I'm RagingMoon1987, and it is the tenth day of one of my favorite months. September doesn't usually bring the wild weather changes that April and October do, but it does bring the first birthdays of Birthday Season for my family (my sister's was yesterday, and Grandma's would've been on the second). The farmers have started spraying that defoliant crap on the cotton and I'm sneezing mightily as a result, but I'm not the only one, LOL. The up-side of that is that the cotton fields will soon be looking very pretty! Anyway, I love September, though my love for the month has very little to do with today's doll. I needed an opener for the post, okay??? Sue me! Ahem...while there wasn't a tremendous demand for this post I'm doing it anyway, because I know there are some Kewpie fans out there in Follower Land. Yep, it's time to talk Kewpie! Here's my three.
Alrighty, Moon Girl, step down before you give yourself a stroke. Kewpie was a big deal during the 1910's, and she was used for more than just a political statement. She popped up as dolls and figurines, she showed up on
, by the way; this suggests to me that Rebecca may have been fond of Kewpie. Though Kewpie is not the juggernaut now that she was in Rebecca's day, she still has her fans. I consider myself only a casual fan, but...that still counts, right??? I like to freak out my patrons at the library with this thing, so I must be somewhere on the Kewpie fan spectrum.
Yep, that's a Kewpie-face necklace! Saw that on Etsy and thought "Gotta have it." Nutty? Consider the Japanese, who show their fondness for Kewpie with items like
??? Yucko, I like the idea and I like the bottle, but I don't want that much mayo on my food, thank you. I'm not a huge fan of mayo (or ketchup either, for that matter), but Emmy at emmymadeinjapan states that Kewpie mayo is delicious so I'll take her word for it. If Kewpie-themed mayo isn't extreme enough, some folks get Kewpie tattooed on their bodies! Furthermore, guess who the mascot is at Columbia, Missouri's
? Yep, Kewpie! Hickman High is the only school in the world (yep, the whole world) with
, and Kewpie has had the position there for over a hundred years. Why??? Well...read Wikipedia's article and it'll say why. True, Kewpie isn't ferocious like a lion or a tiger or a
! And yes, Scrotie the Nads is a real college mascot, repulsive as the idea is. With that lovely thought, let's get this show on the road with my oldest doll.
I WANNA TAKE THAT TEST AGAIN!!! THAT TEST'S WRONG, MAURY!!! <runs offstage swearing and wailing> LOL, but seriously, I'd never heard of Kewpie Gal before I saw Tam's post so seeing her was a real treat, and of course I had to have my own! Kewpie Gal was a product of Cameo, the same company that did my little
I don't think Baby Peep is amused! Anyway, y'all probably know that I like pet names, and since I have three of these Kewpies I'll give them names to help differentiate them in the review. Kewpie Gal here will become "Gala," as a play on the word "gal" (and also because I like gala apples, LOL). Since I don't often get my dolls semi-mint in the box, here's what the side of the box looks like.
The bit "cooing voice" is marked out with a marker, just as it was with Tam's doll, and indeed neither my doll nor hers have/had a cooing function. I think that instead these dolls are supposed to squeak when squeezed, but more on that in a bit.
Like the vast majority of Kewpie dolls Gala's hair is painted/molded, and hers is a soft brown shade. But instead of the topknot that Kewpie fans love, she's got a cute little bob.
The paint job here is a little hinky, being a tad uneven on top...
...and completely nonexistent along the hairline.
Keep in mind that Baby Peep's hair paint is pretty patchy too. I wonder if that was a thing with Cameo dolls? Patchy hair makes sense on a baby doll like Miss Peep (babies sometimes have uneven hair), but on a child doll it merely looks goofy. Gala does have some cute little bangs, but perhaps the most interesting thing about Gala's hairstyle is her headband. Not only is it real ribbon (blue velour), but it's INSET!
When's the last time y'all saw anything like that on a doll's head??? This ribbon is pretty well in there too, though I doubt it would take too much force to pull it out. I've already had to tighten it so it wouldn't flop too low over Gala's forehead, so I figure there's a probably a fair amount of Kewpie Gals out there who are missing their ribbons. They'd easily replaced though, because true to the scuttlebutt online, Gala's head is very soft and easily squeezed.
BUT...my doll does not squeak or make any sort of noise when I squeeze her. I mused about that when I first got Gala and now know why she doesn't squeak, but y'all are gonna have to wait a bit because I'm not done with this head! Not that there's much to say, since the rest of Gala's head is your typical head. Same dark side-glancing eyes...
...same button nose, and same watermelon smile with big, chubby, dimpled cheeks.
The paint on Gala's right eye has bled some so she looks a little bleary eyed there, but otherwise the minimalist paint job is fine. No complaints on the face. I do wish the hair was painted a bit better, but Baby Peep's hair is uneven too. Maybe that's just a Cameo quirk, kind of like Ideal's penchant for getting Miss Revlon's eyebrows wonky.
Gala's body is made of soft vinyl and has five joints.
Gee whiz, for spending most of her life in her box Gala sure is grubby! Anyway, the joints all have rotational movement, meaning that Gala can sit, walk/run, wave, and turn her head.
Let's go 'round back for a minute and look at this. Gala has a hole in her back.
This is where the whistle to make Gala squeak WOULD have gone, but for some reason my doll does not have this feature. It wasn't rattling around in her box, and I have no reason to doubt that she's been NRFB all these years, so maybe the factory decided to leave the whistle out??? I dunno. I do know that Gala doesn't have it, though, so she's just got a squishy head for no good reason!
Regarding molding, Gala has a couple'a folds in her palm, plus a stain of God-knows-what, but not much else. No nails, nuthin'.
I think collectors call these hands "starfish hands." The moniker fits...eh, it fits okay. Gala's fingers do jut out like the rays of a star, but I don't picture echinoderms when I look at Gala's hands. Oh well, at least Gala has fingers! She doesn't have much in the way of toes.
These are kinda like Bratz dolls and Moxie Girlz and their flipper feet (example shown is my Moxie Girl, Sophina).
I never really understood why Bratz and Moxie Girlz had these bizarre feet, but they're not as bad as Vi and Va feet, which looked like tiny elephant feet. Anywho, Gala doesn't have visible toes, but she does have dimples on her knees...front and back!
Average doll body with some interesting quirks here and there. I'm a little disappointed that Gala doesn't squeak, but given my dogs and their penchant for destroying anything that squeaks, it may be a good thing that Gala is mute.
Clothes now. I suspect that this dress may be one of Kewpie Gal's more common ensembles, as I've seen quite a few images of dolls in this dress. Sometimes the color varied, but for the most part the dress is the same. It's just your cute little yellow day dress with matching panties.
The front of the dress has a lace panel and a couple'a non-functioning buttons, and the neck is trimmed with the same lace, but otherwise this dress is fancy-free.
The back snaps closed, to my great relief.
The dress is tagged, but the tag gives no information other than your basic "Made in Hong Kong" message. Good thing I didn't find this little frock running loose, or I'd never have figured out who owned it!
The seams on the dress and panties are pretty solid, but the dress unfortunately has loose ends hanging out all over the place.
The most conspicuous one is right on the front of the dress.
Sometimes Kewpie Gal is barefoot (Tam's doll was), but mine has little white socks and mary-janes.
I don't care much for the socks, as they like to roll down and bunch up around Gala's ankles. Gala isn't bothered by that, of course, but it reminds me of the days in school when my socks would slide down and bunch up around my ankles, and I couldn't fix them because I was supposed to be sitting still. BUT, I much prefer bunchy socks on a doll to no socks at all. Wearing shoes without socks can get just a hair uncomfortable, especially when they're stiff like mary-janes are. Oh, and the shoes? They're plain white mary-janes with little molded bows on the toes and a slight heel (but no treads).
Pretty cute! Overall I like how Gala is presented as a no-frills companion for little kids. She's not the prettiest thing and she doesn't care! As for me myself, I like the novelty of the bob hairstyle, but I also kinda miss the pointy hairstyle that most of us recognize with Kewpie. Luckily for me my other two dolls have that. Which brings us to...
ROSEART
...my childhood Kewpie, almost complete. Upon examination of in-box examples I discovered that this particular doll once wore a headband, and mine is missing hers. The in-box doll also makes reference to a "secret heart," which (spoiler alert) is located on the doll's chest, right where the old bisque Kewpies had their original stickers. Some of the RoseArt dolls were constructed in a manner similar to Cabbage Patch Kids, with vinyl heads atop soft stuffed bodies, but mine is your classic all-vinyl doll. By the way, I often wonder why RoseArt, a group commonly known for producing crayons and other kid-friendly art items, would dabble in a doll that has next to nothing to do with art. Whatever the reason, "Rose" as I call her has something that a lot of Kewpies do not: a tuft of rooted hair sticking out of her topknot.
I think this was a thing with RoseArt Kewpies, as every one I've seen has this tuft. Rose's topknot has seen a fair amount of play so it's not as shiny as it once was, but it's held up well. The rest of her hair is molded with only the lightest airbrushing.
Rose's face paint is not as bright as Gala's, but the eyes are a tiny bit more detailed, with white highlights.
Otherwise this face is the same! Or it's mostly the same; the eyes are smiling a little more than Gala's are.
No earrings or jewelry, nothing to pull Kewpie out of the "cute" zone. I don't mind that. The doll world always needs cute to balance out the glamorous. Speaking of cute...
...hmmm, looks a little like those hideous windbreaker sets that my sister and I wore during our sixth and seventh years of age. Yeah, those kept us warm during winter, but they were also ugly and obnoxious. Swish, swish, swish, all the livelong day. Rose's set doesn't swish, and it's done up in a color scheme that is decidedly early to mid-nineties. Ironically, the biggest part of Rose's ensemble (the jacket) is probably the weakest part. It's got a cute pink heart painted on the left front side...
...and the cuffs are folded and sewn back.
Now here's the weak part: the jacket LOOKS lined, but it's not. The edges were left raw and like to stick out if not tucked in right.
The bottom hem is edged with elastic, so that's good.
The fabric feels a little like it could tear if I pulled on it too hard, so...yeah, not in love with the jacket. The crop top underneath is cute, though.
It's got puff paint on salmon-colored jersey knit fabric, and the bottom hem is trimmed with ric-rac. The insides are immaculate, with no loose hems to be seen.
Rose's pants are also knit, made of yellow, pink, and orange patches.
The left leg is emblazoned with Kewpie's name in vertical puff paint.
The bottom of the right leg also has pink hearts, tying the pants to the jacket and the crop top.
Both pantslegs are trimmed with ric-rac, further tying the pants to the crop top. And of course there are a few loose threads hanging out.
Rose's socks are head and shoulders above Gala's. They're a superior color that matches the rest of the ensemble, and the cuffs are hemmed so that they don't roll down and look sloppy.
Lastly, pink vinyl sneakers with hearts and laces that are molded but not painted. Small bummer that the details aren't painted, but only a very small bummer.
Oh, and the soles have a cute little "Kewpie Love" message on them.
Underneath her pants Kewpie wears plain white underpants that are thick like a diaper. It has a few loose threads hanging out...again.
Rose's body is a lot like Gala's, but the vinyl is peachier and much harder. The molding is about the same, as is the posing.
Starfish hands? Check!
Dimpled knees? Check!
Rose has more toes than Gala does, though the molding on her feet is nothing special.
Here's the secret heart, located in the center of Rose's chest. As I noted above, the heart is located where the stickers on the old bisque figurines were. This, however, is permanent!
According to an Etsy listing that I found, these Kewpies date from around 1993, and if that's so then I'd have been in kindergarten. Based on that I'd say that Rose has held up pretty well, considering how young I was when I received her and how rough children can be on their toys. Oh, and spoiler alert, she's getting a sister. The doll in the Etsy listing is on her way. Her color scheme is completely different from Rose's, and I fell in love with her.
JESCO
Jesco is a company that I know very little about, largely because I've paid little attention to Kewpie over the years. The story of how such a company acquired a well-known entity like Kewpie can be found here, and it's a neat article, one that suggests that Jesco has a bit more integrity than other larger companies. The linked article notes that Jesco prefers quality over quantity, eschewing shortcuts in production in order to make better dolls. If that's the case then I'll be setting the bar high for this Kewpie, clad in her red romper and matching shoes. I could've sworn that Aunt Kathryn had another of these in blue, but I haven't seen her yet and Aunt Barbara didn't say anything about finding her, so if this doll existed I'll likely never see her again. Anywho, "Jess" is the most traditional of my three Kewpies, having her hair up in the usual topknot, but without rooted hair.
Nope, no root job, no nuthin', just molded hair! There is a little airbrushing here and there, mostly on the more prominent parts of Jess's 'do, but that's all.
Jess's face has the same Kewpie expression that the other dolls do. Her eyes are less detailed than Rose's, but her mouth is brighter.
I'm not entirely sure I trust Jess. She looks like she's got some sort of mischief up her sleeve.
Jess's body is essentially the same as Rose's and Gala's, albeit with yet another type of vinyl (hard, smooth vinyl that feels very nice), so on to clothes we go. Romper, panties, socks, and shoes.
Oh yes, and a tag. Jess is the only one of my Kewpies to come with a metal tag. Indeed, metal tags are something I associate with Effanbee dolls rather than Kewpie, but Jess has one. It says "Cameo" on the front, in a nice little homage to Kewpie's old holding company...
...while the back reads "Kewpie by Cameo."
Alright, time for the romper. It reminds me of the "bubble butt" dresses that my sister and I wore when we were babies.
Of course I don't remember that far back, but my sister wore a lot of my hand-me-downs so I know I wore the same dresses that she did. Anyway, Jess's romper has two faux buttons at the shoulder straps, plus panels of eyelet on the straps. These initially fooled me into thinking Jess had a blouse under her romper, but she doesn't.
The legs puff out and then gather in again at the hip region.
The gathers are decorated by two more little buttons.
None of the buttons are functional, and the romper is thus held together by snaps: two at the shoulder snaps (these are conealed by the buttons on the bodice)...
...and one at the back of the waistband.
The inside of the romper is FLAWLESS. Only one dinky little loose end on the side, and it barely shows.
Jess's footwear is similar to Gala's but it's made of nicer stuff. The socks are made out of off-white knit fabric (the shoes have unfortunately stained them a little), and they can actually be folded over rather than crinkled. See?
The shoes are red pleather and snap at the ankles. No vinyl shoes for Jess, thank you!
Jess also sports underwear, and it's thick and white like Rose's, but the waist and legs are elasticized so the fit is better.
I think Jesco's doll measures up to the company's standards, y'all! Her vinyl and clothes feel...well, they feel more expensive than the vinyl and clothes of the other dolls, meaning that they're probably made of better stuff. Jess's clothes also don't have loose ends like Gala's do, though it should be noted that Rose's clothes don't either. It should also probably be noted though that Jess isn't a toy like Gala and Rose are...or I don't think she is!
Since I'm on the subject of Jesco Kewpies, I think now is as good a time as any to introduce these two.
This pair was in Aunt Kathryn's china cabinet with her dolls. I don't know who the rabbit is, but her companion is an obvious Kewpie figurine, made of porcelain and holding a birthday cake. Out of curiosity I looked on the soles of Kewpie's feet and found the maker.
I guess it makes sense for Jesco to make figurines as well as dolls, since they have the rights to Kewpie anyway. Jesco's emphasis on quality over quantity extends to this figurine, as she's smooth all over and delicately painted. I think these two need a Pocket Dragon to be their friend; I've always liked Pocket Dragons.
While Kewpie herself may not be the huge seller that she once was, she still has her share of fans, plus a handful of dolls and toys out there that want to be like her. The best current example I can name is this little chap, Sonny Angel.
Sonny Angel has been in and out of this blog since last May, and I won't discuss him in full since
Miss Emily did it better. These figures come in little blind boxes and are fairly pricey for a toy their size, though they're well-made. True to blind bag/blind box fashion one never really knows what sort of figure they'll get until they unwrap it. Mine turned out to be wearing kernels of
konpeito on his head (c'mon, y'all know I love dolls themed after sweets), but that's beside the point. Doesn't Sonny look like a miniature Kewpie???
Sonny Angel also has
a backstory similar to Kewpie. He's a little angel and has the job of bringing happiness to his owner. He even has little wings in back, just like the old Kewpies do. In fact, my Jesco figurine has plainly visible wings herself! See?
Besides bringing joy to his owner, Sonny Angel loves to wear tripped-out headgear, and thus the vast majority of Sonny Angel figurines do just that. Some of the figurines also wear
T-shirts or
costumes or
some sort of garb on their upper bodies, but their nether regions are usually uncovered...again, just like Kewpie, and like those goofy old
wishniks too, for that matter. Sonny is anatomically correct (unlike Kewpie), but when it's something this little and cute and innocent, nudity isn't much of an issue.
I do wonder why no one has made a fuss over Sonny Angel being anatomically correct, but when the male L.O.L. Surprises turned up with genitalia
parents had a collective stroke? Go figure, I guess. Isaac Larian
didn't let the flack shake him, so I guess that's all that matters. Anywho, the side of Sonny's box shows what all came in this particular wave of figures. They're all themed after some sort of sweet except for the popcorn. Popcorn CAN be sweet (who doesn't love Munch 'n' Crunch?), but I usually associate it with salt and butter and sometimes with cheese.
Yucko, one of those has jellybeans on his hat! The jellybean hat is cute like the others, but the only jellybeans I can gut are Jelly Belly, and even Jelly Belly has evil flavors like licorice. I like other flavors, though (pear and peach are my favorites). I also like the jellybeans that cats have, but
you can't eat those! Anyway, Sonny Angel has a lot of similarities to our old friend Kewpie, though there are a few differences. The largest difference is in molding, as Sonny has only a slight protuberance for a nose and no dimples.
The overall look though...the posture, the cut of the eyes, the cute little smile, Sonny and Kewpie both have all of that. They even have the same hairstyle, a point proven with the few Sonny Angel figures that are
bare-headed. My second Sonny Angel figure is NOT one of the bare-headed ones.
These are like Pringles: once you pop, the fun don't stop. This little chap is from the fruit series (obviously I got the apple). Here are his fruity brethren.
The pineapple is my favorite, and indeed I could've gotten the pineapple running loose on eBay, but I love the surprise element of these so I bought an unopened box instead. As with the snack foods above there is one foodstuff here that doesn't appear to fit; I know that chestnuts can be sweet like fruits are, but a chestnut is...well, it's a nut, not a fruit. The persimmon also makes me chuckle, as we had a friend who kept pigs when I was a teen, and growing near their sty was a wild persimmon tree. We'd pick up fallen persimmons and toss them to the pigs. The pigs loved the persimmons, to the point that they'd sometimes step on each other and get into screaming matches. It was hilarious; one time two large pigs got into an argument over one persimmon, and while they were squealing at each other a smaller pig sneaked in and ate the persimmon! No blood was shed, by the way; if a quarrel got too noisy we'd holler at the belligerents and throw more persimmons in their direction. That usually calmed things down, and after the pigs had eaten their fill we left them alone. Ah, the joys of living in a rural area! City slickers will never know the simple pleasures of pigs and persimmons.
Right then, we've looked at Sonny Angel and his resemblance to Kewpie. Another of my dolls, one of my Zapf Baby Born Surprises, also looks a little like Kewpie.
Key words are "a little." Riley mostly favors Kewpie with that hairdo, sporting a topknot and two pointy clumps of hair on the sides of her head, but otherwise she's mostly her own doll. My other Zapf dolls (from left, Peyton, Sawyer, Addison, and Quinn) have different head molds, so they don't look as much like Kewpie.
Other dolls that resemble Kewpie (at least in my eyes) are Horsman's
Bunny Tots and
HEbee SHEbee, Ideal's
Twinkie, and
Armand Marseille 240. Indeed, I think I read somewhere that Armand Marseille deliberately modeled the 240 head to compete with Kewpie. 240 is a Googly, by the way; I've said in the past that I'm not a huge fan of Googlies, but with 240 I'll make an exception.
Brief digression, one that hearkens a few paragraphs back to Sonny Angel: apparently the company that makes Sonny Angel (Dreams Inc.) also has several other lines of blind boxes, including one that caught my attention called Amy's Favorite Cat. Since I'm a crazy cat lady I fell in love with those figures. They're fairly realistic little cats with small articles of clothing like hats or neckties, or both in the case of smug little Coco here.
I could only find these already opened, hence why I didn't show Coco's box. But with their clothes and dynamic poses these cats remind me of the kittens in Susanne Green's
Cats You're Going to Love! books. True to the title, I loved those books when I was a small child! They featured the photography of
Satoru Tsuda and were adorable. Y'all keep in mind that this was decades before Facebook and Google and the endless supply of cat memes and images that we have now. For more information on the books and Mr. Tsuda's photography, one can go
here, and one need not worry about the well-being of his kittens. They were his pets and friends, and they were subsequently treated with love and respect. Indeed, Susanne Green's books always began with a blurb about how NOT to try duplicating the books' illustrations at home! LOL, I loved those books, though!
WELL!!! That got massively off the subject, didn't it? Start with Kewpie, end with commentary on an obscure line of children's books. Anyway, though Kewpie isn't ubiquitous like she used to be, her allure endures to this day, long after the death of her creator. She's even being made in media that Rose O'Neill never dreamed of. R. John Wright made several in felt, for example (
Luna and Lulu are my favorites) and
wooden Kewpies can be found as well. For the most part Kewpie still looks like Jess and Rose do, but every so often she deviates from the norm like Gala does. The ones that deviate from the norm are my favorites, of course, because who doesn't love an oddball? Okay, I can name plenty of people who don't love oddballs; that's why oddballs get bullied in school. But aaaanyway...that's my small Kewpie collection. I have another Rose Art doll on the way, and I'm also quite fond of
these two (one of them is a sock monkey), so my small collection may get bigger. I can hear my pocketbook begging me no, but...oh well!
Cheers,
RagingMoon1987
