Random post about cute stuff

My mental state is a little bit better today, and because my fluff posts tend to do well...here's a fluff post.  During a few browsing sessions I found some little dollies that attracted my attention.  Some of 'em are old, some of 'em are not so old, and a couple I remember from my little kid days.  Because both space and money are an issue ATM, I won't be buying or reviewing these, but I want to comment on them.  I apologize for the quality of the images; all the pictures I could find online were auction pictures on eBay and Etsy, so y'all get crummy screenshots of commercials I saw on YouTube.  All apologies.

NAME:  Little Miss Echo

COMPANY:  American Doll and Toy Company

YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1962-1963

WHAT I THOUGHT OF HER THEN:  Wasn't around then.  My mom was eleven, LOL.

WHAT I THINK OF HER NOW:  That's a strange name for a doll, but a wicked cool idea.

OTHER COMMENTARY:  At thirty inches tall, Little Miss Echo wasn't so little!  This one was a talker, but instead of having prerecorded phrases the owner could teach her whatever.  Hmmm...I wonder if that means she could be taught to cuss!  LOL, Little Miss Echo appears to be an obscure doll, but I was able to learn that she has a thirty-second tape recorder inside her that allows one to "teach" her what to say.  That means that yes, she can be taught to cuss!  Maybe in the future I'll grub her up just for that!  Unfortunately Little Miss Echo wasn't a huge hit, and I'm willing to bet that she was expensive to produce as well.  Kinda like that Bonanza-themed chuckwagon that eventually spelled the company's doom.  Either way Little Miss Echo was a interesting concept, not unlike some toys I had when I was a kid.

NAME:  Sweet Licks

COMPANY:  Mego

YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1979

WHAT I THOUGHT OF HER THEN:  I wasn't alive then, LOL.

WHAT I THINK OF HER NOW:  Deja vu!  I thought My Lickety Treats was an original concept, but was I wrong!
OTHER COMMENTARY:  I definitely would've discussed this doll during Emily's review had I known she existed then.  Sweet Licks had the exact same concept, only her tongue moved when you squeezed her tummy gently.  The commercial went a little further than that, stating that this little goober could lick your face.  While that SOUNDS weird, I know from personal experience that kids do do that!  I did it just to drive my mom nuts, LOL.  Otherwise Sweet Licks appears to be a rag doll, with not even the vinyl limbs that my Emily has.  She's cute, but kinda goofy too.  Likely if I'd reviewed her I'd have included "WTF" in the tags.  Sweet Licks is wicked cute, though.  I love dolls that have a lot of personality, and she's got it.  Yeah, baby, she's got it!  LOL, next doll!

NAME:  Telephone Tammy

COMPANY:  Mattel

YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1994

WHAT I THOUGHT OF HER THEN:  Don't remember her. 

WHAT I THINK OF HER NOW:  How nineties can a doll get???
OTHER COMMENTARY:  I reiterate, how nineties can a doll get???  The hats that the little girls wear look hauntingly like the ones that Truly Me dolls wore around that same time.  Also, stereotypical little girls apparently talked on the telephone a lot back then.  Goodness knows my sister and I didn't (our phone bill was a bit of a concern), but I knew a lot of little girls who did.  They did in cartoons, they did in some of the games, and Telephone Tammy wasn't the only doll to chatter on the phone (I loved Phone Fun Skipper, LOL).  Granted, Phone Fun Skipper didn't actually "talk" on the phone like Tammy did.  Tammy actually does "talk" to a certain extent, in that her mouth moves as her voice mech runs, in a manner similar to Playmantes dolls Amazing Ally, Amazing Maddie, and Amazing Allysen.  The other "Amazing" girl, Amy, did NOT have a moving mouth.  Other Mattel dolls also have moving mouths, but Teenie Talk and Baby See 'n' Say are WAYYYY older than Telephone Tammy is.  Just the same, Telephone Tammy would've fit in nicely with my post about talking dolls.  Interestingly though, when one gets a full look at Tammy one can see that she's got curved baby legs, kinda like a Baby Alive doll or like my last Paola Reina doll.  Usually kids that are that small aren't talking on the phone in full sentences...unless Tammy is just bow-legged as all get out.  There's a little kid in my neighborhood who's like that.  

NAME:  Emily

COMPANY:  Horsman

YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1997

WHAT I THOUGHT OF HER THEN:  Had no idea she existed. 

WHAT I THINK OF HER NOW:  A cute doll with production issues. 

OTHER COMMENTARY:  Emily was actually a cute little doll, one that could be found in stores.  I think she was American Girl competition, but as y'all can see in the image above her eyes were very bad about changing color.  My My Twinn's eyes turned grape juice-colored, but Emily's demonic red eyes are far freakier.  Later models had painted eyes and were also attractive, but poor Emily didn't stick around long after that.  Too bad, because she was cute.

NAME:  Pretty Love Lashes

COMPANY:  Toys R Us, and whoever made toys for them

YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1998

WHAT I THOUGHT OF HER THEN:  Okay, that's a weird one.  And her eyelashes are crazy!

WHAT I THINK OF HER NOW:  Admittedly I'd never heard of butterfly kisses as a kid, so Pretty Love Lashes's gimmick was lost on me.  It makes sense to me now, but I still think this one is kinda strange.
OTHER COMMENTARY:  I was a beginning doll collector around this time, and this was the first time I realized that not all dolls were equal.  Back then I thought they were all worth collecting, but the commercial made it obvious that Pretty Love Lashes, with her cartoonish eyes and odd gimmick, was a toy.  Even now I can't help thinking "Butterfly kisses?  Why not just real kisses, like Mama's old Kissy doll?"  I also wonder why this doll wasn't just named "Butterfly Kisses"?  It would've been a better name than "Pretty Love Lashes"!  Just the same this one is an interesting little doll, one that would make an interesting addition to a collection...if she weren't a stinkin' toy!

NAME:  Skateboard Shannen

COMPANY:  Tyco, which was a division of Mattel by then
YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  1998
WHAT I THOUGHT OF HER THEN:  My exact words were "Oooh, she's cool!"
WHAT I THINK OF HER NOW:  I still think she's cool!
OTHER COMMENTARY:  Remonte control-operated Skateboard Shannen is the doll that I'll always associate with my sixth grade teacher.  Right before Christmas in 1999 our teacher asked us all what we wanted for Christmas.  The conversation went as follows:

MRS. B:  What do you want for Christmas, Moon?
ME:  I want an American Girl doll.
CLASS BULLY:  Awww, she wants a doll at her age, the baby!
MRS. B (ticked):  Alright, Bully.  My daughter C is older than all of y'all, and do you know what she wants???
CLASS BULLY:  ...what?
MRS. B:  A Skateboard Shannen doll!
CLASS BULLY:  <humbled silence>
ME <grinning>:  Oooh, she's cool!  Is C gonna get her?
MRS. B:  I got her in the trunk of the car!

Take that, class bully, you fat prick!  He had a sad home life so I should be more compassionate, but he was still a fat prick.  I'm only slandering his weight because he had the nerve to call ME fat, the little pot-calling-the-kettle-black jerk.  Mrs. B's daughter was in eighth grade, so her wanting a doll was a tremendous comfort to me.  Anyway, Skateboard Shannen hails from a time when skateboarding was still kinda a boy's thing.  Tony Hawk was the name of the game in those days, but girls and young women were steadily taking up the sport as well.  Shannen was a good way to introduce girls to the sport, as she could do a few simple tricks if the controller so chose.  She also had a pretty little face, so she was kinda the best of both worlds.  A doll that did something, AND a doll that was cute.  Unlike the other dolls listed above, I have considered buying Skateboard Shannen at one time or another, but I talk myself out of it.  It's that old aversion to battery-operated toys that I discussed when I reviewed Bouncin' Babies.

NAME:  Shining Stars

COMPANY:  Mattel
YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  2001-2002
WHAT I THOUGHT OF THEM THEN:  Hey, glow-in-the-dark stuff!
WHAT I THINK OF THEM NOW:  Hey, they've got cute faces to go with the glow-in-the-dark stuff!
OTHER COMMENTARY:  Glow-in-the-dark parts?  Star-shaped snuggler that allowed for cuddling and carrying?  One of the colors was yellow?  STARS?  Yes, please!  LOL, I was fourteen by the time these came around, and while I did think they were cute I had several American Girls AND vintage dolls owned by my mother and my aunt, so I just said "Shining Stars are cute" and went on with my life.  Indeed, there's not much to the dolls themselves.  They're cute little baby dolls with rooted, brushable hair and baby bottles that glowed, and they travelled in the aforementioned snugglers that were awfully cute, but that was about it.  Oh yeah, the dolls also invited kids to study the stars on their own, and to pick out their own star and name it.  Yeah...I'm pretty sure that any star you find in the sky has a name of its own, but it's still a cute idea.  The glowing bottle freaked me out a little though, because at fourteen I already knew there'd been a time where people drank radium water for their health.  Y'all can probably figure out how well THAT went!  Edit, 11/25/2023:  Tam kindly allowed me to use one of her pictures.  See how cute these dolls are?

I think I need one of these now, LOL.  Tam's full post can be found HERE.  If you scroll down to the comments, you can see that I left two comments...and one of 'em said I'd never heard of these before!  That turned out to be a fib, as I remembered these when I saw the commercial on YouTube.

NAME:  My Friend Cayla

COMPANY:  Genesis Toys
YEAR OF PRODUCTION:  2014-2017
WHAT I THOUGHT OF HER THEN:  Wasn't aware she existed.
WHAT I THINK OF HER NOW:  Not the prettiest thing in the world.
OTHER COMMENTARY:  My Friend Cayla was a talking doll that could interact with her owner kinda like Julie did back in the 1980s, but being a product of the past decade meant that she was more hi-tech.  She utilized some sort of Bluetooth mech that allowed her to talk to her owner and semi-personalize the conversation.  Pretty cool, right?  Unfortunately her technology proved very easy to hack, and there were rumors that the voices of the dolls' owners were stored in some big database, and there were whispers of espionage crap and...well, to quote my dad, it was a mess!  Countries started banning the doll due to said whispers of spies, and eventually poor Cayla ended up being pulled from store shelves.  She still can be found on Mercari for reasonable prices, though.  I personally think the poor little thing is kinda homely, and her voice is a monotone kinda like M3GAN's.

There was also a baby doll I read about earlier in the year, one where you bought the doll, called some lady on the phone, and told the lady your doll's name.  Or something like that.  My brain partially melted during the summer so I don't remember further back than early June (LOL).  But if I  can remember that doll's name I'll talk about her.  It was yet another interesting gimmick that made an otherwise ordinary doll original.  So how about the rest of y'all?  Do remember any of these?  Did y'all own or want any of 'em?  Discuss.

Much love,

RagingMoon1987