Cave Club Tella and Rockelle review

I'm gonna step back into the modern day for this post, and review a not-so-new-anymore doll line that I've been wanting to review for awhile.  Meet Tella and Rockelle, from the Cave Club.  Take care not to confuse Rockelle with Raquelle.

The Cave Club is...maybe not as original as Monster High, but they're certainly more original than a lot of other doll lines, as they're little cavemen...or cavewomen...no, one of them is a boy, so cavepeople???  I HATE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!!!  These dolls are from the same era as the Flintstones, let's put it that way.  Anyway, the Cave Club is jointed and brightly colored like the Monster High gang, and they have cute but extraneous pets like the Monster High gang had...

...and there are multiple characters with multiple hobbies:

*Emberly has a LOT of red/pink/orange hair and green eyes.  She is the inventor of the bunch, and judging from her accessory, she just invented the torch.  Her pet is a baby Velociraptor named Flaire.  Jeez, I hope Flaire never sees the Velociraptors in the Jurassic Park series!
*Tella has a lot of mostly blue hair with purple streaks and lavender eyes.  She has the power to see glimpses of the future, with the help of her telescope (which I initially thought was a megaphone, LOL).  Her pet is a wolf cub, and he is inexplicably named Hunch.
*Roaralai has purple hair and either green or amber eyes.  She was raised by saber-toothed cats, and as a result of this upbringing she's "always ready to pounce into action," as the wiki entry puts it.  She is thus similar to Bamm-Bamm from The Flintstones, and her goofy hair brings to mind Fang from Dave the Barbarian as well.  Her pet is a saber-toothed tiger named Ferrell.  LOL, Ferrell...feral...I love it!
*Rockelle has aqua hair with green and purple highlights, plus blue eyes.  She has the ability to talk to dinosaurs and is thus able to bum rides on them.  She has two pets:  a baby Tyrannosaurus named Teddy Rex, and a larger Tyrannosaurus named Tyrasaurus.  Rockelle rides the latter, and since Tyrasaurus and Teddy Rex are the same color I assume they're related.  The wiki doesn't confirm this, but I'm willing to bet on it.
*Fernessa has pink and green hair and amber eyes.  She is the nature-lover of the bunch, meaning that she and Venus McFlytrap have a lot in common (same hair colors and all).  Her pet is a Pterodactyl named Ptilly, not to be confused with Pee-Wee Herman's friend Pterry.
*Bashley is the only one that I've never seen in stores.  She has wild lavender hair and lavender eyes, and she's the world's first rock star (sorry, Elvis).  Her pet is Snare, and he happens to be one of my favorite dinosaurs, Pachycephalosaurus.
*Slate is the only boy of the bunch, with blue and green hair and dark green eyes.  He's an artist who specializes in graffiti art, in a day and age where drawing on the walls was okay to do.  His pet is a bird of some stripe named Taggy.  Again, more play on words.  The wiki says that Taggy is a prehistoric parrot, which surprised me until I learned that parrots are as old as any other bird on the evolution scale and thus way older than even the oldest humanoids.  Yes, I majored in biology and didn't know that.  Sue me.

Note that the descriptions I gave of the above dolls are subject to change since they're based on stock photos, and since the dolls themselves vary from wave to wave.  My Rockelle has aqua hair with green and purple streaks, for example, but the Rockelle that comes with Tyrasaurus has more distinct highlights.  As an aside, Tyrasaurus reminds me a little of a toy line that I loved when I was a kid called Darlin' Dinos.  Do any of y'all remember those?  I had a huge collection of them.  They were friends with the My Little Pony herd and with Maxie.  Anyway, Fernessa is my favorite of the Cave Club, but the local Wal-Mart is sold out of her (I had to get her off eBay).  My second favorite, music-loving Bashley, has not yet popped up in stores.  When faced with what my local Wal-Mart DID have, I had a tough time picking between smirking blue-haired Tella and Rockelle with her pigtails and her splashes of pink and green...so I got 'em both!  They were on sale anyway, which I hope isn't bad news for the line.  To my great surprise there was nothing on the backs of their packages to suggest any sort of personality.  Remember how both Monster High, Ever After High, and Enchantimals all had truncated bios about the character in the box?  Not the Cave Club!  The back of Tella's card has a nice cartoon image of her, plus an answer to that burning question:  who were the first friends?

Have you ever asked yourself who the first friends were?  Nope, me neither.  I think Rockelle may be from a later wave since I'm only now seeing her in stores, so I hoped her card would have some sort of information.

No.  Just a rehash of the answer to the question no one ever asked.  The art for these is cute, though.  It's certainly leaps and bounds ahead of the artwork on Betsy Bubblegum's box!  So let's take a look at these two.  Tella and Rockelle are both eight inches tall, though Tella looks taller due to her high ponytail.  They're shorter than regular Monster High dolls (good ol' Clawdeen Wolf is our volunteer again)...

...and closer in size but still smaller than little sister-sized Monster High dolls (River Styxx in this case).

I think I use Clawdeen more than any of my other Monster High dolls for this blog.  What can I say, she's a willing participant, and she's pretty.  I've always loved that brown and purple hair.

Remind me to try that pose again when summer comes!  As fond as I am of Clawdeen and her freaky chic friends, I'd like to note that Clawdeen and River (and indeed, nearly all of the Monster High crew) require stands to hold them up.  Note that River, being a ghost, has a stand that allows her to float.

Tella and Rockelle require a little balancing, but they can stand on their own.

Monster High dolls actually can stand on their own if fooled with long enough, but it usually requires more fooling with than I'm willing to do.

Like the majority of Mattel's dolls, both Tella and Rockelle have saran hair, and they both have hair with eye-catching colors and plastic doo-dads.  Tella's hair is worn in a very high ponytail. 

Most of her hair is worn long (I think Purple Monkfish would call this princess-length hair)...

...but the front part is cut short and sticks straight up, making this hairstyle look more elaborate than it really is.

Tella's hair has lavender highlights, but these appear to occupy only the first two rows of hair on her hairline.  She has no bangs.

Rubberbanded to her ponytail is this royal purple crystal-looking thingamabob.  

This thing could theoretically stay in Tella's hair on its own, but the sides of it aren't long enough.  The rubber band holding it in place is thus a must.

I'm not a huge fan of the plastic decoration for this reason.  Once that rubber band breaks or is removed the crystal won't be staying in place.  I'd have preferred something that matched Tella's dress...or her belt, one or the other. 

Rockelle's hairstyle is also a simple style masquerading as an elaborate one.  The fibers are mostly aqua and are tied up in two curly pigtails, in a style similar to that of Princess Malucia.

She has blunt-cut bangs, and like Tella her highlights are rooted up front.

Unlike Tella, Rockelle has two colors of highlights:  plum purple and neon green.

I like Rockelle's hair decoration better than I do Tella's, though it's still clipped to her hair with the plastic tacks that Mattel loves too much.  The decoration itself is an opaque pink headband with three crystals on each side.  

I have no idea what those brown flecks are, but they're molded into the plastic so I guess they were intentional...maybe to make the headband look more like stone?  I kinda wish this were made of the same plastic as Tella's hair crystal, but can't have everything.

Since we're on the subject of hair I should probably note that Monster High dolls once had a boatload of gel in their hair.  Se how my Clawdeen's hair looks wet?  I'd just washed it.

Neither Tella nor Rockelle has any gel in their hair.  During the heyday of Monster High a doll like Rockelle would've had her curls gelled rock hard, but her curls are soft.

Even the areas that would've normally had gel (Tella's topknot and Rockelle's bangs) don't have a drop of gel on them.  I guess Mattel finally learned that unlike people, less hair gel is usually better for a doll.  Too little too late for poor Clawdeen though, as her hair still feels sticky.  Jeez I hope it's just too much hair gel and not glue oozing from Clawdeen's head!  Glue-filled heads were once a problem that Mattel dolls had.

The Cave Club has Mattel's not-quite-human-but-not-quite-unhuman aesthetic that Monster High and Enchantimals both possessed.  Big, somewhat other-worldly eyes with bright makeup, and varying facial expressions.  Here's what Tella looks like; hardcore readers of this blog probably know why I chose her.

I love a doll with a smirk!  Unsurprisingly there's a lot going on with this face, especially in the eye area.  Three colors of eyeshadow (pink, green, and a thin bar of white), two colors of mascara (black and green), and three colors in the iris.  Her eyebrows don't match her hair, but since they're neutral they're not super-clashy either.

Overall the iris looks violet, but there's a green ring around the pupil.  How's THAT for a case of heterochromia???  The paint is even and smooth though, and free of flub-ups like Jessa Jellyfish's misaligned lips or Clawdeen's incomplete eyebrow.

Yes, I've owned Clawdeen nine years, and I'm only just now noticing that!  When she was new her hair was shellacked over that side of her face, so I just never noticed that part of one eyebrow was never there.  Anyway, Tella has a cluster of stars between her eyes...

...and another cluster of stars on her right cheek.  This cluster has a moon!

Tella's specialty is supposed to be clairvoyance, so I assume that these stars are supposed to tie into that in some way.  I don't know how, though.  Stars and celestial bodies are often associated with psychics and with fortune telling, I guess because the alignment of the stars is supposed to have some bearing on our lives.  Of course that's all baloney, but we can pretend it's true in Tella's world!

Lastly, the mouth.  Tella's mouth is a single shade of matte brick red, and it's both painted and molded into the aforementioned smirk.

I like that lip color.  I like it a lot more than I like Rockelle's lip color.

Yuck, Rockelle's lips are matte pink.  But let's break this down.  Since Rock has bangs it's not as easy to see her whole face, but since her bangs aren't gelled in place I can pull them back with ease.

Oddly, Rockelle's eyebrows do match her hair (unlike Tella's).  She also has some spots of green paint above her eyebrows that tie in with the spots below her eyes.  I like these spots, but they make even less sense than Tella's stars.  They also remind me of Novi Star eyebrows.

Strangely, Rockelle's eyes are both simpler and more detailed than Tella's eyes.  The colors are simpler (two-toned blue irises, single-toned pink shadow), but the irises have more lines and texture.  The apples of her cheeks have more green polka dots.  I don't think the polka dots make much sense on a doll that talks to animals, but I won't complain much since polka dots, that's why.

Lastly, the lips that I don't like much.

I love the shape of her mouth.  Rockelle has a sweet, approachable smile with some little teeth painted in, kinda like the old Steffie face (only Steffie doesn't have painted teeth).  As usual, it's the color that I don't like, as it looks washed out.  Matte pink lips never look good on any doll.  However, neither Rockelle nor Tella have super-visible pixels, nor do they have any missing or misaligned paint.  Both of those were problems with my Enchantimal, Jessa Jellyfish.  Aside from Rockelle's lip color I have no complaints.  Some of the images above look blurry because of problems I was having with my phone (it wasn't wanting to focus), not because the paint edges are indistinct.

Since I always talk about ears, these dolls have rather large ears that stick out.  They are not pierced.

Before I move on to the body, I want to talk a little about vinyl color.  Y'all have probably noticed that Tella is a hair darker than Rockelle, and neither of them are what you'd call fair-skinned.

Those who are pushing for more diversity among dolls will be pleased to know that most of the Cave Club are relatively dark-skinned.  Emberly is the fairest of them all, fair enough that the uber-liberals would be yelling "OOOO-WEE, SHE'S WHITE!!!", but even she isn't Casper the Ghost-caliber white.  I guess if you're a caveperson you spend a lot of time outdoors and thus won't be too pale anyway.  Anyway, Emberly is the fairest and Fernessa is the darkest, with everyone else falling somewhere in between.

Great time to segue into bodies. 

Given Mattel's history of making their dolls fully jointed, it should be no surprise that the Cave Club is...well, fully jointed.  Neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees.  I don't yet know if the arms come apart like Monster High and Ever After High arms do, but no biggie if they don't.  I'm not going to say too much about jointing since the motion is pretty much the same as an MH doll's, but I will confirm that Rockelle and Tella can touch their faces and play with their hair.

I'm beginning to sound like a broken record since so many of my newer dolls have pear-shaped bodies, but...well, Tella and Rockelle have pear-shaped bodies.  Their busts are developed but small and their shoulders are narrow,  and as a result their arms are proportionately slim.

However, these dolls have pear-shaped torsos with wide hips, and as a result their legs are thick.

They've got popped booties like the Monster High bunch did, but their swayback isn't as pronounced.

The jointing is about what I've come to expect from Mattel dolls that are not Barbie.  Cave Club arms bend at the shoulder, elbow, and wrist, and these joints all rotate as well.

The elbows are capable of a little bit of hyperextension.

Rockelle and Tella have dainty little hands that look similar to Ever After High hands, and they do indeed detach like both Monster High and Ever After High hands.  The attachment peg is bigger on Cave Club hands, so MH and EVH can't use them.

Both Monster High and Ever After High dolls have legendary feet, but Cave Club spogs are not to be sneezed at either.

The most notable difference is that Cave Club feet are flat, and they're not meant to wear shoes of any sort.  Of course that won't stop some crafty folks from making their own shoes for Cave Club dolls, but who needs shoes when you're a caveman?  They're well-molded feet and would take to a sandal-style shoe well if they had them.

Overall I like how these bodies retain the posing of Monster High dolls without feeling as flimsy.  So far I've succeeded in NOT breaking any of my MH dolls, but as skinny as their knees were/are that's always been a concern for me.  I doubt that'll be a problem with Tella and Rockelle.  I also appreciate the ease with which these dolls stand; Monster High dolls could also stand on their own, but it usually took a lot of balancing (and if you're easily frustrated like me, some cussing).  Of course the overly body-sensitive public probably won't like the small torsos of these dolls, but then there's no pleasing that bunch.

Cave Club clothes are bright and colorful, just like Cave Club hair, and in Tella's case multiple pieces make a reappearance.

I can't say that I'm in love with that skirt, though.  It's soft and cute and it adds some personality to the rather simple dress, but it sheds like mad and the fibers like to stick to my face.  My nose itches enough without this thing helping it along, thank you too much.

By and large there's not a lot about either of these outfits that tie in with Tella's clairvoyance or Rockelle's ability to talk to animals.  I remember that even when Monster High was on their downswing the dolls' outfits had little details on them that tied in somehow with the doll's personality and backstory.  Not so with Rockelle!  Tella does have one little detail, that being her yellow plastic belt that has the moon and the stars on it...and what appears to be a drumstick.

Hey, even psychic cavegirls have to eat!  Except it's not a drumstick after all.  It's a pouch of some stripe.  Maybe Tella uses runestones to aid in her future-telling?  I dunno.

Either way that's the only inkling one gets about Tella's abilities, and it's open to interpretation.  Without that fuzzy skirt Tella's dress is obscenely short, and the tattered edges are not hemmed.

I guess one could call that a blouse instead of a dress, and hemming it would've been terribly difficult.  I like the tatters anyway, as they remind me again of the Flintstones, who sported tattered hems.  The dress is held up by some more flimsy-looking fabric, specifically sateen ribbons with tulle trim.  This makes Tella look like she's wearing a feather boa.  Kinda cute, actually.

The dress itself is your typical knitted stuff, and it's printed with a vague black animal print...plus a few eyes scattered here and there.  LOL, I like the eyes; they too help to tie Tella's look together.

The back closes with Velcro, which I'll spare my thoughts on since I voice my opinions on Velcro in every post.

For some weird reason all of these dolls wear legwarmers of some stripe, I assume to break up the monotony of their otherwise bare legs.  Tella's are opaque and indigo in color, with a vague star pattern molded on.  Nothing is painted or anything like that.

These have slits in the back to make taking them on and off easier, but the plastic is pretty rigid so taking them on and off is tough anyway.

I like Rockelle's legwarmers better.  They're a shade of my favorite color (green, green, green!!!), they have an obvious left-and-right demarcation, and they have a molded knitted pattern.  I haven't seen anything like this since the Lalaloopsy Girls were a thing, and the stitches on Rockelle's legwarmers are more distinct than the stitches on Pix E. Flutters's hair flowers.

Well, take that back, my Boyds doll Allison has nice molded stitchwork on her socks, but she wasn't meant for play like Pix and Rockelle are.  Anyway, Rockelle is clad in a romper rather than a dress, and it's done in shades of pink, black, and green.

Not much to say about it, really.  It's  a pink, black, and green romper, and that's that.  The colors are a bit muted, but they are livened up by this necklace.

I like big, goofy necklaces, and this is definitely something I'd wear.  But again, I see no references to talking with animals here.

Regarding clothes sharing, I have my doubts since Cave Club torsos, legs, and feet are pretty different from their Monster High and Ever After High predecessors, but I'll try it anyway for the sake of reference.

Pity that the Cave Club members have such short torsos, because Clawdeen's swimsuit would look pretty nice otherwise.  Justine's princess dress doesn't look as nice, though her plastic corset-bustier thingy helped the fit somewhat.  Unfortunately I'll have to say that the Cave Club can't wear Monster High or Ever After High clothes.  I would say that that's a dumb move on Mattel's part, but it's been a long time since Monster High was in our lives so I'll give Mattel a pass on that.  Seriously, it seems like it was just yesterday that I bought my first Monster High doll (Lagoona Blue), but it'll be ten years this November.

I also have a few Minnie Mouse outfits, so I tried one on Rockelle.

It looks like it fits perfectly, but the shorts are too big.  Ol' Minnie Mouse must have a big butt.

Right then, let's move on to the add-ons.  Accessories are largely just pieces of plastic, though Tella's accessory ties in with her storyline.  It's her telescope, and she can hold it...sort of.  I have to jam it on her hand in order for her to hold it. 

This is made of semi-translucent purple plastic and it has a faceted end.

I thought this meant that the telescope doubled as a kaleidoscope, kinda like those plastic tubular ones that Lisa Frank used to make, but it's not.  Bummer, I liked those cheap little kaleidoscopes, and not just because they had purple and yellow kittens on them!  Le sigh...I used to be a huge Lisa Frank fan and I'll admit that I still like those brightly colored folders, but I can't help wondering what those creators were smoking!!!

Speaking of brightly colored folders, that appears to be what Rockelle is carrying.

I figure it's a language book or something like that, since Rockelle talks to critters, but this piece is open to interpretation.  This is what it looks like inside.  No words, just some images and a little gibberish.  The left image looks a little like Teddy Rex.

Speaking of Teddy Rex, Hunch (left) is Tella's pet and Teddy Rex is Rockelle's pet.  They're both just hunks of plastic like the pets that accompanied Monster High and Novi Stars.

Take that back, their heads turn.

What kind of a name for a wolf is "Hunch," I ask y'all???  He doesn't look like any sort of hunch, but boy, is he cute!  He's just as cute as Abbey Bominable's pet...and Vera Tabray's pet too, for that matter.  He's got a purple mohawk and mismatched eyes, and he's adorable. 

Y'know, I don't think Teddy Rex is Rockelle's pet at all!  Look, he's got visible stitches!

That explains why Tyrasaurus was listed as Rockelle's only pet on the wiki, and it also explains the name, "Teddy Rex" like "teddy bear."  The name "Teddy Rex" made me lift an eyebrow though, as it's also the name of a book character.  I don't guess there's a trademark on the name, so no harm no foul, but since I'm a librarian it caught my attention.  I guess that since Teddy Rex is stuffed my little theory is wrong, and he and Tyrasaurus aren't related at all.

Oh yes, there are also these combs, made of plastic and thus not good for doll hair.  There's a periwinkle comb for Tella, a pink one for Rockelle, and a chartreuse one for Fernessa.

As promised, here's a quick look at Fernessa.  She popped up on the Stormy Seventeenth, the day that I thought we were all going over the rainbow.  

That was the same day that I got next week's study subject (a Bouncin' Baby), and the two make quite the study in opposites!  Today's trendy toy versus one from thirty years back.

Fernessa is built like her friends, with a small bust, big hips, thick legs, and huge feet.  Her hair is very curly like Rockelle's is, and it's not as controllable as Tella's hair or Rockelle's.  When Fernessa was in her package her hair was squashed to one side, and as a result it forever wants to stick off to her right.

I love the Sailor Moon buns, though.  That makes two dolls that I've talked about this year with Sailor Moon hair (Sunny Madison was the first).

Like Tella and Rockelle there's not a drop of gel in Fernessa's hair, not even in those buns.  The hair is also one of my favorite color combos:  hot pink with neon green highlights.  Very similar to Venus McFlytrap, in other words.  I hope that doesn't mean that Fernessa is as obnoxious as Venus is/was!

I know that I've griped ad nauseam about the prevalence of pink on modern dolls, but when it's paired with another color like green or blue or yellow I like it a lot better.  Truthfully though, there's not much for me NOT to like about Fernessa.  Her overly fluffy hair is annoying, but a dunk in some hot water can fix that.  Plus, look at her cute face! 

She's not smirking like Tella is, but she's not sickeningly saccharine like Rockelle is either.  She IS smiling like Rockelle though, and the shapes of their mouths look similar.  Do these two share a mold?

I can't tell!  Roaralei and Tella are both smirking, so I figure there is indeed some mold-sharing in this bunch, but it's not a big deal since none of the dolls look enough alike for there to be any confusion.  Fernessa's theme is the most cohesive of my three dolls, with her fondness for plants being reflected in her outfit...

...her face paint...

...her accessory (which can "grow")...

...and heck, even her name!  I don't know how her pet ties into the theme though, since members of the Pterodactylus genus were carnivorous.  Ptilly is adorable, though.  She's got more personality than Teddy Rex, though maybe not as much as Hunch.

I've already had a hard time remembering to call this little figurine Ptilly and not Pterry, LOL.  I now issue a tangent warning, as I was a live-strong, die-hard fan of Pee-Wee's Playhouse when I was little.  I was three then and don't remember much of the program itself, but I do remember Pterry the Pterodactyl quite well.  I also remember that Mama hated the show, and I remember how outraged I was when the show was taken off CBS!  I was far too little to understand the trouble Paul Reubens had gotten himself into, and when Daddy and First Uncle told me "No more Pee-Wee's Playhouse" I didn't believe them.  Thus turning on the tube and finding Raggedy Ann and Andy was a very bitter pill indeed!  Being the small, bratty child that I was I took my wrath out on my poor parents, like they could've done anything about it!  Joke was on me anyway, since CBS and Paul Reubens had mutually agreed to end the show BEFORE Reubens got caught with his pants down! 

LOL, how's that for a tangent???  I'd best wrap this up.

BAD
*Hands pop off, meaning that they can be lost, swallowed, and/or choked on.

*The individual themes of these dolls are hit-and-miss.  Fernessa's plant-loving theme is quite obvious, but Rockelle's theme is not.
*I worry about the kid-friendliness of some of the accessories.  Fernessa's plant feels fragile, as does Rockelle's book.

*Hair is a little hard to control, but that's not a huge deal since it can be fixed.

GOOD
*I love this caveman concept!  That's not an idea one sees every day.

*I also love the colors on these dolls and their eye candy clothes, makeup, and hair.

*There are joints, and they feel sturdier than the joints on their predecessors. 

Bottom line?  I had a hard time putting this review together, not because there's nothing to say, but because I didn't feel very inspired by these dolls.  Oh sure, they're cute and they might fill in the gap left by the Monster High crew...no, they won't.  They won't because no doll can do that, period.  I like Fernessa the best of this bunch, but overall I find them...lacking.  I don't know what they're lacking since they're colorful, jointed, and they have expressive faces, but they're missing something.  Maybe the Monster High crew spoiled me since even my discount Ari Hauntington had lots of little details that made her career as a singer and her race as a ghost obvious.  Maybe Monster High fans like me have our standards set a little (a lot?) too high?  Either way these aren't bad little dolls.  They're colorful and they don't feel as fragile as the Monster High crew, and I love the caveman theme!  Seriously, when's the last time y'all heard of a caveman doll???  If you must have one of these I recommend Fernessa, but that's just my opinion!  Roaralei is adorable too, and...heck, they're all cute.  Just keep an eye out for fragile accessories, and be gentle with those wrist joints.

As a last little tidbit, I must confess that this trio makes a convincing set of first friends. 

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987