The hair looks a little better now that I've worked a brush through it, but it'll never be the best play hair I've seen. In pictures without a flash the hair looks reddish, but under regular lighting her hair is mouse brown, like mine.
Maddie claims that her hair is naturally curly, but it looks more like frizzy waves to me. Again, I'd know because my hair is often like this. The rooting is pathetic. It has huge gaps between rows of rooting.
On the crown of her head, just behind her bangs, Maddie has this headband. It has four molded flowers, and three ports to attach her hat and her barrettes. Remember when I said that some of her clips don't clip in??? This is how they attach, and this is how Maddie knows what she's wearing in her hair.
The side ports are obscured by Maddie's hair, meaning that I'll likely have a difficult time inserting anything there.
I've taken Maddie's hat off and put it on a few times, and it doesn't take a lot of force to get the plugs undone. A gentle tug is all. I advise pulling the plug itself and not the hat, lest one damage the hat otherwise. Overall I'm not a big fan of this hair and am strongly considering cutting at least the ends of it. Since Maddie was an artsy type she might've faired better with a
Mary Quant-style bob...but then again, who knows who Mary Quant is anymore??? Just the same, I think I'd have preferred short hair, as terrible as these fibers feel.
Now the face. Since Maddie's mouth moves as she talks she had to have a rather soft face, and Playmates used the kind of vinyl that gets sticky with time. As a result Maddie's face got pretty dirty in the first twelve hours of her life with me.
Gross. I'm not sure if a Clorox wipe was the best thing to use, but I lightly ran one over Maddie's cheeks and ears anyway. It didn't cure the stickiness, but it washed off the crud that had stuck to the stickiness. Keep this in mind if you have one of these dolls with a moving face; she'll become a dust magnet as she grows old. Indeed, as many animals as I have, I predict that keeping my Maddie clean will be an uphill battle. Anyway, Maddie's eyes are mostly green with a brown center. They're ever so slightly skewed, but they're beautiful eyes. They remind me of My Twinn eyes, the older ones that don't change color as readily, like the ones
Rael and Salome have.
No, I take that back...I HAVE seen these eyes before, but they belonged to Miss Emily's
Sweet e.Baby. Turns out there's a good reason why Maddie and Sweet e.Baby have the same eyes, as they're both Playmates dolls. Anyway, Maddie's upper lashes are applied, and her lower lashes are painted in this odd orange shade that appears to have faded with time. Her eyebrows are this same weird color, so thank goodness for those bangs, shaggy as they may be.
Maddie's eyes look like they should move as she talks, but they don't. They stay stationary, kinda like Daria's dumb-as-dirt classmate
Brittany's eyes. Well...take that back, Brittany does blink every now and then, but not nearly enough. Julie, Ask Amy, and Amazing Allysen all have eyes that blink, but Maddie wasn't quite that advanced...I don't guess. I don't actually know what Playmates' reasoning was there, but no biggie, I can live without eyes that open and close.
Maddie's smile can change shape a little as she talks, meaning that she doesn't always look as she does now. Her lips are glossy pink and are a shade brighter in real life. The same shade is present on her cheeks, but it's pretty faint. I don't like these lips as much as I do the box art doll's lips; the color is too...well, too PINK and the edges are a little harsh.
Since Maddie can open and close her mouth she has some teeth visible in there, kinda like American Girl teeth, or Chatty Cathy teeth, or
Jumeau teeth, take your pick. Notice that Maddie's face is already catching lint and cat hair again.
The rest of Maddie's mouth appears to be flesh-colored like her face, which isn't noticeable unless one shines a light in there. Such a paint job doesn't look good up close, but from a distance it looks fine.
Maddie's body is hard plastic all over, and she has a preteen build: slim with long legs, but with a round torso and a flat chest.
Maddie has seven joints, all of which rotate but do not pivot (neck motion is all but negligible). That's a bummer (bummeroo), but as mechanized as Maddie is the low level of posing is not a surprise. Indeed, I was shocked that her wrists can rotate.
Both of 'em! I don't twist them too much since I don't want to wreck the wires inside, but her wrists do rotate, I assume so that Maddie can hold her creative padd better. Maddie's hands are even molded to hold on to it better...but she still can't hold it worth a dern. More on that later. Anyway, Maddie's hands are cupped, a little like Sasha's are, so they can hold a fingertip if a child wanted.
In this case I'd advise against keeping one's sweaty little fingertip in Maddie's hand, as her right palm has a port in it.
This allows her to interact with her mug, her camera, and her doughnut/bagel/whatever. I reckon I'll find out what that is when I fire Maddie up.
Maddie's wrists both have molded green bracelets with pink accents. Her right bracelet has her "yes" and "no" buttons, used for when the activity cards don't want to cooperate.
More important is the left bracelet, which has a port underneath the daisy.
The daisy hinges aside and is bad about falling off, so if you have this doll keep that in mind. Anyway, this port is where Maddie's creative padd plugs in.
In the commercials Maddie and Ally both held their padd/book in their left hand, but I can't get this to stay in Maddie's hand for the life of me. The padd even has an indention in the side for Maddie's thumb...
...but it WILL. NOT. STAAAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!!!! Maddie can hold it in her right hand a little better, but not much better. I think things might've worked better if the padd had plugged directly into Maddie's hand like her camera and mug and doughnut/bagel/whatever do, but then putting the cards in might've been a pain in the posterior. I can't see an easy compromise, but either way Maddie can't hold her creative padd worth a dern.
The rest of Maddie's arms are stiff plastic and have no adornments. Her shoulders go back and forth...
...and it turns out that I was mistaken about the shoulders having no lateral movement. They do have a little bit.
Maddie's legs are about the same, except that her ankles don't rotate like her wrists do. Sort of the opposite of a My Twinn doll's static wrists and jointed ankles.
Maddie can't sit very well, but she can balance in a convincing walking position. Her hips are too tight for much else.
Okay, maybe that walking position isn't so believable, LOL. Anyway, the sole of Maddie's right foot has a port, which allows her to tell which shoes she's wearing.
Cute idea, but it makes putting her shoes on and taking them off a royal pain. Better than them constantly falling off, I guess. As we'll soon see, Maddie's torso also has several ports that allow her to tell when she's wearing her blouse and her brightly colored jeans. Like many talkers before, Maddie's belly has the holes for her speaker.
The aforementioned ports are all on Maddie's back. There's a port in her shoulder for her blouse...
...another one on her left butt cheek for her jeans...
...and the rest of Maddie's back has a battery compartment, a switch, and a port for the Adventure Ware cartridge.
This plugs in like Maddie's other accessories do, and because it lies flush with her back the blue ribbon is required to pull it out again. According to the label the cartridge should be locked in before turning on the doll. There's also a teeny-weeny reset button next to the port for the blouse, in case things go awry, or if the batteries need changing. Nuts, that means I have to reset this gal after every battery change!
Since she's so mechanized Maddie has a unique body, but at the same time it's an average doll body. Kinda weird, really. If Maddie WEREN'T mechanized I'd cloud up and rain on her posing, but she IS mechanized and that interferes with some movement, so I won't gripe. I'll also note that the hard plastic took to the mold quite well, as Maddie has some nice fingers and toes.
Maddie's bright outfit is the main reason why I like her better than Ally. Ally's stock outfit is cute, but Maddie's getup sets my retro-wallpapered heart
aflame-a!
Aside from the plugs that insert into the ports, these items would be regular doll clothes, and I'm going to treat them as such. The hat is your stereotypical artist's beret, made a little less stereotypical by being pink and having a big blue flower on the front.
The fabric is fleece and is kinda thin. It doesn't have a lining, and it could've done with one.
The beret does little to cover Maddie's mouse nest hair, but it does hold her bangs flat so that's something.
Maddie's blouse is made of flowered velour, and as warm as it's been lately, just looking at the danged thing makes me sweat.
This Velcros down the back, and the Velcro does a lovely job of further tangling Maddie's hair.
Luckily Maddie's hair usually doesn't make contact with her blouse, because she wears a puffy pink vest over the blouse.
This is...well, puffy and pink, and the material feels like vinyl or pleather, neither of which age well. I like the textural contrast though, between the smooth vest and the fuzzy blouse. Unlike the hat and blouse, the vest is lined.
The right bottom edge of the vest has Maddie's name in big letters.
Maddie's blue jeans are dark wash and loosely cut, like bell bottoms. To my great delight they did NOT stain Maddie's body.
The jeans have belt loops, pockets, and a fly. These are not real, but they're not printed or painted either, like modern doll clothes might have.
The cuffs are adorned with brightly colored ribbon, and the right leg has an embroidered butterfly.
The back of the jeans are plain, except for a tag with "MADDIE" on it. Oh yes, and a strip of Velcro.
Lastly, shoes. Maddie wears brown vinyl clogs that look like potato shoes.
These are largely plain but do have molded stitches and more butterflies.
These shoes are the only item that gave me any trouble. The right shoe plugs into Maddie's foot, and when I took the shoe off the plug remained in her foot. It wasn't a huge deal, nothing a little glue couldn't mend, but it annoyed me.
Lastly, the soles of Maddie's shoes have her name on it, plus another butterfly.
Kinda a shame that Maddie's name isn't reversed, so that she'd leave her name imprinted in the sand. When I redressed Maddie I was chagrined but not surprised to see a small rip in her vest. All the more reason to hate pleather.
Both Ally and Maddie had extra accessory sets that you could buy, sets that included a new outfit and some handheld odds and ends, all of which would increase the doll's vocabulary. As noted above, only one of the accessory sets belonged to Maddie, and to my great chagrin Ally and Maddie can't share accessories back and forth (bummeroo, LOL). My intention was to find Maddie's sole outfit, and indeed eBay has plenty of them, but...well, I got obsessed with American Girl dolls again. My play group has increased by three with a fourth possibly on the way, much to Maddie's chagrin. Now you play nice, Missy, or I'll toss you back on eBay!!! Anyway, my intention is to get both that outfit and some batteries and try to film this doll in action. But since I don't have the other outfit or batteries, I grabbed a My Life number at Wal-Mart to see how it looked.
