Spin Masters' lousy luck

Spin Masters, as you may recall, blessed us a few years ago with these:

And with these:

 Both the LIV dolls (top) and the La Dee Da dolls (bottom) eventually tanked, and Spin Masters gave the doll world another stab with a third line of splashy, colorful dolls.  These were called Kawaii Crush, and they looked like this...

...or like this.

The ones on the top were about eight inches tall and had rooted hair, and the ones on the bottom were the size of a Lalaloopsy Mini and had molded hair.  They had cutesy little accessories and relied heavily on the "awww" factor.  I don't have any of these myself, but several of my fellow bloggers do and have reviewed them.  Miss Emily's review can be found here, while Beastsbelle's reviews are here, here, and here.  Miss Emily was a bit ambivalent about the little figures and didn't care for the big ones at all, but Beastsbelle liked the little ones.  Both noted the same design problems:  big stiff hair that made it nearly impossible for the little ones to sit, playsets that were hit and miss (particularly the one with eyeglasses), and small pieces that could be swallowed, lost, or choked on.  Beastsbelle noted that the little ones make superb props for American Girl dolls, however.  As a final bonus, Beastsbelle's three little girls loved the small dolls.

I had seen these in stores, of course.  It's pretty rare for me to contradict Miss Emily's advice, but I liked the big ones better than the little ones!  Being an adult, I saw more play value in the large dolls because of their hair; remember I said that it was rooted.  My favorite one was Zoey Boey Fru Fru, the one with the blue hair (the name sucks, but she's cute).

During my summer visits to the local Super Wal-Mart these dolls were ubiquitous, appearing both in the shelves and on the ends of the shelves.  I talked myself out of Zoey during that time due to her size and her price, plus the fact that my mother probably wouldn't have liked her much.  I can just hear her saying "Now WHY did you spend your money on that dumb-looking thing???"  LOL, anyway Zoey Boey Fru Fru and her cutesy-wutesy friend friends disappeared, and I found out today that they've joined LIV and La Dee Da in the Spin Masters archives. 

If I'm not mistaken, that makes three doll lines from Spin Masters that have tanked in the past four years.  Miss Emily hypothesizes that LIV wasn't ambitious enough, while the La Dee Da dolls were too ambitious.  If that's the case then I think that Kawaii Crush may have been a strange case of both.  They went over the top with their colors, their cute little accessories, and with sheer numbers, but when one got the package ripped open there wasn't much to play with.  Zoey doesn't have much in the way of clothes, and her posability appears lacking.  The little ones had those same problems, which were in turn compounded by small size.  Perhaps I'm being unfair; after all, I've not owned or reviewed any of these myself.  But judging from the expert reviews of my fellow bloggers, I'm willing to bet that I'm not far off the mark.

Anywho, I'm going to look for one of these.  Maybe since they've been discontinued I can find a Zoey for a discount.  And if I don't find one I'm not going to cry too hard.  I'm just going to sit back and see what Spin Masters has planned for next year.  Their doll lines may not have been successful, but they also have not been boring, so I hope they'll keep trying with a new line of dolls.  Lastly, if you're up for some more reading, take a gander at Ashley's list of doll lines that disappeared during 2014.  Some of the lines on her list went under completely, while others are on a hiatus and eventually will come back.  Either way it's an interesting read.

Happy Hanukkah,
RagingMoon1987