The heebie-jeebies

This week has been one of the stormiest I can remember.  After the scare on Wednesday it rained and thundered all day yesterday, and then this morning we woke up to a surprise tornado threat for this afternoon (right now, in other words).  And guess what?  More rain is predicted after that!  Every time we get some sort of watch or warning my phone beeps, and if it's not beeping for tornado warnings it's beeping for flash flood warnings.  I usually love splashes of inclement weather, but four tornado scares in one spring (hell, one MONTH) is too much for me.  I'm ready for sunshine.

Now that that's out of the way, I'm giving my Living Dead Dolls some attention.  Yeah, I know that these guys have popped into So Random posts over the past couple'a months, but killecrankie, how long has it been since I honest-to-God talked about Living Dead Dolls?  Five years?  Six?  Not recently, I know that much.  Beauty and the Beast were the subjects of one of my first posts, clean back in 2012.

They've long since been joined by Andras (left), Milu (right), and Spring-Heeled Jack (bottom), and I know they've popped into the blog once or twice.

Oh yes, Milu's face.  Masked Living Dead Dolls are not uncommon, but according to her wiki Milu's mask is the biggest.

Doll collectors have an interesting relationship with Living Dead Dolls, I've noticed.  Some devout dolly lovers find them WAAAAAY too creepy, and then folks who don't like dolls at all freaking love them.  My sister likes Living Dead Dolls, for example; I'd almost give my right arm to find Toxic Molly for her.  As for me...well, obviously I'm a fan, but my favorites are always the glass-eyed Resurrection dolls that are RIDICULOUSLY expensive.  Most of 'em, anyway; my unicorn isn't a variant, though she does have Resurrection variants.

Yes, my unicorn, whom y'all will soon meet.  Y'all might think I'd name one of the more over-the-top dolls as the one that scares me, right?  Someone like Bloody Mary (left) or Schitzo, the latter of whom looks like John Wayne Gacy.

I admit that they're freaky, but they don't make my skin crawl.  Indeed, I admire Bloody Mary's detail; the cuts on her face remind me of the Beast's stitches.  Schitzo is also a favorite of mine since I'm a true crime enthusiast, though the saga of John Wayne Gacy is one of the sicker ones I've heard.  Seriously, clown by day, serial killer by night.  How sick is that???  Anyway, for reasons I've never been able to figure out, the Living Dead Doll that's always given me the heebie-jeebies is one of the tamer ones, Alison Crux.  My unicorn.

I think it's her eyes.  They're dark, they're shadowed, they're mysterious, they're...sad.  

Sadness is actually an emotion that a lot of Living Dead Dolls show, so I shouldn't be too surprised.  Interestingly, though a lot of these dolls are sad, only four of them are shown crying:  Elisa Day, Rain, and ironically, two variants of Alison Crux herself (see below).  Lamenta may also count, but the tears she cries are tears of blood, and she feeds off sorrow rather than being sorrowful herself.  Anyway, like my other dolls, Alison is beautifully painted, but unlike some of them (the Beast in particular) her details are more subtle.  Her vinyl is blue, like she's been deprived of oxygen, and she's also covered in what appear to be skid marks.  Both of these details are relevant to how Alison died.  As for her eyes themselves, they're a very, very dark blue, with red rims and blown pupils.  Alison is undoubtedly dead, and she's not too happy about it.  So compared to Bloody Mary and Schitzo Alison is pretty tame.  Probably the scariest thing about her is her hair, and even that isn't as bad as I was expecting.  I'd envisioned a curly, coarse, tangled nightmare that rivals the hair of Kikki and of Meygana Broomstix.  Alison's hair is uneven, thin, and admittedly a little tangled, but I've seen much worse.

Alison's cause of death is also freaky; she got caught in a revolving door and subsequently got trampled (hence her skid marks and blue coloring).  Also of note is her time of death:  April 4th, 1944, at 4:44 p.m.  A lot of fours.  The number four symbolizes completion for me, but in other cultures it symbolizes death.

That's a pretty grim fate, but to me it's not as bad as that of Sunday (she fell out of a tree and hit every branch on the way down), of Gypsy (her heart exploded due to a bad spell), of Frozen Charlotte (hers was a combo of drowning and freezing to death), of the Unwilling Donor (she had a kidney removed without consent), or of poor ol' Toxic Molly (she suffered from radiation poisoning).  Having kidney problems of my own, the Unwilling Donor also makes me cringe, though out of pain rather than out of fear.  Nothing, repeat, NOTHING has ever physically hurt me as badly as a kidney stone, and I'm willing to bet that having one removed is no picnic either.  Even breaking my ankle wasn't as bad.

While I was unwrapping Alison, I noticed the age bracket for these dolls...and the specific type of person.

Spooky kids ages fifteen and up!  Alison is the eldest of my six dolls, and my younger dolls' boxes sadly don't have the description "spooky kids."  Or she's the eldest production-wise, having been marketed in 2007.  In terms of her chronological age, she'd probably be the youngest.  <pauses to consult the wiki>  Yeah, here's what I found.

*MILU:  She's a goddess and is therefore immortal.  She'd be the oldest by far.
*BEAUTY AND THE BEAST:  The original fairy tale dates from 1740 but is vague about the two characters' ages.  I'm just gonna say 1740 for these two and leave it at that.
*ANDRAS:  Her wiki says that she died in a fight but gives no date, so she could be as old as time or as young as her year of release, 2012.
*SPRING-HEELED JACK:  His urban legend dates back to 1837.
*ALISON CRUX:  She's actually the easiest one; her death certificate specifically states that she died in 1944.

So it's a toss-up between Andras and Alison as to who the youngest is.  Andras LOOKS younger, but being a bellicose little doll she doesn't WANT to be younger.  Alison is no fighter and is thus more than willing to let Andras think what she likes.

Alison:  I'm not having your crap, Andras.  

Not that Alison is a wimp, of course.  Her job is to guide lost souls to the other side (definitely not for the faint of heart), and according to her chipboard poem she takes great pride in that work.  The key she wears around her neck is a key to the portal for that "final resting place," wherever that may be.  Even Alison isn't sure where that is.  Maybe it's the Inbetween Place.

The wiki notes that Alison's role is similar to that of Charon, the Greek ferryman of the underworld.  "Charon" is pronounced like "Karen," so I wonder how Alison got her name?  By the way, I learned that the name for beings who ferry souls to the beyond are called "psychopomps."  They can be good, evil, or neutral, but their job is the same, to take you where you really need to be, ohhhh yeah.

Above I talked a bit about variants, and Alison Crux has variants...FOUR of 'em!  She was part of Resurrection Series VIII along with Pumpkin and Calavera, and all three of them had four variants (images of Pumpkin's and Calavera's variants can be found HERE).  These two are Resurrection (left) and Resurrection Variant...

... then these two are Lazarus (left) and Lazarus Variant.

Resurrection Series VIII tells an interesting tale of insanity, grief, murder, and bravery.  Pumpkin's mind has been corrupted to the point of insanity, and it's up to Alison Crux and Calavera to stop him from killing the other Living Dead Dolls.  The whole saga is told with each doll's death certificate, (full text can be found HERE), and the end implies that none of the trio are ever quite the same afterwards.  As to the Alison variants, they're creepy enuff, but for me nothing beats the original...and now she's mine, mine, MINE!!!  Happy day!  Now if I could only find a good deal on Toxic Molly...

For the record, Spring-Heeled Jack and Milu have variants too.  Here's what they look like.

Beauty, the Beast, and Andras don't have variants...my mistake, yes, Beauty and the Beast do.  They each got a Resurrection variant in 2017, but unlike my two they were sold in a single box.  

That leaves Andras as the odd woman out for now.  For now, that is.  In the world of the Living Dead Dolls anything is possible, and I personally am hoping for the Mothman.  Every so often cryptids join the LDD gang; indeed, Spring-Heeled Jack is classed as a demon on his wiki, but he behaves more like a cryptid to me.  I see a few similarities between Spring-Heeled Jack and the Mothman, things like coloration and an ability to fly/jump long distances.  I don't know what my deal is with the Mothman, but I find him/it fascinating and would love to see him/it as a Living Dead Doll.  That said...I think this line may be discontinued!  I'm way out of the loop, but it looks like there's been some financial dishonesty behind the scenes and the future of the Living Dead Dolls is up in the air, so I may not get my Mothman, and Andras may not see her Resurrection.  But all good things do eventually end, and I've got my small group here with me, so that's good enuff.

Today is the anniversary of Alison Crux's death, so send her a little love.  

I'm glad I have her, because my other unicorns (Elisa Day, Toxic Molly, and the Unwilling Donor) are NOT CHEAP!!!  I'm not giving up the hunt, but for now I'm gonna be realistic and just love my collection as it is.

Hugs and kisses,
RagingMoon1987

So random, February '25

February of this year saw the return of some old faces, so let's dive in!  February 2nd.  Perhaps miffed by the groundhog's forecast, my Living Dead Dolls started rising from their coffin-boxes, and Spring-Heeled Jack immediately tried to terrorize Candela Laura.

He didn't have much luck.  Cabbage Patch Kids are kids' playthings, and nothing is scarier for a toy than some of the games kids play, so Candela Laura was not the slightest bit fazed by her pint-sized tormentor.

February 3rd, Bae Day Monday.  The theme was Puppy Love, and Lucey Dena took advantage of that.

She loves her Ginger.  Little does she know that another of my dolls has a pet named Ginger.

Also February 3rd, Vincent and Mandy got cozy.

It was a little chilly in the house right then, and the two were helping warm each other up.  Vincent is fuzzy, so warming up a friend isn't too hard.

February 9th.  I love me some peanut butter and jelly, and Cloe apparently does too.

Cloe wishes to know your favorite flavor of jelly.  She appears to be fond of strawberry, and I like cherry...and blackberry too, for that matter.  My paternal grandmother made her own jelly and jam, and one of the flavors she made was blackberry.  I kid y'all not, she had so many flavors in that storeroom that when the sun hit the jars it was a sight to behold.  Purple and red and amber and yellow, it was beautiful.

Later on that evening Venus and Cloe decided to chill.

Venus gets along with everyone, and despite her Bratz moniker Cloe does too.  Most of the Bratz I've met are pretty chill and get along with other dolls...unless you piss them off.  Then Heaven help you.

February 10th, 2025, very early in the morning. 

Andra has a lot of hair...or she LOOKS like she does.  It's relatively short for Barbie hair, but it's also very curly.

February 17th. 

Martina and Princess Pipp Petals.  These two are on a completely different scale, but they look cute together. 

February 18th.  The snow was falling, the wind was blowing, and the temperature was 21 degrees with a wind chill of five degrees.  It was my day off and I spent it hiding from Uncle Man-Child.  In one corner of the room I use is a large, motley group of my dolls, and I took a fancy to two particular pairs.  Here's Chelsea and C.C....

...and Alana and River Song. 

As usual Alana is being a ham.

Also that evening I got to futzing around with some of my nineties baby dolls.  So Surprised Suzie caught my attention. 

When my sister and I were very tiny we'd reach for something invisible and stare with big eyes and an open mouth.  My dad always said that we were looking at angels, and I don't doubt it.  Often babies and children can see things we adults can't. 

February 19th.  Head shot of Martina, one of my Furga dolls. 

I freaking love this doll.  She's got amazing hair and a sweet face, and...well, I just love her.

February 24th.  Angie arrived in the mail.  Angie is one of Dawn's friends.

I can understand why these dolls were so popular, since their tiny size made them easier to collect and since they fit well into a dollhouse.  Oh yeah, and they're cute.

This is my favorite way to pose Dawn dolls, by the way.  Sitting, back-to-back, comfy.

February 26th.  River Song had just gotten a new spring dress.

The dress, but no shoes!  Fortunately that was easily rectified.  River Song looked so cute on the back of the couch that I took her picture anyway, shoes or no.

And that concludes the auction for the month!  February was bitterly cold but is ending on a warm note, and I've got spring fever!

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987

Talky Tina and Baby Jane

Today I'm going to go off the beaten path a little and introduce you to two cinema dolls that I have a fondness for.  One of them, Talky Tina, is fairly well-known among doll circles.  The other, Baby Jane, plays only a small role in the movie she appears in, and I only know a little about her.

Talky Tina
Talky Tina played a role in a Twilight Zone episode from 1961 entitled "Living Doll."  In the episode Tina stars opposite from Telly Savalas.  Savalas plays the part of Erich Streator, an angry, verbally-abusive stepfather, and Tina "plays" herself, a doll that walks, talks, and "does everything."  Erich is bitter over his inability to have children and is annoyed by Tina's presence in the household.  Tina reciprocates Erich's negative feelings by behaving like a normal doll when his wife and stepdaughter are around, and then heckling him with sinister threats and remarks.  

"My name is Erich Streator, and I'm gonna get rid of you."

The battle between man and doll becomes increasingly heated as the episode progresses, culminating with...wait a minute, I'm not going to tell you how it ends!  If you have never seen "Living Doll" and your interest has been piqued, look it up online or wait until New Years' Eve; Sci Fi Channel has a Twilight Zone marathon every July Fourth and New Years' Eve, and "Living Doll" is always in the lineup.  But enough of that.  Let's discuss the doll.

It's difficult to give specifics from a black and white television program, but it IS possible to get basics.  In the episode Tina wears a plaid dress and black mary-janes.  Her hair is dark and is styled in two pigtails.  She appears to be anywhere from seventeen to twenty inches tall, and if you pay very close attention to the program you can see that she has painted fingernails and peaked eyebrows.  When wound up her head turns and her arms and legs move.  She can also wink, though she only does this to torment Erich.

I'm fond of vintage dolls, as an earlier post will attest.  I also like creepy dolls, and after seeing "Living Doll" I embarked on a search to find out who this little devil doll is.  The search proved brief and relatively simple.

This is Brikette, by the Vogue doll company, the same company that makes Ginny.  Brikette was introduced in 1959 and was discontinued around the time that "Living Doll" aired.  She came in two sizes, sixteen inches and twenty-one inches.  Both sizes had painted nails, and the twenty-one-inch version had eyes that moved from side to side (called "flirty eyes").  Talky Tina's eyes do not "flirt" so I assume that she is the smaller version.  In addition to the size variation there were three different hair colors.  Most of the Brikette dolls I've seen are redheads or blondes, but there was also a brunette version produced.  According to both DollInfo.com and DollReference.com this brunette is rare.  It was one of these rare brunettes that achieved notoriety as Talky Tina.

But wait, there's more!  Remember when I said that Talky Tina's arms and legs moved?  Brikette's do not...not on their own, at least.  In order to achieve this, the original Brikette had to be modified.  She received a walking mechanism from another doll that was available at the time, seen below.

This is Saucy Walker from the Ideal toy company (this particular example is mine; I couldn't resist showing her off, LOL).  Saucy was manufactured between 1951 and 1957 and was apparently hugely successful, because there were a LOT of knockoffs.  Like Brikette, she was manufactured in two sizes:  sixteen inches and twenty-two inches.  My 22-inch Saucy's dress is fragile, so I haven't checked her thoroughly to see how she works, or even IF she works!  But apparently the smaller doll had to be wound up in order to work; in one scene, Erich is seen winding Talky Tina up, and since Brikette had no such feature the wind-up knob had to have come from Saucy Walker.  Either that, or the studio found a way to jerry-rig the mechanism.  Go figure.

And Tina's voice?  Oh yes, that.  Neither Brikette nor Saucy Walker talked (though some Saucy Walkers did cry).  The voice was that of June Foray, the lady who was also the voice...of none other than Chatty Cathy.

The "Living Doll" episode proved to be popular and remains so to this day.  I considered embarking on a potentially frustrating search for a brunette Brikette doll to call my own, until I saw these.

These replicas were made by Entertainment Earth, a website that sells toys, action figures, and assorted other items that pertain to sci-fi buffs, comic book fans, and folks that proudly call themselves "nerds."  They are eighteen inches tall and speak five phrases from the show.  The one on the left has been rendered in color, while the one on the right appears as she did in Twilight Zone.  Having never seen a color photograph of a brunette Brikette, I am unable to tell whether the color replica is accurate.  But that doesn't really matter, because she's supposed to be Talky Tina, not Brikette.  The dolls were released in 2011 and will be reissued this month, but unfortunately they cost a pretty penny:  $169.99, to be exact.  I probably won't be bringing one of these home any time soon, unless my very kind sister decides to indulge me (which she has done on several occasions).  But I can still ogle them from afar, right?  Oh, how I wish I'd had these during my last year of college...I could've scared the living daylights out of my fat slob of a neighbor!!!

Baby Jane
"What Ever Happened to Baby Jane" was released in 1962.  The film starred Joan Crawford and Bette Davis as feuding sisters Blanche and Jane Hudson.  Blanche grows up in the shadow of "Baby" Jane, who is a successful but spoiled vaudeville star.

Blanche Hudson

"Baby" Jane Hudson

When the two sisters reach adulthood the tables turn.  Jane's movies flop, while Blanche becomes a famous actress.  All that comes to an end one night, when a mysterious car wreck renders Blanche a paraplegic.  After the accident, Blanche is confined to her upstairs bedroom and finds an escape in her old movies.  Meanwhile, Jane becomes mentally unstable, an alcoholic, and bitter over Blanche's success and her inability to rekindle her own career.  She takes her frustrations out on Blanche by isolating her, abusing her physically and verbally, and tampering with her food.  The abuse escalates until Jane finally snaps...and Blanche reveals a secret that could have prevented all the animosity.

Unlike Talky Tina, the Baby Jane doll only plays a small role in her flick.  She makes an appearance at the beginning of the movie, in which several are available for sale outside of Baby Jane's vaudeville act.  The doll also has a few brief shot later on, most notably when Bette Davis's character (old, dried-up, moldy Jane Hudson) places one on her talent agent's lap.

She also features in the title card of the movie...shattered.

As you can see in the shot with Bette Davis, Baby Jane was a very large doll.  She was created in the likeness of the little girl who played Baby Jane Hudson, a child named Julie Allred.  The doll was a spitting image of the child.

Julie made a superb performance as Baby Jane, turning cartwheels and dancing her fanny off one minute, then pitching a screaming spoiled-brat fit the next.  And she managed to cram all that into the first five minutes of the movie!  In spite of such prowess, "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane" was Julie's only movie appearance due to religious convictions of her family.  But she did have one memento:  the Baby Jane doll.  Upon the completion of the movie she was given one of the dolls, which she kept until her death in 2011.

Who WAS that doll, though???  The title card showed her head smashed in several pieces, but later on during a tussle between the adult Jane and her talent agent the doll is knocked over and survives the fall.  This leads me to think that either
A:  someone took a real doll and heavily modified her, similar to the manner in which Talky Tina was created, or
B:  the Baby Jane doll was simply a prop made solely for the movie.  Maybe the prop crew made several for the Vaudeville scene, and a special one with a smashed head for the title card.

I was inclined to think the first option for a number of reasons.  One, that's easier.  It's just easier to modify existing dolls than to create one from scratch.  Plus, in 1962 there were plenty of big dolls that didn't break, but could easily be made to look super-nice.  This is one candidate, and also the reason why there were so many big dolls:

Her name is Patti Playpal, and she was fairly popular during the early part of the 1960's, popular enough that there were several knock-offs.  She's not exactly like the Baby Jane doll, but she is the right size and with modifications, she could be MADE to look like Baby Jane.  Plus, Patti was advertised as being lightweight in spite of her large size.  This meant that a little girl could carry her around...and Julie Allred did carry Baby Jane in one scene.

Unfortunately, I could find nothing to confirm this!  I couldn't find any sources confirming or denying whether Patti Playpal was the Baby Jane doll.  In fact, I couldn't find ANY information on the doll!  None at all!!!  I assumed that the popularity of the movie and the presence of two well-known actresses in said movie would make for some info on the movie's nitty gritties.  Oh sure, there are nitty gritties, but they mostly concern the on-set rivalry between Crawford and Davis (the two women reportedly hated each other).  But there was no information on the doll at all.  Julie Allred kept one doll all her life, and Bette Davis gave the rest away during promos for the movie.  To my knowledge, neither of them said a word about how the doll came to be, or what kind of doll she was.

The Baby Jane doll has also not been immortalized as a real, tangible, purchasable doll.  There HAVE been Baby Jane dolls, but they depict the older Jane Hudson.

Okay I take that back.  There is ONE doll who is based on Baby Jane's child self...

...and she happens to be a Living Dead Doll.  This is Wrath, from Series 7, which had a Seven Deadly Sins theme.  Each doll was named after a sin, and then had a nickname.  This doll's name is Bad Bette Jane.  Not Baby Jane, mind you, but Bette Jane...a mosh-up of the actress's name and the character's name.  I love it!  Looks like I have a couple of names to add to my nightly eBay searches.  Oh, my poor wallet!!!!  LOL

Happy first day of November!

RagingMoon1987