Throwback Thursday review: Mattel Sunshine family

I first mentioned the presence of the Sunshine family in my dolly circle back in October, when I reviewed Rosa Lee Linden.  Now that I've got the dad I reckon it's time to give this crew their review.

The Sunshine family was produced from 1973 to 1980.  Hey, they survived the disco era!  Anyway, this crew apparently was a group of...traveling artesians, I guess.  Old ads show these dolls with accessories like a pottery wheel and a spinning wheel, and they drove a yellow truck with a shop in the back, so I guess they were traveling craftsmen.  The family unit consists of the three I've got, named Steve, Stephie, and Sweets (which I think is an asinine name for a doll), plus a set of grandparents.  There was also an African-American family involved in this artist collective, also consisting of five members, but with the surname "Happy."  I quite like the Happy family (not to be confused with THIS Happy Family), as they remind me of the New Orleans couple from the Star-Spangled Dolls line.  Later in the decade Mattel released updated versions of the Sunshine and Happy families, with modified last names and a change in the family lineup.  The Sunshine Fun Family and the Happy Fun Family came with two children instead of one:  their daughters were now aged about four, and each family had a baby boy.  The Star-Spangled Dolls also started making an appearance; these otherwise unrelated dolls shared head and body molds with the Sunshine and Happy families.

Like many of my dolls the Sunshines are on the small side.  Stephie is close in height to Olivia Hope and Kohaku-chan, and Steve is about half an inch taller.  Man and wife are both significantly smaller than Barbie Sophie.  Please ignore Steve's slipping pants here.

Sweets, as we saw a few weeks ago, is close in size to the Quints and to smaller Liddle Kiddles like Liddle Diddle.

I'm not really sure how to break down this review since there are three dolls, so I'm just going to wing it.  Here's Stephie.

She is NOT to be confused with Barbie's friend Steffie.  I don't even know if the Sunshine family was marketed as friends of Barbie, but judging from the difference in style I find it highly unlikely.  Even back in the seventies most of Barbie's friends were the same size as either her or someone in her immediate circle, so if Barbie and the Sunshine family did have any ties they were likely tentative.  Babs and Stephie do have two things in common, though:  blonde hair and blue eyes.  Stephie's hair is rooted like the majority of vinyl-headed dolls her size, and it's done in your stereotypical seventies style with a bangless center part and loose waves at the ends.

The fibers needed a wash when I first landed these dolls, but they perked up with minimal fuss.  They are soft and smooth, and the scalp is thickly rooted.

The hair frames Stephie's cute little face nicely.

Speaking of the face, this face may be familiar to some of our more devoted readers, as it's made from the same mold as Rosa Lee's head was.  The sizes are different (Stephie's head is bigger), which I never have been able to figure out, but otherwise the molds are the same.

Stephie has blue inset eyes with light brown painted eyebrows and eyelashes.

I prefer Stephie's brown brows and lashes, as Rosa Lee's darker paint can look a little harsh.  Also, spoiler alert:  Stephie's eyes are the only ones that look okay...or at least the only ones in the immediate family.  Rosa Lee's eyes also look alright.  For the most part Stephie's paint is the same as Rosa Lee's, though her lips and cheeks are a little more peachy.

I'm just going to skim this body since it's identical to Rosa Lee's.  Hard plastic torso with vinyl arms and hard plastic legs, jointed at shoulders, neck, hips, and knees.  Her hips and knees are very loose; it was a battle just to get these two poses to look decent.

Surprisingly, even though Stephie is made of the same stuff as Rosa Lee, her shoulders are not frozen up.  See?  No melted stuff.

I'm left scratching my head and trying to come up with an explanation for this, and the only explanation I can come up with is that different batches of vinyl varied in their chemical mix.  Maybe this variation was enough to make some dolls prone to melting and some more stable???  Don't quote me, as that's strictly conjecture on my part.  Rosa Lee also spent the forty-plus years NRFP, so that might have had something to do with it.

Stephie's clothes are a style sometimes seen during the Me Decade, in the form of a red bodysuit with a calico maxi-length jumper.

I'd been wondering how Stephie's top stayed so neatly tucked in!  Even though I've undressed this doll before I'd completely forgotten that her blouse is a bodysuit.  But first things first.  The jumper is made of this lovely, colorful floral print with red stripes and tiny white polka dots and...blueberries or blue flowers.  One or the other.

The straps are trimmed with white eyelet.  The red thread is not a loose thread hanging loose, by the way; it turns out that that can be removed. 

The bodysuit is made out of red stretchy stuff and is well-sewn, but the hems on the sleeves are cut short and like to turn inside out.  They also like to leave lint on Stephie's arms.

The jumper is elasticized and thus needs no fastener, but the bodysuit does require a snap at the neck.

Maroon plastic sandals round out the look.  They don't match a thing that Stephie is wearing, but they didn't melt Stephie's feet like Rosa Lee's shoes did so that's some good news. 

They look suspiciously like Birkenstocks, a shoe that I see as the great-grandmother of the Croc shoe.  Both are quite ugly and yet quite comfortable.

As for clothes sharing, I think it's fairly obvious that Stephie and Rosa Lee can share clothes, but I'm not sure about shoes.  Oh sure, once upon a time these two COULD have shared shoes, but I'm not sure they can now with all that melting on Rosa Lee's feet.

Indeed Rosa Lee can't wear Stephie's shoes due to those melt marks, but Stephie can wear Rosa Lee's shoes.

Since Stephie is of a similar height to Kohaku-chan and Olivia Hope, trying on their clothes might bear fruit.  Licca can wear Stephie's dress with very little fuss, though the bodysuit is tight.

Only Hearts Club clothes are a little hard to maneuver over Rosa Lee's/Stephie's big feet, but once they're on they fit fine.  Licca-chan clothes are a little big, but not ridiculously so.

Neither Licca's nor Olivia Hope's shoes are big enough for Rosa Lee and Stephie.  In turn, Rosa Lee's shoes and Stephie's sandals are too big for Licca, Olivia, and Kohaku.

There's also good ol' Fluff, who is close to Stephie in height.

Shoe sharing is out since Stephie's feet are bigger than Fluff's are, but no worries since Fluff doesn't have any shoes for Stephie to demolish anyway.  Clothes might work.

Well, it sort of works for Fluff.  Stephie's bodysuit has to stretch some to accommodate Fluff's broad shoulders, but she can wear this.  Unfortunately Fluff's dress is a no-go for Stephie; I had to wrap the belt around her waist twice and it's still too baggy for her.

Just for the heck of it, let's see how Fluff's dress looks with something underneath.

Mmm...a little overall-ish for my taste; seeing Fluff like this makes me want to sing "The Farmer in the Dell," a song that I've been singing a lot lately (the puppies like it).  The dress is less prone to sliding off Fluff's shoulders like this though, leading me to suspect that it is indeed meant to be worn over a blouse of some sort.

So Stephie can wear Licca-chan and Only Hearts Club garb, but not vintage Skipper stuff.  Isn't that just like Mattel, to create several lines of dolls that can't share clothes!  There may also be one other doll that Stephie can share clothes with...and this story is a long one so bear with me.  Like many of my vintage dolls, I got Stephie secondhand.  She had her red blouse packaged with her, but she was wearing a hot pink blouse with a royal blue sleeve and a lime green sleeve.  The garish shirtwaist fit Stephie fairly well, but it didn't match her dress so I took it off her and stored it...God only knows where.  I've since learned that it was/is a Hasbro blouse, belonging to a doll named Love.  The World of Love had a hippie theme like the Sunshine family, and based on the fit of Love's blouse I'll tentatively rule that the Sunshine family can wear at least some of the World of Love's clothes.

Before I move on to the next member of the family, what else but...TAR-DAR, a digression!  Rosa Lee's body has deteriorated in the short time that I've owned her, to the point that her left arm is constantly falling out.  See?

It's time to start thinking about a rebody for Rosa Lee.  Since I have both Kohaku and Licca on hand it will be easy to try one of those bodies.  Rosa Lee's Southern belle dress fits Licca's Azone body...

...though not perfectly.  Licca's waist is too wide for the bottom snap to fasten.

As it turns out the Azone body won't work for Rosa Lee anyway.  I pushed and shoved and squeezed and twisted for the better part of an hour, but the body's neck knob is just too big for Rosa Lee.

Kohaku's new body/Licca's old body wears Rosa Lee's dress nicely.  It's a teensy bit tight, but both snaps can fasten.

The Licca neck knob is small at the top and tapered, and thus I was able to get Rosa Lee's head on.  She looks cute in Only Hearts Club clothes, too.

However, there is another fairly serious problem with this combination:  Rosa Lee is constantly looking up, like this.

Nope, this isn't a good idea either.  That leaves the Obitsu body, which I ordered at the last minute.  Fortuitously it arrived yesterday, just in time to be written into the post.

I got a 21-centimeter flesh-toned job with a hard bust, hoping that the hard bust would mitigate the floppy waist that plagues Emiko.  Unfortunately, the flesh-toned body proved to be too light to be a perfect match, a mega-bummer since I got the flesh-toned body hoping that it would be a GOOD match.  The body is also slimmer and a teensy bit shorter than Rosa Lee's current falling-apart body.

Y'all cross your fingers that this will work!

Mmmm...fair.  The head and body are a poor match, but it doesn't show terribly in pictures.  I had to shove Rosa Lee's head down on the neck some so it wouldn't rattle loosely around, and the dress is a little loose, but the jointed arms and hands add a bit more expression to what was once a rather static doll.  The biggest problem now is that Rosa Lee no longer has a pair of shoes to wear.

I'll see if I can't find some white or yellow Licca-chan shoes.

Now to Sweets.

Like her mother Sweets has rooted blonde hair, but it's cut short like a baby's hair usually is.  It's also got an unusual root job, being largely confined to the crown of Sweets' head...

...and for reasons I'll never know, it's hopelessly matted.  Sweets got a bath after I bought her as my dolls often do, but the tangles did not come out.

Sweets' face is largely just a miniature of Stephie's, with light brown eyebrows, blue eyes, a button nose, and a pink smiling mouth.  She does have a dimpled chin that Stephie doesn't have, and eyebrows have a slightly sly look like her father's.  Notice that Sweets' eyes are glassier than Stephie's.

I originally thought this was because they were glued in fairly tightly, but apparently these Sunshine Family dolls have eyes that can melt when placed in contact with vinyl, just like Rosa Lee's arms did.  This is what's happening here with Sweets, and having perused the internet for further information, I've learned that molten eyes are pretty darn common with this line.  Look at that adorable face, though!  I love the personality in that little mouth, which is every so slightly crooked.

Being a baby, Sweets is simply dressed, wearing only this little off-white one-piece onesie.

This is made of off-white stockinette fabric with white trim at the collar.  It does not come off of Sweets' stiff little body...or at least I haven't found a way to get it off.  The backside does have a little seam though, which I assume is to simulate a diaper flap.

Lastly, it's time for Steve.

There's something about this guy that makes me think of Balloon Boy's father.  Anyone remember that fiasco, perpetrated during my early years of college?  Steve looks just like that kid's father.  I vaguely remember telling my friends on Facebook that I wanted to "give that whole family a bare-ass whuppin'" for such a shenanigan, so disgusted was I about their behavior, but as usual I digress.  Like the rest of his family (and apparently this whole doll line) Steve's hair is rooted, but it's brown instead of blonde.  It's also surprisingly short hair for a seventies hippie sort, particularly when Mattel had no reservations giving other male dolls longer locks around this same time.

This hair is parted slightly to Steve's left, and the root job along the hairline is a little hinky.  Notice that the plugs on the right side of Steve's head (our left) are widely spaced, but the ones on the left side are tighter.

Steve's root job is okay for the most part, but look 'pon the crown of his head!  That, folks, looks like the beginnings of a bald spot!

In truth it appears that Steve's hair may have been squashed against something like my Moxie Teenz wig did (VERY OLD POST ALERT).  It'll probably flatten out and cover his scalp if I give it time.

Moving down now, it may be easy for y'all to tell which parent Sweets got her glassy eyes from (it's the only similarity that Sweets and Steve have), but let's look at the face as a whole.

Mama thinks Steve looks like a pervert, while I think he merely looks mischievous, not terribly like my own father.  Being a male doll, Steve has a different mold from Stephie and Rosa Lee.  His eyes are brown rather than blue, and his eyebrows are but thick bars of brown paint (the right one is a little sloppy).  As I noted above, Steve's eyes are melting just like Sweets' eyes are.

I wonder why Stephie and Rosa Lee lucked out in the eye department but Sweets and Steve didn't, especially since the same plastics were used for all of them?  Maybe it's for the same hypothetical reason that I mentioned above; maybe Stephie and Rosa Lee have a different chemical composition in their heads than Steve and Sweets do.  But if that's the case, why did Rosa Lee's neck melt while Stephie's did not?  The plot thickens!  Anywho, Steve has dark brown eyes and dark brown eyebrows that look slightly devious and are not as well painted as those of his better half and offspring.  His nose is wider, his lower jaw is much bigger than Stephie's, and his lips are thicker and browner.

 Being a guy, Steve has a body that's different from those of the girls, though it's jointed in the same way.

Like his spouse, Steve can do the splits and bend his knees...

...and unlike Stephie, he also can hyperextend his knees and stand like a chicken.

Cock-a-doodle-do.  Stephie CAN hyperextend her knees, but I was unable to balance her for the sake of pictures.  Steve's knees and hips are even looser than Stephie's, by the way.  He can only stand if propped up or ironically, if I stand him like a chicken.

Like the rest of his family Steve is simply and comfortably dressed in Jake from State Farm garb.  LOL, the sweater looks like something I'd wear in the wintertime; it's brick red and made of ribbed knit with a folded turtleneck collar.

Most knitted fabrics have to be hemmed so they won't ravel, and for the most part Steve's sweater has this down pat...

...except at the bottom.

Just goes to show y'all, even back in the day Mattel was perfectly capable of cutting corners.  The mid-1970's were a dodgy time for Mattel, so seeing stuff like this doesn't surprise me much.  The same treatment was given to the back opening, which is ragged.  However, it's possible to see the interior here and it's well-finished.

Half of the snap is missing, typical of the aging process.

Lastly, here's the ol' khaki pants.  They're...about the last thing I'd expect an artisan from the seventies to wear.  I would've expected cordoroy or plaid or bell bottoms, but they're just plain straight-legged pants.

The pants are not particularly detailed, having only a sewn fly.

The waistband is elasticized, but the elastic is losing its stretch and these pants sag some.  Ol' Steve has his ghetto moments at times, one of which can be seen in the group size comparison, above.

Steve's shoes don't have any painted details, but they're molded nicely, with laces and stitch lines.

They've even got some decent treads!

I have only a handful of male dolls in my midst, mostly Ken dolls like Sam here, with a few non-Mattel oddballs like Spring-Heeled Jack thrown in.  Neither of them can share clothes with Steve.  I don't think either Sam or Steve are particularly keen to share clothes with Jack anyway.

Sam, being one of the new broad-bodied Ken dolls, easily makes two of Steve.  Sort of reminds me of how Daddy and his best friend looked together; Daddy was huge like Sam, and his friend was little like Steve!  In all seriousness though, I find myself wishing that smaller male dolls were readily accessible; the only one I can think of that wears mature clothes is Licca's friend Haruto-kun, and Haruto's legs are so skinny that his clothes may not fit Steve anyway, but since Stephie can wear Licca-chan clothes it can't hurt to try Steve with Haruto's duds if I can ever find a Haruto.  There's also Barbie, who twice had a little brother named Todd, first as Tutti's twin brother and then as Stacie's, but those clothes are...well, childish!  Todd WAS a child after all, so his clothes WOULD be childish.  Skipper has also had a few boyfriends over the years (Kevin, Scott, and Ricky), so maybe some of their stuff might fit???  That might be interesting to try out.

I think I've said what I need to say.  Let's sum this up.

BAD

*Eyes melt

*Some dolls may encounter problems with hair; Sweets' hair is irreparably tangled, and Steve's got squashed

*It's very hard to get these dolls to hold a pose; their knees and hips are particularly loose.

*Not a wide range of shoe options out there

*Steve's clothes show some sloppy shortcuts (the unfinished hem on his sweater) and he's nearly impossible to redress...for now.

GOOD

*The joints on these dolls do not seem as prone to melting as the Star-Spangled Dolls' joints do.  I'm not sure why this is so, but it appears to be so.

*Cute, fairly well-painted faces.  Steve's eyebrows are a little sloppy, but nothing glaring.

*Clothes are mostly well-made with the exception of Steve's sweater, and era-appropriate

*Stephie can wear Licca-chan and Only Hearts Club clothes, always a good thing.

*Concept is original.  How many traveling craftsman dolls can y'all name?

If I had not picked Stephie and Sweets up in that mixed bag of vintage dolls, I likely would've overlooked this line completely.  Oh sure, they're cute dolls, and they're good for that game of make-believe that modern-day children seem incapable of playing, but for collectors?  Well, there's not a lot that one can do with these dolls.  They're not particularly good for rebodying that I know of, and there isn't a wide range of clothes that Steve can wear.  Stephie can be redressed with no fuss, but so far I've had no luck with Steve.  Their eyes are prone to melting and looking...well, looking weird.  They are cute dolls, though.  They fit in well with Licca and similarly sized dolls, to the point that the two doll lines can be used in games together.  Maybe the Sunshines are Licca's new American neighbors or something like that?  Maybe Licca babysits Sweets when Steve and Stephie go out to sell their wares?  LOL, even thirtysomethings like myself can play make-believe!  That little burst of creativity makes the Sunshine family worth having for me.

Joy to all,

RagingMoon1987