nothing like most of the play dolls available right now.

Michelle and Raven compare arms.

Under normal circumstances I'd find it odd for a play doll to have such stiff legs.  However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it makes sense.  This doll's main gimmick is being able to stand on her own, right?  If she had rubber bendy legs OR jointed legs like most of my other dolls, then she probably would not have the strength to stand on her own.  But then again, I do have dolls who can stand perfectly well on their own...and they have jointed knees.  Again, we turn to Katniss for a demonstration.

Katniss has jointed knees and flat feet, plus some very substantial boots, and she can stand on her own.  Thus it is indeed possible to make a doll with bendable knees that can stand unaided.  Therefore I don't know what Mattel's deal is with the President dolls.  Perhaps they didn't want to take a chance with any dolls not being able to stand?  Maybe they feared warped legs, like Artemis and Musa have?  Or maybe those high heeled shoes threw things off a bit?  I don't know.  Your guess is as good as mine.  If any of y'all have actual, verifiable information about why Mattel designed this doll this way, please give me a holler.

So let's sum it up.  This doll has good things and bad things, and my mother always taught me to break the bad news first, so here goes.

BAD
*Poor posability.  The doll's arms are stiff, and the legs only have a hip joint to keep them from qualifying as "frozen."
*Standing feature isn't the greatest.  You have to play with her a bit to get her to cooperate.
*The clothes are too "Barbie."  Nothing but pink, pink, and more pink, with only a bit of patriotic ribbon to break it all up.
*Certain ethnicities are hard to find!  In my area, only the blonde doll was ubiquitous.  The other three were very hard to find.  Either they were more sought-after by collectors and children alike, or there were just fewer of them.  Again, I don't know which of those is the true story; maybe both are true!
*I'm not a huge fan of the pink makeup; it doesn't look good with her skin.
*Not too versatile.  If I were playing Barbies with my little cousin, I could see Michelle playing the president she is supposed to be, or a lawyer, or a businesswoman.  But that's about it.

GOOD
*In spite of the instability, this doll does stand.  Once I have her in the right position she stands very solidly.  She lives up to her promises...unlike certain other politicians!  LOL
*The lack of posability adds a certain degree of durability to this doll; she feels very sturdy when I pick her up, though I am not willing to subject her to my "throw the doll across the yard and see what happens" test (LOL again).
*No warped legs!
*The molded shoes won't fall off and get lost.
*Nice hair.  Soft, smooth, and yet not ridiculously long like some other Barbie dolls.
*The clothes are an unusual shade of pink.  Michelle's suit looks like it's been acid-washed, or maybe tie-dyed.  Furthermore, that pink may actually be a blessing in disguise; instead of the Republican red, Independent white, or Democratic blue, she's her own party's color.
*The clothes are well made.  They feel like seersucker or some sort of ridged fabric like that.  I wouldn't mind wearing a suit like that myself...in a different color, of course!
*This doll is not very pretentious.  Mattel said she is supposed to be the President, and she looks the part.
*She's pretty!
*She looks like the ethnic group she's supposed to portray, without being too stereotyped.
*My particular doll is a gift, which is always a positive.

Perhaps the most important good thing is that she's unique.  There's something about this doll that I just can't put my finger on.  She doesn't blend in with all the others.  When I put her on my shelf with the other dolls I have on display, she had a very commanding presence.  If my dolls were alive, I could see them flocking to her for advice and leadership.

"Vote with your lady smarts, not your lady parts!"

Maybe all that pink is a benefit after all!  Or maybe those stiff legs are what does it.  Either way, this is a very special doll.  Hats off to my beloved sister for bringing her home to me!

Happy last day of February!
RagingMoon1987

"Lucy Does a TV Commercial" dolly review

Well, I certainly have been dragging my feet with reviews.  Here it is February, Winter Storm Q is upon us, and I'm only now getting around to completing these.  I got both the doll highlighted in this review and the one in the next review on Christmas Day.  Talk about being lazy!  Sloth is definitely my deadly sin.  Anyway, this is "Lucy Does a TV Commercial," from Mattel's Barbie Loves Lucy line.  WARNING:  some dolly nudity will be present.

The Barbie Loves Lucy line grew to be quite large; I was in high school when I saw the last one in collector catalogs.  "Lucy Does a TV Commercial" was the very first one, released in early 1998.  I was ten years old.  I took one look at Lucy, remembered my mother's hysterical laughter at the Vitameatavegamin episode that the doll is based on, and said "I want her!"  My intention was to share her with my mother, but my father said no.  "She's too expensive," he said (she was $39).  I was upset but soon got over my disappointment.  Life went on, and new dolls came and went, some of which I got and some of which I didn't.  Now, fifteen years later...I finally have my Lucy!  My mother found her on Ebay for what must've been a good price (I haven't asked what she paid).

That being said, let's look at my lovely Lucy.  First of note is the face.  When it comes to celebrity faces, Mattel is very hit-and-miss.  Sometimes the celebrity dolls Mattel makes look like the people they are supposed to emulate; Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor are good examples.  Sometimes they don't; this Marilyn Monroe comes to mind, though subsequent Marilyn dolls were much better.  So...where does Lucy fall?  You tell me.

You may think differently, but I personally think the doll is a spitting image of Lucille Ball.  So let's start at the top:  Lucy's hair.  Lucy's gorgeous red hair.  I love redheads, and I partially credit Lucille Ball with my affection with the color.

Lucy's hair is curly and tied up in a simple ponytail.  The style looks like a bun since the hair is so curly, but it's just a ponytail, fastened by your standard clear rubber band.

Sewn to Lucy's head is this cute little hat.

It is made of fuzzy black material (not velvet, but still fuzzy), and black lace.  The front part has a veil hanging down over Lucy's bangs.  It feels substantial, but I'm always a little leery of netting.  Sometimes it rots with time.  This, however, looks like it should hold up.

Now let's look closer at Lucy's face.  The doll, not the real person, haha.  Lucy has large, round, blue eyes.

It's hard to tell from that image, but Lucy has rooted upper eyelashes; she's only the third doll I've owned with that feature (my Swan Lake ballerina and my Stardoll are the first two).  In addition to the rooted lashes Lucy has painted upper and lower lashes; these are quite long.  Her eyebrows are dark reddish-brown; they match her hair color better than some of the other dolls I've got.

Lucy's lips are painted bright red.  It's not a garish red (unlike the crap I wore during high school), but it is eye-catching.

This is my favorite part of Lucy's facial sculpt, by the way.  Mattel went to great lengths to make it look like Lucille's mouth, and the results are stunning.  My particular Lucy wears no other makeup besides this lipstick, by the way.  Her eyes and cheeks are completely natural.  There are no paint flaws.

Regarding clothes, Lucy is wearing an asymetrical black-and-white houndstooth suit.  This whole outfit is seamed and hemmed nicely, and the skirt is lined inside, but it's too narrow to get a good picture of the interior.

The dress is one piece, with a line of black "buttons" down the front.

It has a belt:

White cuffs at the sleeves:

And a matching white collar.

The left half of the skirt has a peplum that is sewn in place.

The back opens and closes with snaps, which is a huge relief.

Snaps on a Mattel product suggest to me a higher quality product.  In the case of this doll they are also a vast improvement over the alternative (Velcro), because Lucy has these under her dress!

Seamed stockings!!!  I absolutely LOVE this touch.  I won't be removing them, though; part of the hose appear to have melted to Lucy's hip.  Bummer.

Simple black high heeled pumps complete the look.

These don't stay on very well, by the way.  They were held on with clear rubber bands, but Miss Genius took them off.

Topping off the look are "pearl" earrings and a matching necklace.

Regarding the body, Lucy has the pre-redesign Barbie body, the one with the huge breasts and the hourglass waist.  I'm not sure whether the body is the old TNT or the Shani body, which is slightly slimmer.  Either way, it's an older model with a twisty waist, a body which I took for granted during my childhood, but have since grown to miss.  The arms are bent at the elbow and have the shoulder joint typical of 99% of the Barbies in the world.  One hand has a hole for a ring, but there is no ring.

The legs are jointed at the hip (back and forth motion only) and have the click knee joints.  The narrow skirt restricts hip movement.

It's a relief to see this old body on a doll, because it reminds me of the dolls I had when I was a kid...back when folks had some common sense and building up a child's self esteem was the job of Mom and Dad, and not TV or toys (Barbie's body measurements were scaled back a bit because they were "too unrealistic").  I could go off on a tangent about how I feel about the size of the new bodies and about dolly realism in general, but that's not the point of this blog post.

Back on topic, Lucy has three accessories:  a spoon, a bottle of Vitameatavegamin, and a two-piece stand.  The stand is your basic stand.  It's made of black plastic and has the episode name on the front.

It doesn't fit Lucy too well.  Her feet can't rest on the platform.

The medicine bottle has a tiny label on it with "information" about the contents.  ;-)

"It's so tasty, too!  Just like candy!"  The bottle also has a peg on the back; this fits into the hole in Lucy's right hand, enabling her to hold it on her own.

The spoon is silver plastic.  It has grippy bits on the handle that fit on Lucy's left hand, but this connection is not solid.  The spoon is best left rubberbanded to Lucy's hand.

So, does Lucy deliver?  Well...I waited fifteen years to get my hands on this doll, and yes, she delivers!  She looks like the person she is supposed to portray, and her outfit and accessories are authentic to the episode in question.  I really don't have much negative to say about her; besides the melting hose the only real gripe I might have about my Lucy would be the fact that she's one of the plainer Lucy dolls.  Later additions like "Be a Pal" and "Lucy Gets In Pictures" are very elaborate and colorful, and I like them.  But those two weren't the ones that got away.  And it wasn't those two episodes that left my mother in stitches.  When it comes to Lucy dolls, only this one would've done...and she does do!  LOL

The roads are slick, the trees are icy, and I'm not going to be going anywhere, so stick around for my other Christmas doll!

Yours truly,
RagingMoon1987

Dollies for Christmas

Merry Christmas to y'all!  I don't know about you, but I personally had a very good one.  We opened our gifts and ate, and visited relatives and ate some more.  My mother loved her present (some much-needed gloves), and my sister appreciated her gifts.  As for me...well, let's just say that I'm pleased as well.  I got some pajamas and a sparkly sweater, a very humorous book on odd things that happen to morticians, and...hmmm, what am I forgetting?  Oh yes...I got DOLLIES!!!  Four dolls, two porcelain and two Barbie dolls.

I'm going to start with the porcelain dolls.  My sister's boyfriend's mother (referred to hereafter as "Mrs. A") has porcelain dolls that she apparently wants to relocate, because she gave up two of hers to give to me.  This one is Beatrice.

She's your run-of-the-mill porcelain doll, about sixteen inches tall with blue eyes and springy blonde curls.  These curls bounce like mad; I love bobbing Beatrice up and down and watching that hair bounce and swing.

Her dress is blue with creamy yellow trim.  The trim at the waist has tiny pink flowers.

The hem has rosettes and this drapey stuff hanging from the hem in swags.

Part of the drapey stuff has become detached...and wouldn't you know, the detached part is right up front.

Nothing I can't fix.

The hat is a separate piece.  It has a gold bow and a huge orange rosette on top.

This also gives you an idea of what Beatrice's face looks like.  She is slightly reminiscent of the antique porcelain dolls that Germany and France produced during the late 1800's and early 1900's.

Beatrice has a blue bunny tied to her arm.

Completing the blue theme are these cute blue shoes with pearl "buttons."

The other porcelain doll that Mrs. A gave me looks like this.  I named her Clarissa.

Clarissa is eight inches tall, give or take.  She too has a rabbit to hold; it is jointed and sewn directly to her dress.  Her dominant color is green (as opposed to Beatrice's blue).  Clarissa's dress appears to be two pieces, but it is only one piece.  The blouse-looking piece is green with flowers and leaves printed on, and the pinafore-looking piece is made of a loosely-woven fabric that looks like cheesecloth.

The skirt of the pinafore has these cute embroidered stars on it.

Underneath the skirt, Clarissa is wearing these adorable little bloomers.  They match the the sleeves of her dress.  She also has cream-colored shoes with snaps that actually work.

Clarissa's face looks like this.

She has green eyes and blonde hair, and the cutest little pouty lips.  I love this doll's expression!  I also love her hair; it's very smooth and soft, unlike the hair of most porcelain dolls I run into.

It's also shiny!

That pretty much covers the porcelain dolls, so on to the Barbie dolls.

The doll on the left is obviously Lucille Ball, playing Lucy Ricardo in the episode "Lucy Does a TV Commercial."  This episode, for those of you who are unfamiliar with "I Love Lucy," this is the episode where Lucy hawks Vitameatavegamin and gets drunker than a skunk (the tonic is 23% alcohol).  The doll on the right is Asian President Barbie from the "I Can Be..." series.  Since these dolls are not as cut-and-dried as the porcelain dolls are, they will each get their own review.  President Barbie's review will be of particular interest since this doll is currently available in stores (Lucy is not).  

Once again I must cut this post short due to bad weather (the wind is fooling around with the power lines).  Southeast Missouri is in the path of Winter Storm Euclid, and my area is predicted to get anywhere from six inches to a full foot of snow tonight.  Down south there have been tornadoes; Mobile, Alabama has been hit by a large wedge tornado.  According to the Weather Channel there have already been injuries and damage, so I'm praying that there will be no deaths there.  I'll probably spend the night keeping warm and taking pictures for the next couple of reviews.  Until then, stay safe, keep warm, and have a very merry Christmas.

Yours truly,

RagingMoon1987