More little visitors

The patrons at the library where I work have caught wind that I am fond of dolls, and every so often they bring one or two up for me to look at.  Such was the case today, when one of my older friends brought in two of her girls.  This first one is one I know quite a bit about, but have only seen one other time.

Or I thought I'd seen her once before.  It actually turns out that I've NEVER seen this doll before!  I thought that she was Terri Lee, of whom I've seen exactly ONE, but it turns out that she's actually Mary Jane, a Terri Lee clone!  Mary Jane has a bit of a convoluted backstory, one that has a few similarities to great Barbie vs. Bratz battle of my adolescence.  More information on Mary Jane's production can be found HERE and HERE.

Mary Jane is seventeen inches tall and made of hard plastic, suggesting that she was created before Terri Lee's makers caught on to her existence and began suing (the head became a soft vinyl head after the lawsuit).  She has sleep eyes and she "walks" like Saucy Walker.  She looks a little more "grown up" in the face than Terri Lee does.

I love Mary Jane's haughty expression; it's almost like she KNOWS she was created to derail Terri Lee!

My friend's other doll is a familiar face for any Madame Alexander fan.  She's Cissette!

Again, I don't often get to see these, and since I own a Cissy doll I'm more familiar with her.  As the name suggests, Cissy and Cissette are related, with Cissette being a smaller version of Madame Alexander's beloved Cissy.  Sort of like Little Miss Revlon in a way, one could say.  I also thought I read somewhere that Cissette was the older sister of another popular MA doll named Wendy, but don't quote me on that.

Like Mary Jane, Cissette is made of hard plastic.  I absolutely loved holding her, in fact, because she was so smooth.  She's the same height as Little Miss Revlon at ten inches, but her head is quite a bit smaller.

Cissette was used as a plaything and thus has to contend with a mussed wig.  Her elastic is also beginning to play out, hence her stooped posture.  Underneath her dress she has bendable knees, though my friend joked that Cissette could not bend them any better than she herself could.  At the risk of sounding like a complete know-it-all I warned my friend not to force the knees to bend, lest something break.  My poor old Cissy doll has that problem, though I didn't do it!  I'M INNOCENT THIS TIME, I PROMISE!!!  LOL, anyway, my friend lamented Cissette's floppy joints, and I told her I'd happily restring her if she ever needed it.

As is often the case, I felt honored to see these lovely relics of yesterday, and I hope y'all will enjoy seeing them as much as I enjoyed holding and photographing them.

Cheers and cherry bombs,
RagingMoon1987