Live from MeTV!

Okay, it's not so live since I'm sharing it, but while looking for information on Ideal's Lazy Dazy I found a list of thirteen dolls from the Me Decade that were listed as "funky" and "bizarre."  Granted, some of 'em were a little on the odd side; one of 'em was a talking Redd Fox doll.  Too bad he didn't ask his young owners "How would you like one 'cross yo lip?"  Lazy Dazy was there too, for reasons I'll never know.  Maybe the fact that you had to "spank" her to get her to work added to the bizarre bit.  But mixed in with Redd and Dazy were a few friends I've shared here in the past.  The Rock Flowers were on the list.  Remember Heather?

I went through a brief period where I wanted to find every Dawn competitor I could think of, but thankfully that phase didn't last too long because those tiny dolls lose their shoes too easily!  Anyway, music was amazing in the seventies, ranging from Glen Campbell's smooth country baritone to Deep Purple's proto-metal wailing.  There truly was something for everyone, and...well, I hesitate to say that ALL the toy companies got in on it, but Mattel certainly did!  Heather and her Rock Flower friends were essentially Live Action Barbie and her friends shrunk to Dawn's size and given a stand that could fit on the spindle of a record player.  Seeing as lots of little girls of the seventies loved both music and dolls, I fail to see what's so bizarre about this bunch.

Softina, on the other hand, I get.  Here's Softina; mine looks a little different from the one in the article, and indeed the article shows their Softina as being eleven inches.  Mine is bigger than that.  Pardon the honking watermark, by the way; the blog was having trouble with photo theft at the time.

Okay, Softina herself isn't so bad.  She's essentially just a foam-filled baby doll that was and still is good for cuddles.  No, what landed her on the list was a swaddling that was available for her.  It was...a shoe.  Not just any shoe, but apparently a Converse-style sneaker, the kind that I often wear and the kind that the Tenth Doctor loved a bit too much!  WHYYYYY would anyone put a baby in a shoe???  That's...that's just weird.  I guess that a shoe is kinda tame compared to the ice cream cones and bumblebees that swaddled the Baby Born Surprises, but it's still pretty out there.  

The Sunshine Family also made the list, and I've talked about them in the past.

The list called them the most seventies dolls of the seventies, and...yeah, I agree.  Stephie, Steve, and their revoltingly-named daughter Sweets were hippies to the core, living in a motor home and selling handmade stuff.  Now I'm not knocking that.  I love handmade stuff, and if folks want to live earthy-like, the more power to them.  The Sunshine Family did that without being repulsively preachy about loving the Earth, reducing-reusing-recycling, all that jazz.  There's just something kinda...since I'm a modern-day woman there's just something kinda weird now about all that.  Probably back then it was NBD since just about everyone was doing it.  More concerning to me about these dolls is how they're aging; Stephie's feet melted to her shoes, and their Southern belle friend Rosa Lee Linden had to have a new body altogether.  But these were sweet, wholesome dolls that put some emphasis on family and togetherness, something that a lot of folks take for granted nowadays.  They're dated, I suppose...yeah, that's it!  They're dated!  They're not all that weird, they're just very, very, VERY old-school.  I wouldn't mind finding their truck, by the way!  I've got the family, so why not give 'em wheels?

Lastly, there was Baby Beans.  This doll is NOT mine, though I do have my own Baby Beans doll on the way.  This one belongs to Tam, and this photo was used with her kind permission.  The link to this doll's post is HERE.  Thank you, Tam!

Again, I can kinda see where the article was coming from, but the only weird thing about the dolls is their name.  And even then it makes sense, because they're full of plastic pellets or "beans," just like Beanie Babies were and are.  Some of the individual dolls also had goofy bean-themed names like "Green Beans" or "Navy Beans."  Thank goodness there was never one named "Kidney Beans"!  Oh, and guess what?  Some of them came packaged in shoes as well.  I fail to see the connection between shoes and beans, but at least Softina isn't alone.  Besides, I'm working on a post that involves two small dolls that reside in plastic fruits, so it's all good.  Baby Beans were ridiculously popular and came in a wide assortment of colors, expressions, and sizes.  There were even Mama Beans and Daddy Beans, each with a small Baby Beans of their own.  Daddy Beans was the one who made MeTV's list, by the way.  Wait 'til y'all see the one I picked; he's pretty goofy himself.

Do any of y'all remember these?  Did any of y'all own any of 'em?  Do you still have any?  Discuss.  As for Lazy Dazy, she will come to live at Casa del Luna someday, but it won't be anytime soon.  She's expensive when in good shape!

Love to all,

RagingMoon1987 

Throwback Thursday review: Eegee Softina

RagingMoon1987 again, and I present to y'all...another baby doll.  This is Softina, by Eegee.

I've never owned an Eegee doll until now, though I'd seen and heard of them.  Eegee was around for a fairly long time, from 1916 to 1987, and they were responsible for knockoffs of Barbie, Little Miss Revlon, and the Madame Alexander dolls, plus a lovely little Shirley Temple wannabe named Miss Charming.  Two other Eegee dolls, Shelley and Puppetrina, can be found on Tam's blog, while still another doll, the fairly obscure Little Carol, is on my wish list due to her red hair and yellow dress.  Little Carol isn't too noteworthy other than being cute, but Shelley is interesting as she appears to be a hybrid of Ideal's Tammy and American Character's Tressy, plus a face that is her own.  Puppetrina is also interesting, as she's both a doll and a hand puppet, hence the name "Puppetrina."  At first glance Softina (referred to here as "Tina" for short) is nothing super special, but she has an attractive face and my example came with a nicely layered baby outfit, so I plunked down the requested twenty bucks and played the waiting game.  I didn't have long to wait, as the doll shipped on the very night that I bought her (August 6th), and turned up in the mail three days later (August 9th).  I would've reviewed her that next week, but I had a backlog of reviews at the time and I just had to fit Tina in where I could.  Half a year later, she's finally getting her turn.

According to dollreference.com Softina dates from 1967, back when Twist 'n' Turn Barbie was new and parts of Illinois and Minnesota were piles of rubble.  Softina came in eighteen and twenty-one-inch models (mine is the latter), and both sizes have/had a soft, poseable body filled with foam.  She had molded or rooted hair, was capable of drinking and wetting, and could be bathed.  1971 saw a smaller version that had all the same features.  The bathing feature was yet another incentive for me, as I was extremely fond of bathing my baby dolls when I was a kid...and to a certain extent, I still am (LOL).  As an aside, I can't photograph smells, but this doll smells like Heaven.  The lady who sold her to me packages all her dolls with dryer sheets, and Tina smells like she just got out of the dryer even now, six months after I unboxed her.

As mentioned above, Tina is one of the bigger Softina dolls, at twenty-one inches.  She's bigger than Denise (still dressed for summer in this image)...

...and smaller than Rael, my 23-inch My Twinn.

Mama thinks that Tina and Kissy look alike in the face, so here they are for a comparison as well.

These two aren't even made by the same company, and yet they do look quite a bit alike in the face.

Some of these dolls had molded hair, but my Tina has rooted blonde hair that could do with a deep conditioning.  The seller warned of this on the eBay listing.

I did wash and comb it, but that did little more than create an opportunity for a cute photo.  I think of this as Tina's attempt to be a matryoshka doll.

Under the towel and the bonnet Tina's hair falls to her shoulders.  It's just as matted as her bangs.

Here's an up-close look.  The fibers are pretty mangled.

Under that poor excuse for hair Tina is marked with a company mark.  Also noteworthy is her hairline, which has individual little hairs molded in.

Normally I'm pretty choosy about baby dolls, but a few have wormed their way into my heart for this reason or that reason.  Tina won me over with her lovely outfit and her cute little face.

Her eyebrows are sandy brown and arched upwards in a quizzical, alert expression, not unlike a baby who is seeing something interesting for the first time.  Her eyes are sleep eyes with thick, soft, dark lashes.

The irises are intensely blue, an unnatural but lovely shade that I can't ever remember seeing on any other doll.  These irises look a little like the blade of a circular saw, with angled notches and everything.

Tina has a rounded nose and a smiling, slightly puckered mouth that is painted in a soft shade of pink.  Check out the molded creases on these lips!

Notice that this mouth has a hole in it for the bottle, and that the chin has a cute little dimple.  With the exception of Cabbage Patch Kids, I don't often see dimples like that on dolls like this.

This brings me to a deliberate rabbit trail.  Several years back, further back than I care to remember, I reviewed the Lalaloopsy Babies version of Blossom Flowerpot.  I kept Blossom for reference more than anything, because she's not much fun to dress, or play with, or hold, OR look at.  Like Tina, Blossom has a bottle mouth, but it's simple and expressionless, and that was one of my primary gripes with the Lalaloopsy Babies.  Indeed, when I reviewed Blossom I commented on how it was possible to make bottle mouths that had more expression in them.  I specifically drew a comparison to my little Gerber baby, who has a bottle mouth AND a face full of personality, but Softina or Suzy Cute would've worked just as well.  In fact, expressive bottle mouths seem to far outnumber bottle mouths that are just a hole, so I wonder what MGA Entertainment was thinking when they designed their Lalaloopsy Babies like that.  If their mouths had had a little bit of a smile, even a simple painted one, I think they'd have lasted longer.  In fact, I'm starting to question the longevity of Lalaloopsy dolls in general, as I've not seen any new releases and updates on the Facebook page are getting more and more sporadic.

Alrighty, that's quite enough of a digression!  My digressions seem to get worse and worse as time goes by, to be honest.  Anyway, Tina has a nice expressive face, but it's not 100% perfect.  Her cheeks are heavily blushed and that's alright...but her right cheek shows some deep scuffs and that's NOT alright!

I can live with those scars, and maybe I can even paint over them so they won't show as much.  Chalk it up to wear and tear; at least these didn't happen immediately after I deboxed the doll.  I did do that with Ana Ming somehow.  But if a few scuffs are all this doll's face has after forty-five years then I needn't complain.  Her hair isn't falling out in clumps like Mirari's, and I can likely paint over those scuffs if I so choose.

Moving down, Tina's body is what earned her the title "Softina."  It's appropriately baby-shaped, with chubby, short limbs and a rounded belly.

Interestingly, this body is all one piece of hollow vinyl, filled with...I assume it's filled with sponge rubber and some sort of frame to allow for posing.  Unfortunately for this particular doll vinyl and rubber tend to stiffen as they age, and due to this aging I can no longer get Tina to hold a pose.  She is always in a full stretch, like so.

Once upon a time Tina could probably hold a number of assorted poses, including thumb-sucking and basic sitting poses, but such poses like that are now a near-impossibility.  Too bad too, because imagine how cute this next picture would've been if Tina could suck her thumb.

On the other hand, hollow vinyl doesn't lend itself too well to being bent into shape over time, as one of Miss Emily's Our Generation dolls will show.  So my inability to bend Tina's arms and legs may actually be a blessing in disguise.  Moving on, occasionally I end up with a doll that is not marked and thus a big mystery, but that will not be the case with Tina.  Eegee makes it loud and clear with their marking on her upper back.  It has the company logo AND the doll's name, something I don't see too often.

Further down on Tina's back is a little more information, again with the company's name very clearly stamped.

1973???  So much for this doll dating from 1967!  I've clearly got a younger model, but no biggie.

The rest of Tina's body is appropriately baby-shaped, with dimpled hands and chubby little arms.  These hands have two different molds for reasons I'll never know, though it does add a touch of realism to this doll.  Tina's left hand is fully extended...

...while her right hand appears to be attempting a peace sign.

These hands are among the better hands in terms of molding.  Tina has plenty of creases on her knuckles, and little indentations for nails.  Her legs are very much the same, with dimpled knees...

...and nicely molded feet.

The soles of Tina's feet are rounded like hollow doll feet often are.  In real life feet like this are a bad sign, but they're perfectly normal for a doll of Tina's construction.

As an aside, for some reason when I look at Tina and her rubbery body I find myself singing the Rub-a-Dub Dolly jingle, even though Tina is NOT a Rub-a-Dub Dolly.  Rub-a-Dub Dolly was an Ideal doll, and she had the same bathing feature that Softina did.  Thus the two would've made a good pair of playmates. 

Sometimes dolls meant for bathing come rather lightly clad, with some wearing naught but a diaper to keep them decent.  The original Rub-a-Dub Dolly came with a diaper and a hooded blanket/towel, for example (later re-releases were better equipped).  I don't know what Tina wore originally, but her eBay seller sent her with two full outfits.  Everything is in soft shades of yellow and pink, both nice colors for a baby girl, but unfortunately one of the outfits proved to be wayyyy too small for Tina.  It's the one that Pussycat ended up wearing back last fall.

For the sake of reference, here's how Softina compares in size to Pussycat.  No wonder that dress didn't fit!  Notice that I'm having to hold Tina in a sitting position, by the way.

Now the OTHER outfit...well, it obviously fits fairly well since Tina's worn it through most of the blog.  The onesie bags around her feet...

...but don't all onesies bag around babies' feet???  I love the little cardigan and bonnet, by the way; I'm not sure if these were store-bought or mommy-made, but either way they're perfect for this time of year.  As for what Tina wore originally???  Well...I googled it and I got around twenty different options, so your guess is as good as mine.  I even found one doll that looks hauntingly like Pussycat!  The doll in the link is not Softina though, so maybe Eegee was trying to come up with a rival for Pussycat?  Eegee did offer Madame Alexander knockoffs, after all.

In regard to size and clothes, Tina is much bigger than most of my other babies.  Thus there's no way she'd be able to wear the things I have for Kathy Cry Baby or Pussycat or Baby Peep.  She might be able to wear some of the things I've got for Kissy and the Creepy Babies, though.  There's also the frog onesie that Poppy Elizabeth usually wears...

...and it's WAY too big.  Then there's this cute little Hello Kitty outfit.  I put it on Kissy for Christmas, and while it looks cute on her...

...it's a little too tight!  I had a terrible time getting Kissy's arms into the sleeves, and the whole time I was afraid I'd break her kissing mechanism.  Not to mention the fact that Kissy can't sit in it without the leggings popping off and leaving her rear exposed.  No, I don't think this is the outfit for her, but Tina might be able to wear it. 

It's a little big around the shoulders, but nothing too terrible.  This actually looks halfway decent on Tina, though it does age her some.  Instead of looking like a baby Tina looks like she should be about two.  I haven't found any shoes for her to wear with this, by the way.  Kissy's white shoes proved to be too big.

Since Tina is wearing Kissy's outfit, let's see what Kissy looks like in Tina's!

I think I've FINALLY found the exact size that Kissy wears, because this is a near-perfect fit on her.  This onesie fits Kissy better than it fits Tina, in fact.  But surprise, surprise, I'm not done yet.  Kissy will be staying in Tina's outfit for awhile because it looks great on her, but I've got something else to try on Tina.

Y'all know how I love cats, and I wasn't about to pass this little Garanimals onesie up.  Between Kissy, Tommy, Sally, Lili, and Tina, I'm bound to have at least one who can wear this, but since Tina is supposed to be the star of this review, she gets to try it on first.

Unfortunately she doesn't get to keep it.  This is so big on her that it's comical.  All of the above outfits are sized for kids between three months and a year, while the pink onesie that Tina arrived in is preemie-sized.  Jeez, I hate the thought of preemie babies, especially since some of them can be so sick, but preemie-sized clothes are definitely a good thing for these wee ones.  There isn't that much out there, though...at least, not at my Wal-Mart.  I don't want to buy too many things that real preemie babies are going to need, but I did get one onesie to see how it would fit.  I also grabbed some pants and a hat, though they're the wrong size.

Getting pants in a size too big turned out to be a semi-smart move, actually.  This onesie bags in the crotch (to accommodate a diaper, I presume) and the pants hide that.  As for the hat, it stretches nicely to fit so Tina is actually pretty well off in this outfit.  So if any of y'all have this doll I'd recommend preemie-sized clothes or something homemade.  The homemade route might be better, since there are real little preemie babies out there who need those store-bought onesies more than we do.

Time to sum it up!

BAD

*Stiff.  This is age-related, but it's still kind of a bummer that this doll can't hold a pose.

*That hair is irreparably matted.  I've washed it twice and combed it multiple times, but no dice.

*Cheek is scuffed (age related again)

*Moderately hard to dress; baby clothes will fit, but they have to be VERY small

GOOD

*I dig this doll's face!  So many baby dolls are expressionless, but this one is so cheerful!

*Washable, always good in my book.  So many of these older dolls need baths and can't have them, so the washable feature is greatly appreciated here.

*A nice big size, perfect for cuddling

*Sturdy; I'd think nothing of giving this doll to a child, even though she's over forty years old now.

*Some baby clothes will fit, provided one has the right size.

A lot of my baby dolls are cute but leave me feeling sort of "meh."  I rarely play with Kathy Cry Baby and Pussycat, for example; they just sit in my doll room and look cute.  Softina, on the other hand...I really like her.  I love picking her up and piddling around with her, even if it's just to redress her or hold her for awhile.  It probably helps that I'm able to find nice things for her to wear (it's not easy to redress Kathy and Pussycat), and that face is to die for.  She has stiffened over time, so the title "Softina" doesn't really fit her much anymore, but that's par for the course with vinyl dolls.  As a final little incentive, even though this doll is old enough to fall into the "vintage" category I see nothing wrong with giving her to a modern-day child to play with...provided that said child isn't a destructive little brat, that is.  Bottom line, I really can't recommend this one enough to baby doll lovers.  She's adorable.

God bless,

RagingMoon1987