Throwback Thursday review: Cameo Newborn Miss Peep

This week looks to be as long as the last one, but it got off to a more pleasant start.  Coworker A and I are getting along much better (balancing the library's bank account together appears to have been a bonding experience) and while I'll be working six days a week again it looks right now like I'll get Monday off like I normally do.  During my spare time at the library I've been catching up on some of the juvie lit that I either eschewed or completely missed out on during my adolescence.  Harry Potter is okay, but J. K. Rowling's writing just isn't drawing me in like Rick Riordan's did.  Harry lacks Percy Jackson's sharp tongue and quick-witted commentary, and there are some times when Harry is so darn good that he makes me want to retch.  And yet in all this I noticed one unusual similarity:  both Harry and Percy have dark hair and green eyes.  Go figure on that one; I don't know if that was a deliberate move on the part of one of the authors or if it was just a coincidence.

Now to the review.  I've reviewed some special dolls during my stint with this blog, but I daresay that this doll is the most special of them all.  She may even outdo Kissy, which is quite a feat considering how much my mother loves Kissy.  She loved this doll too though, so much that her original doll wore out and had to be thrown away.  What a shame that Mama and Grandma and Great-Grandma didn't know of the great doll hospitals that would exist in the future, as they could've saved Mama's doll in a box and gotten her repaired.  But that's the way life goes; we don't always get to keep our childhood toys.  They break, they get lost in fires or other calamities, they get donated or passed on as hand-me-downs, they get loved so much that they wear out.  Luckily, this doll is not as obscure as I thought she was, and I was able to find a nice one on eBay.  Her full name is Newborn Miss Peep, but in my family she's always been called "Baby Peep."  For the sake of this review I'll be referring to her simply as "Peep."

Cameo is a toy company that I know next to nothing about, aside from their production of Kewpie dolls.  They also produced another baby doll named Baby Wendy, but she apparently was nothing more than a Miss Peep redesign.  I've never been a huge fan of Kewpie, so thank goodness that neither Baby Wendy nor Baby Peep look like Kewpie.  To me Peep looks like a vinyl version of Bye-Lo Baby, or maybe Ideal's Bonnie Baby.  She's a relatively small baby doll, being a little smaller than Pussycat and Kathy Cry Baby.

For grins, here's how she compares to my 23-inch My Twinn, Rael.  I think Peep might be able to sit in Rael's lap if I posed both dolls just so.

So yeah, Peep is one of my smaller babies.  Despite being the same size as the Alexander duo, she differs from them in a few crucial ways.  Firstly, her hair is molded instead of rooted.

I prefer baby dolls with molded hair, actually.  Kathy and Pussycat have nice hair, but their full heads imply that they're a little further down the road developmentally, more towards the toddler stage than the baby stage.  Peep's short, molded locks do more to project the "baby" image, closely resembling the fine, wispy hair that young babies have.  The hair is painted a soft brown shade and has a few rubs and scuffs here and there, probably due to age.  The back of Peep's head has a few molded fat rolls, plus the Cameo mark.

Check out her realistic ears!

Now to the face.

LOL, I absolutely LOVE this face!  My sister often wore an expression like this when she was small, and I probably did too.  While Kathy Cry is an obvious doll, Peep looks very much like a small but real baby.  Granted, she's not as realistic as a reborn, but few dolls do reach that level of realism.  Anyway, Peep's appropriately pale eyes are ringed with creases of baby fat on the side and bottom, and with delicately drawn eyelashes and eyebrows.  The eyebrows give her a teensy bit of attitude, the kind that suggests this baby would throw a full-tilt tantrum if placed in a pumpkin seat (like my sister and I both did when we were babies).

Her eyes are inset and have a thin line of eyelashes painted in, and they are ever so slightly wonky.  To my great surprise these eyes do not "sleep."  Compare that to Pussycat and Kathy Cry Baby, both of whom have eyes that sleep.

Peep's tight-lipped mouth also suggests a bit of stubbornness.  I like Peep's lip paint better than I do either Kathy's or Pussycat's though, as it looks more natural and less like...well, less like paint!

It's obvious from this mouth that Peep is NOT a drink-and-wet doll, though she could have been easily since her body is all vinyl.

Rather odd, that vinyl body.  Mama distinctly remembers her Baby Peep having a cloth body; indeed, it was the cloth body that eventually wore out.  Great Grandma patched the doll until she gently told Mama there was nothing more she could do.  Anywho, my Peep has a vinyl body, and she possesses the most unusual joints I've ever seen on a doll.  I think these are called "pin joints," and I've never owned a doll with joints like this.  They have a post that provides rotating action, but they also are hinged, like so.

These unusual joints allow Peep to strike some realistic poses, like this one.  When she's clothed this pose looks like she's reaching out to be held...

...but the joints also allow for some more unnatural poses, like these.  See how strange Peep's arms are in this picture, when they're in what I call a "resting" sort of position?

I don't mind unnatural positions too terribly since Peep's clothes tend to disguise them to a certain degree.  Unfortunately these joints also feel fragile, like they'll break or tear if I push them in the wrong direction.  Indeed, I already have tried to turn Peep's arms in the wrong direction, so accustomed am I to flange joints like Kathy Cry Baby's and strung joints like an American Girl's.  This confusion is confounded by the fact that I almost always have Peep dressed and thus have to feel where the joints are before trying to bend them.  I've avoided damage so far, and I hope to keep it that way.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that Peep's hip joints only hinge.  They do not pivot.

Also noteworthy is Peep's neck.  It mostly just turns from side to side...

...but it also lolls around like a real baby's neck does.  I can't show this effectively, but the motion is enough to make me support this doll's head when I move her.  I don't have to do that with any, repeat, ANY of my other baby dolls.

Joints alone make Peep's body rather interesting, but the molding is unusual as well.  Her torso is cylindrical and has practically no molding at all.  No bellybutton, no fat rolls, just a few creases around the neck.  A pretty far cry from Kathy's molding, I must say!  Also a far cry from these two babies, whom Miss Emily calls shar-pei babies!

Even her backside has next to no definition.  It looks like a loaf of bread.

Like Pussycat and Kathy Cry Baby, Peep has the ability to cry.  Her mechanism is similar to that of Kathy's, in that she has a whistle in her back.

Interestingly, Peep also has a whistle on the inside of each arm!

These whistles are all activated by squeezing, and they make the least realistic sound yet.  When I squeeze Peep's chest she sounds (I kid you not) like a rubber dog toy.  Peep's arms do not whistle at all, as the vinyl there has stiffened too much to squeeze.

Now to my favorite part of a doll, the clothes.  Well okay, eyes are actually my favorite part of a doll, but clothes are what adds play value.  Peep is wearing a style that we don't often see on babies anymore, the long gown and bonnet set.

This outfit looks like a christening gown, but it's printed with tiny...roses or strawberries.  I think they're roses, but for some dumb reason I keep wanting to say strawberries...so from now on I'll call them RO-BERRIES!!!

I love strawberries on doll clothes, but roses are nice too.  The front of this...nightie or gown or whatever is trimmed with a single band of lace and a pale pink satin bow.  The bow is showing its age, as satin loves to do.

The armhole is trimmed with a single string of lace...

...as is the collar.

The bottom hem also has lace, but it is trimmed with three rows instead of one.

In a reversal of Pussycat's nightie, Peep's dress closes in the back with three little buttons.

So far I haven't reviewed any babies with bonnets, though that used to be commonplace attire for little ones.  Here's Peep's bonnet.  It's trimmed with two bands of lace and is made out of ro-berry fabric just like the gown is.

Like all good bonnets, this one ties under the chin with two pink satin ribbons.

Like a good many satin ribbons, these are showing wear at the ends.  Nothing much, but enough that I want to be careful with.

Seams are hit-and-miss with these clothes.  The hem of the gown is finished well...

...but the interior seams of the bonnet are ragged with loose threads hanging off.

Furthermore, this fabric feels suspiciously like the type that will thin out and tear if it ages, so I'll be treating these clothes with care.

I have absolutely zero experience with Baby Peep aside from this review and what Mama has told me, so I don't know what sort of clothes she can wear.  Miss Emily's dolls Lucas and Lila give me some ideas since they're small like Peep is, but I don't have any of those clothes yet, and I don't even know if they'd fit!  So it's time for good stuff/bad stuff now, and even though there isn't much to say about Peep (just like the past two babies), I do have some cautions that I'd like to throw in.

BAD
*This doll possesses an unusual set of joints that must be moved and treated with care.  I don't think this doll will easily break, but better safe than sorry.
*Clothes feel a little fragile
*Can't wear any of my other dolls' clothes, as far as I know.

GOOD
*Very realistic for a baby doll.  This one has been the most "babyish" of all the baby dolls I've reviewed so far.
*Vinyl feels sturdy, unlike the cloth-bodied doll of my mother's childhood.
*Face conveys some personality rather than being generically cute
*No hair to mess up!

I had to nitpick here to come up with good and bad stuff again, because Peep is...well, she's another baby doll!  There isn't much to baby dolls, so it's hard to do anything super-exciting or terribly wrong-headed with them.  If I wanted to take five points from Gryffindor over anything it would be those joints, as they're quirky and require some special attention so the owner won't twist them in the wrong direction.  Other than that Miss Peep is a delightful little doll to own, though I have to admit that a lot of that delight came from showing Mama and Grandma that I'd found a long-lost friend.  Still, it's nice to see this slightly stubborn child breaking up the generically sweet monotony of my other baby dolls.

Remember Pearl Harbor,
RagingMoon1987