The mishmash box

These dolls are kinda like the small items that I'd call "treasures" when I was a kid.  When I was about eight I had a small wicker basket, and in that basket I kept about a dozen items that I'd taken a liking to.  These items were two Silly Putty eggs, a ballerina cake topper, a pink dinosaur charm, a polished tiger's eye rock, a decorative ceiling fan pull chain, and a cap from a bottle of peach soda, and they were my treasures.  Small, easy to carry, and special for this reason or that.  In a similar manner, I've rounded up the dolls in this post and I keep them in a box of their own, largely because I want to display them but don't have room.  So they reside here, in a cardboard box similar to the one that my Barbies, Joie, and the Fidgie Friends live in.

I ran into Amanda Jane on Failbook.  She was made in Hong Kong and sold in England.  This is my little pet; they don't all look like this.

Some Amanda Jane dolls have huge eyes and bear a passing resemblance to Little Miss No-Name, while some, like mine, are babies.  I don't know what size the little girl dolls are, but my doll is six inches from head to toe.  Here's what her little face looks like; it has a slightly anime-ish look to it that makes me think of Licca-chan and her doe-eyed cronies.  That white powdery-looking stuff is part of the doll, by the way.  It's not some sort of dust or gom that I could remove.

Her expression reminds me of Sindy too, particularly these cute little Tesco dolls reviewed by Purple Monkfish.  Scroll down a smidge for the cute dolls; the first few dolls Monkfish discussed were...not the cutest things.  Oh, and while digging around for images of Tesco Sindy...look what I stumbled across.  Looks like Ashley's Sindy (who is a Tonner doll, not a Tesco) crossed paths with the Eleventh Doctor.  Sigh...I'm jealous.  ANYWAY, Amanda Jane came with a number of items, including this pink carrying case.

This puppy is made of pleather, but it's holding up pretty well.  The top part has a lace-trimmed hood, and the flaps zip so that Amanda Jane won't fall out.

Amanda Jane also has a blanket that I probably should've bundled her up in...

...and a handful of cute little outfits.  Kinda makes me wonder if Amanda Jane was a semi-big deal at one time.  

I was able to glean a little bit more info off of Etsy, but not much.  Amanda Jane was listed as a 1970s thing, and she did indeed have several different outfits.  This Flickr page has more information, though I still don't know what company made her.  In addition to her baby and girl selves Amanda Jane had a "Jinx" variant that was apparently supposed to be a friend for Vogue's Ginny.  And get this...this article says that Amanda Jane's holding company was alive and well as of 2021.  I need to learn more about this little doll!

On Reddit I met Lily Lime, one of the Pop Playmates.  The Pop Playmates live in little plastic soda cans.  Y'all know how I'm fond of soda.

Lily had at least two friends, Dolly Cola and Molly Orange, Reddit also reports a peaches 'n' cream doll.  Shudder...I can feel my kidneys cramping just thinking of that combo!  Certain orange sodas and almost all colas are laden with caffeine and are thus kidney stones in a can.  Too bad too, because they taste great.  Anyway, Reddit goes on to state that Lily and company appears to be a knockoff of a certain Furga doll named Dolly-Cola.  That Dolly-Cola also has a friend, Fanny-Fanta (both Dolly and Fanny can be seen here).  Oh, Furga...I like Furga dolls (see my posts here and here).  I like Fanta too; their orange soda doesn't have any caffeine in it so I can indulge from time to time.  Now...here's a better look at Lily's face.  Like Amanda Jane, she looks familiar...and more than a little sad.

This face reminds me of Li'l Gumdrop, one of my Strawberry Shortcake knockoffs.  Lily's vinyl also feels like Gumdrop's does, so maybe Eugene Toys had a hand in production somewhere...and maybe not.  Maybe Lily and Gumdrop just look similar by coincidence.

Lily Lime and Amanda Jane arrived on the same day, by the way.  They arrived on October 2nd, and they actually arrived at a reasonable hour!  Lily's pop can is about the same height as Amanda Jane is when she's seated.

When Lily is out of the can she's dwarfed by Amanda Jane.  She'd make a very fine dollhouse doll.

Just for shizzles, here's the top of Lily's can.  It has a pop top molded in, but this isn't the part of Lily's can that comes off and lets her out.

Lily is showing her age a teensy bit.  If I shove her into the bottle in the wrong position, her right arm pops out, like so.  It goes back in easy-peasy, but I wouldn't recommend a doll like this to modern children for that reason.

From what I can gather, Coca-Cola sponsored the Pop Playmates.  When I root Kleo Cola and Cherry Fizz out of their hiding places I'll compare the three, because how many soda-themed dolls can y'all name???  Oh yeah, I forgot Betsy Bubblegum.  She and her pet seal live in soda bottles too.

A Zapf Jolly Dolly egg.  Miss Emily discusses these in this post.  These particular Jolly Dollies follow the theme of unusual hovels.  I own dolls that live in fruits, in cabbages (of course), and in soda containers, and I've seen dolls that reside in peanuts, in baby bottles, in...in shoes???  Yep, there was one wave of Baby Beans that came in shoes.  They came in cans too, but that makes more sense.  Anyway, for a spell Jolly Dollies came stored in eggs and wearing bunny pajamas, I presume for Easter.

I've just got this one, and the eBay seller showed her inside her egg, so I knew who I was getting ahead of time.  She looks exactly like one of the dolls Miss Emily got.

Doesn't make her any less cute, though!  Look at that face!  I love it when babies LOL like that.

The full-sized Jolly Dollies are cute too, so I may have to grab one of them in the future.  Oh yes, I didn't show y'all the bunny on the front of this doll's sleeper.  He's got some stitches showing and thus reminds me of the Velveteen Rabbit.

Regarding a name, I ripped yet another page out of Miss Emily's book and utilized the Baby Name Genie for this doll.  I've never used that website before.  When the time comes to name Cabbage Patch Kids I utilize names that flow well together, or the names of flowers or hurricanes.  Anyway, the Genie named my Zapf girl Luna Macy, so that's what I'll go with.  I'll have to remember to use that website the next time I adopt a Cabbage Patch Kid without its papers.  Relying on hurricane names is fun until the hurricane in question turns out to be ridiculously deadly and destructive, as Helene sadly was.

Just for grins, here's how Luna compares visually to Casa Pizarro's other Zapf resident, Narcissa. 

They're not at all alike, but they ARE Zapf babies and they're both ridiculously cute.  Just for the heckuvit, here's Narcissa on her own.

I stopped collecting these Baby Born Surprises long ago, but I'll always think they're cute.  Narcissa is a gift, so she's a little extra special. 

This next doll has arguably one of the most horrid names I've ever heard, though I'm fairly certain it means something else in another language.  She's Ddung.

Ddung is a Korean entity, and the dolls always look eternally shocked.  My particular doll is a member of the constellation series, and since I'm a Libra, that's the constellation I chose.

Ddung can be used as a keychain...

...but at four inches, she's a bit bigger than a keychain I'd use.  She's also very fair in complexion and would easily grow dirty. 

I was going to call this doll "Moon" since that's a common given name in Korea, but this doll's box makes it loud and clear what her name is.

I wonder what that means in Korean?  Anyway, on the top of her box Ddung offers to be one's friend if one plays with her.

Not a tall order!  Indeed, playing with someone when they're young can determine whether they grow to like you further on down the road.  For example, Uncle Man-Child hid from us when my sister and I were small, and Uncle from St. Louis loved to wrestle and tickle and give piggyback rides.  Guess who my sister and I like better, LOL.  Little things like that show someone you give a crap.  Anyway, Ddung fits nicely into my hands and fits in well with my league of small dolls, so she'll be getting plenty of playtime.

Of course no mishmash is complete without at least one Barbie knockoff.  On Reddit I met Tong's Betty Teen.  She too was made in Hong Kong, and in-box examples have "M&C" on the packaging, so I'll include that in the tags.

Betty is a Barbie clone, and she was apparently popular in Russia as a Barbie alternative.  Thank you to Debbie Behan Garrett for that info; she has a lovely example of a black Betty on her blog.  Unsurprisingly this means that Betty is Barbie's size, but like Amanda Jane her eyes have that Eastern aesthetic.  She's actually quite pretty, especially for a clone doll.  Someone on Flickr paired a Betty with two Sindy dolls, but Betty doesn't favor Sindy as much as Amanda Jane does.

This doll has a cute face, regardless of who she favors.  Not overly glamorous, not bitchy, just sweet and approachable and attractive all in one.  Her eyelashes are very short, but they're rooted nonetheless.

I heard through the grapevine that Betty loaned out her head to Steffi Love and a handful of other Barbie alternatives.  I think I can see the resemblance in this doll, but that Steffi isn't as cute as Betty is.  Not that Steffi is a bad doll, of course; indeed, she's on my radar.  But my eye is on one of the more modern ones, with rainbow tresses.

Betty's friend is from a company called Camay, who made plastic girl dolls and clones of Barbie, Sindy, and Tammy.  This doll looks a lot like Midge used to, with that flip.  I don't know if she has a proper name, so I'll call her Marlo.  Marlo was immediately curious about her new surroundings. 

Marlo wears her hair like Midge and like some Twist 'n' Turn Barbies, but her face is...pretty much her own.  She reminds me a little of Tressy.

Like a great many Barbie clones, Marlo has a stiff hollow plastic body, and as such her posing isn't great.  She sits like the ol' bimbo on quaaludes.  LOL, been a long time since I've said that!

In Marlo's defense, the earliest Barbie dolls were also stiff as a board.  They can keep their legs together when they sit, but their legs jut out like rigor mortis.  Marlo also feels robustly constructed.  I can't say that about all Barbie clones

Rounding out the Barbie-sized trio is Isolde.  She is a legit Barbie, albeit a heavily customized one.  

She's got that beautifully painted Odile head, just like my Nerida.

I told y'all that everyone is going hog-wild over this head!  More often than not the ones I see are rebodied onto Made to Move bodies, as Isolde has been.  Isolde also got a hair makeover; notice that it's a lot shorter and wavier than Nerida's hair.  The eBay seller included a fuzzy little kitten and a little box with a cell phone, but Isolde made a beeline for the kitten.

It was a crazy day and a long trip for Isolde, and she quickly became overwhelmed.  Marlo tried to offer some comfort (her road trip was even longer)...

...but ultimately Isolde decided to just crash on the back of the couch away from everyone.  

Marlo admitted that she also had a minor freakout when she met some of her bigger housemates.  Margot Madeline is a bit too much doll for a little girl like Marlo. 

Luckily for Marlo the Patch is full of gentle giants.

While researching Camay dolls I ran into an article that went to bat for clone dolls, discussing how even the cheapest, poorly molded clone doll has its own character.  Now most of my clone dolls are pretty well-made.  Mariclare has wonky face paint and Katya is just poor quality all over...but notice that I've not given them up.  I have special memories of Katya, and both of them are good models.  Clone dolls are just fun dolls in general.  They add a lot of nice variety to a collection and I'm glad to have them aboard.  In a way the same can be said for the rest of these dolls; the only one that appears to be any sort of big name is Amanda Jane.  The rest are kinda, sorta...little plastic nobodies.  No big-name brand behind them, no company information stamped on their backs, just a simple "Made in <fill in the blank>."  All the same, they're sweet little dolls.  They're not unlike the off-brand dolls that I might've received from an aunt or a grandparent, or from my own parents.  Kids aren't usually concerned with the brand name as long as their toy doesn't fall apart at the seams.  I know I wasn't.

Now, parts of the country are having to batten down the hatches for another violent hurricane!  Hurricane Milton was a category five storm this time yesterday, and Ryan Hall says that he will probably regain that rating sometime today.  He probably won't hit Florida at that strength, but he WILL be extremely violent.  The only good thing I can say right now is that people have apparently learned from Helene; the roads out of Florida are PACKED!!!  All I can say is if you're in that area, I'm prayin' for y'all!  By the way, I find it ironic that the meteorologists have predicted a rough hurricane season, but the violent ones don't start coming until the alleged end of the season.  But then some seasons are like that.  

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987