Throwback Thursday review: C.O.D. (Cuddle On Delivery)

I'm going to skip my usual rambling intro and just jump right in today.  As I stated a couple'a weeks ago, today's doll could be considered sort of an older cousin to Olivia Reese, even though he or she is clearly a baby!  He or she is a C.O.D., or Cuddle On Delivery doll.

Cuddle On Delivery is another product designed by Mel Birnkrant, the man who produced Galoob's Baby Face dolls and Play Along's Play Along Club.  The C.O.D.s follow a similar format to both Baby Face and the Play Along Club, as they're simple, gimmick-free dolls meant to be a child's friend and playmate.  According to PrillyCharmin these were pretty popular for a short time, to the point that they even outsold the Cabbage Patch Kids...and then they were gone, gone when Mattel abruptly bought Tyco out.  Mattel owned the Cabbage Patch Kids at the time, and some sources speculate that Mattel's sudden takeover of Tyco had to do with the elimination of competition.  I'd always wondered what happened to Tyco, and now I know!  My sources can be found here and here, and as with the Play Along Club, the story of C.O.D.s is a bit lengthy.  But Cuddle On Delivery has more in common with the Play Along Club than a creator and an abrupt disappearance!  It's possible to see through the plastic that my C.O.D. is constructed similarly to Olivia Reese.  See the arms?

Similar, but not exactly the same.  To my intense delight C.O.D. also has a bit of a blind bag thing going on, similar to the Magic Nursery Babies and Sweet e.Baby.  Look here!  I don't know yet if my baby is a him or a her, and he or she has a surprise name too!

Ooo, ooo, I hope, hope, HOPE it's a boy!  I almost never get boys in these blind bag toys!  Mr. Birnkrant does hypothesize that the colors of the labels on the boxes may offer a clue...and my doll's label is blue!  

Boy doll???  Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!!!  Okay, Moon Girl, breathe in...breathe out...you're getting a little too excited here!  Here's the back of the box. 

There is only one little boy in the mix as far as I can tell, but all of the dolls (and their child owner) are of color.  I make note of this because it'll tie in with a review I've got planned in a couple'a weeks, a review that discusses another doll of color that was NOT pictured on her own box.  But y'all will have to wait until the eighteenth for that.  Anyway, C.O.D.s had a fair amount of variation in their facial expressions, just as real babies do.  The back of the box shows this variation quite well, and the other side of the box further advertises this.

They're giggling, pouting, smiling silently, lolling their tongues out, or looking like they're trying to talk...kinda like the Rotten Kids, only not as homely.  There's not as much facial variation in these as there were in the Baby Face dolls or the Rotten Kids, but there's certainly more than there were in the Play Along Club.  So let's bust this baby out of the box...hold up, before I do, I should point out that this baby's diaper is covered by a fake cardboard diaper.

Kinda like the plastic robe that conceals #FailFix clothes.  That'll mean that as soon as I take this doll out of the box I should know if I got a boy or a girl.

He/she's free!  Sometimes those in-box paper diapers do a cruddy job of hiding the doll's gender, but mine kept his/hers hidden until the bitter end.  It turned out to be...

...another girl.  The pink stamps on her hips and butt confirm it.

So much for a blue box label meaning a boy doll!  These packaged goodies made up for that mild disappointment.

I knew about the stamp collection, but I had no idea there'd be a key ring included.  There's also a slip that could once upon a time have been sent in for a one-piece outfit.

Too bad the offer expired on December 31st, 1997.  Too bad Tyco got bought out in early 1997.  I wonder if the coupons were still good until their expiration date after that?  I also wonder how many of those little outfits are out there on the secondary market, since I can't find any on eBay or Etsy, and I can't find any images either.

Let's briefly take a look at these other accessories.  There's the stamps, which are really just stickers.  Whoop-dee-doo.  They're kinda cute though, with baby milestones like first step, weight, and height.  They also show the doll wearing various hair bows, so my doll is gonna have to have those too.  Like mommy, like daughter, LOL.

There's also the key ring, made out of mint and lavender plastic. 

Now this accessory, I like, because all the babies I've known had one of these at some point in their lives.  Raise your hands if you remember having one!  <raises hand>  My sister and I both had one!  Ours doubled as a teething ring when the time came to cut teeth.  One of the stickers, in the upper left corner, shows my doll doing just that.

Wait a minute...that particular stamp is intended to go on the keychain!  I hadn't noticed that the sticker sheet has instructions on it, but it does.  The other stamps are to go in the baby book, seen below.

Here's the inside...

...and the back.

Apparently my baby weighed four pounds, nine ounces at birth, is nine inches tall, loves singing and playing with her rattle, has a younger sister (how???), and can walk.  Or that's what her stamps say.  Tucked in with the stamps and the baby book is what appears to be a letter.  Apparently Malden is now Anywhere, U.S.A., and I live at 123 Main Street (not to be confused with 123 Sesame Street).

Yep it's a letter from my doll to her new mommy.  Me, in other words. 

Ah, so my baby just cut her first tooth!  That explains her goofy head mold.  I wonder if these letters and stickers varied from doll to doll?  I bet the stickers did, but I wonder about the letters.

Oops, I gotta do this doll's name!  She's got a "hospital bracelet" on her left arm, and it's wrapped up in aqua-colored tape with mail "stamps" on it.

Peel that tape off, and my doll's name is...

...Marta Angela.  I've got a good friend named Marta, so I can live with that name for a doll.  Marta is a fairly small doll, coming up to Olivia's chest.

She's quite a bit smaller than Morgan the My Child doll too.  Poor Morgan's sagging fabric makes her look so unhappy!  She's really very cheerful, though she's not sure what to make of her pint-sized new friend.

Taniyah Yasmin, my smallest Cabbage Patch Kid, is closest in size to Marta, but even she is bigger.  They look so cute together!

I love how Morgan can tip her head to actually LOOK at Marta, by the way.  Taniyah can't move her head to interact with Marta at all, and the only way I can get Olivia to look at Marta is if I seat her.  I love how their personalities differ, by the way!  Olivia radiates calmness, while Marta wants to talk.

In that picture it's easy to see the similarities and differences between C.O.D. and the Play Along Club.  Most notably, Marta's head is not flocked.  I think the prototype C.O.D.s had flocked heads, but the final product does not.  See?  Smooth as...well, a baby's butt!

Marta is NOT bald, however.  Her hair is fiber rather than the yarn that Olivia sports.  Since she's a baby Marta has the hairstyle often found on baby dolls:  a topknot.

I've always thought this hairstyle was dumb as all get-out.  Seriously, Cabbage Patch babies sometimes have tufts like this, and Magic Nursery babies did too.  When the Bitty Twins were released with full heads of hair I could've jumped for joy, I was so tickled...and even then the little girls often sported topknots.  So I'm not in love with they style of Marta's hair, but it's not bad hair.  It's soft, smooth, and wavy, and it even has a nice curl at the end.

It'll look better once I get her hair brushed and her bow put in place.

Now to the face.  Marta looks sublimely happy to have cut that tooth, and given how painful that is for babies, I don't blame her!  EDIT, 8/5/23:  Like their Baby Face cousins, Cuddle on Delivery dolls also had a number/name system for their head molds.  Marta possesses Mold A, labelled "So Innocent!!"  Took me two and a half years to find this out, LOL.  The Innocent label would mean that Marta's Baby Face companion would be either Cynthia or Charlene, neither of whom are my favorite Baby Face dolls.  End edit.

Nitty-gritties now.  Marta has inset eyes with single-stroke eyebrows that are off-center.  Not terribly unlike my Little Miss Revlon's eyebrows, actually. 

Here's a closer look at one of the eyes.  I think Mel Birnkrant called this color butterscotch, and I think all black C.O.D.s had this eye color...but don't quote me on that.  I know Mr. Birnkrant liked this color better than the lilac eyes that some of the white dolls had (lilac wasn't natural, he said).  Anyway, here's a closer look at this eye.  I love it.

Now here's Marta's mouth.  It's not as simplistic as Olivia's mouth is.

This particular mouth reminds me of Cabbage Patch Kids heads #5 and #22, neither of which make my list of favorite Cabbie heads.  Both have a single tooth showing, just like Marta does...except Marta doesn't look as dumb.  Since Marta just grew that tooth I can't say as I blame her for wanting to show it off.  The rest of her little mouth is pink, and her cheeks are slightly blushed.  Except for the off-kilter eyebrows there are no paint errors.

Cuddle On Delivery dolls have bodies similar to but not identical to those of the Play Along Club.  Marta has a fabric body covering wired limbs and a vinyl torso and feet.  Her hands are stuffed.

Since Marta's limbs are shorter than Olivia's she doesn't have as much mobility, but she can still stand, sit, walk, and wave.

She can do splits too, but she looks kinda dumb doing them.

Marta's stability is not great, largely because her feet are soft and fuzzy and don't get a lot of traction.  Don't ask me where That One Hair came from, by the way.  It's synthetic, but that's all I know.

I'm not sure if the whole foot is vinyl encased in fabric, or if it's just the sole.  The shape of the foot suggests the latter, and her toes are stitched in, further suggesting that only the sole of her foot is vinyl.

Her fingers are also stitched...

...as is her cute little bellybutton.

Cute little body, I must say!  She's not as rigid as Olivia is, though she's not as flexible either.  Over this cute little body Marta wears...naught but a diaper!

Just a plain old white diaper, complete with the pink stamps that alerted me to Marta's gender.

The tabs fasten at the hip with Velcro.  I'll have to be careful with the Velcro, lest it snag Marta's body.  Pardon the random cat hair; both Marta's diaper and body attract crud, just as Olivia's body does.

According to PrillyCharmin these babies can wear clothes sized for small Cabbage Patch Kids, but in order to do this I'll have to strip Taniyah and leave her nekkid for a bit.  The rest of my Cabbie clothes are in storage, and though I'm in the process of reorganizing my doll clothes I haven't found my Cabbie stuff yet.  I've found plenty of American Girl stuff that I'd forgotten about, but I've yet to unearth my Cabbie clothes.  Anywho, let's try Taniyah's onesie on Marta.

Too bad it's too big, because it's cute!  I don't know if stuffed Cabbage Patch Kids come in sizes smaller than Taniyah, but it would be awesome if they did so I could try those clothes on Marta.  I could also try some smaller Waldorf doll clothes, though I don't have anything small enough yet.  Indeed, Zlata's new spring outfit is a bit too big for her, and Zlata is twice Marta's size.

Seriously, I had to tie her pants up with a strip of ribbon. 

NOT THE ETSY SELLER'S FAULT!!!  I ordered the wrong size, so I have no one to blame but myself.  Marta sure as heck couldn't wear this, but she might be able to wear a smaller sized outfit from the same shop.  I'll have to try that and get back to y'all.

That's a wrap on Marta...almost.  Still gotta do good stuff and bad stuff.

BAD
*As with Olivia, Marta's body catches dust and lint.  Her diaper does too.
*Also as with Olivia, Marta can't share clothes with any of my dolls...yet.
*Doesn't have much clothing to begin with!
*Balance isn't great.
*Again, I worry about internal wires breaking, though not as much as with Olivia.

GOOD
*I love the surprise element of these dolls.  I figure that the majority of these are girls like the Magic Nursery dolls are, but I still love the surprise element.
*I also love the varying emotions that these dolls express.  They're smiling and pouting and neutral, and I love it.
*Poseable, though not as much so as Olivia.
*As far as I can tell these little dolls are pretty kid-friendly. 
*May be able to share clothes with small Waldorf dolls, though I don't know that for certain.
*Fits in well with other soft dolls, like Waldorf dolls and Cabbage Patch Kids.

I said this with Olivia, and I'll say it again with Marta:  she's just another cute little doll, without a lot of gimmicks that date her.  She's timeless and pretty kid-friendly, but I can't say she's a collector's must-have unless the collector likes soft dolls (like I do).  The concealed gender and name are fun, though, and I'm dying to find out if the stamps that went in the baby book varied from doll to doll.  I just wish that clothes were easier to find for Marta!  Redressing a doll is part of the fun, after all!  If I do find anything that fits Marta I'll update the post, but for now I'm gonna sit her with Taniyah and the Cabbage Patch Crew and enjoy her goofy smile.

Cordially yours,
RagingMoon1987