Throwback Thursday review: possible Valentine Polly Play-Pose

RagingMoon1987 again, and today I'm going to merge Throwback Thursday with one of my many dolly idiosyncrasies.  As you saw with Gerda and Kate, I love Barbie clones.  I love these cheap alternatives to Barbie; they almost always bring a new face to my growing crowd, and nine times out of ten they can wear at least some of Barbie's clothes.  Today's clone dates from the late sixties, and she's the doll I introduced as "Polythene Pam" in Starr's review.  I originally thought this doll was a Debbie Drake doll from Reliable, but Debbie has white hair.  Based on what I've learned about Valentine's dolls, I'm fairly confident that this is Polly Play-Pose.  Early Valentine dolls were marked with (surprise, surprise) a valentine, but Polly is a later doll so she's not marked. 

While it's obvious that Polly is not a real Barbie, she's definitely got the aesthetic.  I'll show that in a bit, but first let's look at the hair.  The bubble cut hairstyle was en vogue at the time, and Barbie was on top of that, of course.  As a result, many of the clone dolls at that time (this one included) also wore a bubble cut.  Polly's hair is very soft, thick, and full, not coarse or woolly like the hair of other vintage dolls.  The color is that color that seems to crop up a lot in dolls of this era:  sandy blonde.

Most of the dolls I've found online have this same cut, but there are also Polly dolls with ponytails or hair that was long and loose.  Moving on, Polly's face is very much like that of a 1960's Barbie.  I also threw Gerda in for good measure.

Polly's jaw is wider than those of her cronies, and her eyes are centered rather than looking off to the left, but she's got the basic Barbie look down pat.  Now let's let Polly fly solo.

Her eyebrows are a little too dark to match her hair, though they're not as poor a match as Gerda's eyebrows are.  Some of the Polly dolls I've seen have eyebrows that look bored or sorrowful, but my doll looks surprised, like she's heard a bit of juicy gossip.  The eyes themselves are blue with dark molded eyelashes, the lips are red, and the cheeks are lightly blushed.  Polly is not painted as well as Barbie is; notice that she's ever so slightly walleyed, and that the blue paint in her eyelashes has run a little.

Polly's paint job may not be 100% precise, but I still prefer her job to Gerda's.  Polly's eyebrows match her hair fairly well, and her lipstick follows the contours of her lips better than Gerda's lipstick does.

Polly's ears have tiny indentations, but they are not pierced.

Neither Polly nor Barbie have their original clothes, but I know for a fact that they can share duds.  In fact, Polly's black and plaid dress happens to be the outfit that Barbie usually wears.  Polly can also wear Tressy's red dress...

...and Mary Makeup's butterfly dress...

...and Gerda's dress...

...and Barbie's flowered dress...

...and the green Cut 'n' Style Barbie dress...

...AND these dresses, which I knitted following old Barbie dress patterns.

The silver belt in the third picture is a Barbie Basics belt.  I wasn't expecting that to fit, but it does.  Shoes are a little iffy; these white Fashionista wedges fit but have to be rubberbanded to Polly's feet.

These yellow closed-toe shoes from the nineties don't fit at all...

...while these open-toed yellow mules fit but slip off easily. 

I also have a pair of green shoes that came with a reproduction Midge set, but much to my chagrin, this one broke when I put it on Polly's foot.

So Barbie and Polly are of a similar size, that much is certain.  With the exception of shoes, clothes sharing is pretty consistent.  However, shape is one of the only things these bodies have in common.  Polly has a strung, fully jointed body, something that Mama's old #3 Barbie doesn't have.  Hence her full name, Polly Play-Pose.  She has a swiveling waist...

...ball-jointed shoulders...

...jointed knees...

...jointed elbows (notice that the elbows have "peanut" pieces)...

...hips that are jointed in two places...

...and jointed wrists.  Notice that Polly's fingernails are manicured like Barbie's are.

Strangely, Polly's toenails are NOT painted.  Barbie's are.  Someone evidently tried to paint her toenails, but they ended up painting the creases between her toes instead.

I had to throw that in somewhere.  Anywho, back to joints.  Polly's joints leads me to wonder if Sears was trying to compete with both Barbie and with Uneeda Dollikin, who was extensively jointed.  Unfortunately Polly's joints don't stay in these poses very well.  Poses as simple as crossing the arms or lying with hands behind the head require rubber bands.

I don't have a Living Barbie or a Dollikin to compare joints, but I do have my modern-day Made to Move Barbie, Cassandra.  Cassandra can get into all the positions that Polly can plus plenty others, AND she can hold them without having to use rubber bands.

Despite having two joints, Polly has little lateral motion in her hips.  The upper joints allow her to sit...

...and the lower joints allow her to rotate her legs inward or outward.

Also, Polly's wrists can't bend.  They only rotate.

 

While not perfect, Polly's articulated body is a nice departure from the uptight dolls of the first half of the sixties.  It was 1964 before Barbie and her cronies got bending knees (Polly Play-Pose dates from earlier in the decade), and the first Barbie with bending knees (Miss Barbie) apparently didn't sell well.  My main concern with Polly is durability.  If she is as old as I think she is, and if she's strung with elastic like I know she is, then she should be getting loose and floppy.  Oddly enough, Polly is NOT floppy at all.  Her elastic is very thick and it still has a lot of stretch in it, so my concerns about durability may be completely unfounded.

I should probably touch on the quality of Polly's material.  Her limbs and body are made of hollow, stiff plastic that makes an ominous clicking sound when tapped with a fingernail.  The edges of the plastic are bent back along some of the joints.

I assume some little kid tried to force a joint to move in a way it didn't want to move, and this warping occurred.  It's not a huge problem, but it looks a little rough.  Surprisingly, I was not able to get this plastic to bend.  Granted, I didn't try too hard, but this plastic is tough stuff.  It's very different from the plastic that cheap clone dolls are made of now.  Even clone dolls were built to last back in the sixties!

Now time to sum it all up.

BAD
*Eyebrows are a little goofy and eyes are slightly wonky.
*Joints don't hold a pose without help
*Plastic is bent back a little along the joints
*Strung.  I fear that one day the string will come apart...and then I'll have to restring her.  I hate restringing dolls.

GOOD
*Matches the Barbie aesthetic very well
*Hair is nice
*Makeup isn't 100% perfect, but better than that of other clones.
*Joints may not be perfect, but they are there.  This puts Pam ahead of Barbie, who wasn't jointed until 1965.
*Can share clothes with Barbie and like-sized dolls.  Shoes are hit and miss.

I'm a clone doll enthusiast so it pleased me that my friend included Polly with that load of Starr stuff.  She's not exactly like Barbie, but she's close enough that she'd have cut the mustard for me if I'd been an early sixties kid.  Her hair is soft, her face is nicely painted, she doesn't look quite as haughty as earlier Barbie dolls, and she can wear Barbie's clothes.  She can't wear Barbie's shoes, but Valentine was one of those companies that cared enough about their products to produce extra outfits, so Polly would not have had to go without.  The posing body is very durable and a nice novelty, but it can't hold too many poses without some kind of support.  Still, Polly's body was a lot more limber than Barbie dolls of her day.  She's worth owning if you can find her, if for no other reason than a flexible model for Barbie's vintage clothes.

Best wishes,

RagingMoon1987

Gabby!

I've never been a gymnast, but I'm fascinated by the sport.  I've always gotten a kick out of watching pint-sized ladies and gentlemen whip their bodies into impossible positions and make it look so effortless.  Of course it's NOT effortless, but it looks it!  Anywho, few modern-day gymnasts have impressed me more than Gabby Douglas, who is both talented and beautiful, in addition to being a woman of God (always important in my book).  There had been some chatter about a doll done in Miss Gabby's likeness, and now that appears to be more than chatter!  The doll's release date is today!

I'd heard that the real Gabby had been presented with an OOAK doll in her likeness, and I saw (and signed) a petition for a mainline doll, but I didn't know Mattel was actually going to do it so this comes as a very pleasant surprise.  The Gabby Douglas doll is a pink label doll, meaning that she should be both easy to find and affordable.  She has the Made to Move body and a new head designed by Carlyle Nuera, the designer behind Mutya Barbie and several other vinyl lovelies.  Barbie Collectors has her available with free shipping for a short time, so if you want this doll now is a good time to snap her up.  I would, but I've already hit my dolly quota for the month.  I'll wait for her to hopefully hit store shelves.  But if any of y'all want to go the online route you can go to this link here.

Special thanks to Debbie Behar Garrett for this delightful news.  If you're looking for a good blog on black dolls, Miss Debbie is the one for you.  If you look closely at the side panel of her blog you'll find a petition for a black Silkstone male, which I think is a good idea.  Male dolls don't get fair treatment from Mattel as it is, and a male Silkie of color would be fabulous.

Much love,
RagingMoon1987

A random post about head molds

This could've been a post for Sunday since this is a random post and I like posting random stuff on Sunday.  But I like for Sunday posts to have just one picture and a brief blip of commentary (Gerda's post was an exception), and this post became more labor-intensive than I had planned.  I was farting around with my Barbie boxes this afternoon (I have five of them), trying to pick out favorite head molds, when it occurred to me that most of my favorites have something very crucial in common.  Barbie is known nowadays for having a smile with teeth showing, right?  Something like this:

I'm extremely fond of Mara, who has the new Teresa sculpt, but a lot of Barbie dolls look like that.  They have big, infectious smiles that convey excitement or unbridled joy, and that's fine.  But if y'all know me by now then you know that I love to be the oddball, and a lot of my favorite heads have closed smiles that show no teeth.  The pictures are all poorly lit; I promise to rectify that in the near future.

KAYLA/LEA

DOLL PICTURED:  Palm Beach Lea
DOLL'S NAME:  Lea
I own several dolls with this face, including one (Keiko) who has made several appearances here in the past.  The face was initially used for two friends of Barbie named Kayla and Lea, but other characters use it as well.  The doll above, a member of the Palm Beach Barbie line, is the first one I owned with this head.  This particular doll is obviously supposed to look Asian, but the Kayla/Lea head can be any race one chooses.  She makes a good black doll, and a good Latina, and good white chick.  The Fashionistas line appears to be fond of this head; I've seen several with it, and I even own one.  This is Fashionistas #19 Ruby Red Floral, but I just call her Junko.

The Fashion Fever line liked it too, as can be seen with the un-renamed Kayla (left) and Keiko.

And lastly, my beautiful Shakira doll uses this head.  I never was a big Shakira fan during my adolescence, but this lovely doll was too much to pass up.

This head was also used in the Dolls of the World series, usually for Latina or Oriental characters.

KIRA/MARINA

DOLL PICTURED:  Western Fun Nia
DOLL'S NAME:  Imelda
Imelda's hair has seen better days, but her facepaint is intact so here she is.  Unlike the Kayla/Lea head, this one is almost exclusively for Oriental dolls.  She had two names: Kira for North America, and Marina for Europe.  I like the name Marina better, but regardless of the name this has always been one of my favorite heads.  I only owned one Kira as a child (Sun Jewel Kira), and I still only have a few, two of which happen to be the same doll.  Yep, I own two Very Velvet Kira dolls, one with shorn hair and one that's almost all-original.

Go figure on how that happened.  Anyway, I always loved Kira's sweet face.  I liked her friends, but in my child's eyes Kira was always more approachable with her closed-lipped smile that didn't look like Miss America's toothy grin.  Kira is unfortunately a rare breed now; she saw heavy usage during the early Dolls of the World run appearing in Latina, Oriental, and Native American form, but since then this head has slowly dropped off the map.  The last Kira I saw was the relatively recent Mutya Barbie...and she has teeth showing!!!  What a beauty Mutya is, though!  This head needs a playline revival in the Fashionistas line.

MACKIE

DOLL PICTURED:  Butterfly Art Barbie

DOLL'S NAME:  Madeline, or "Maddie"

First of all...FIRST WAVE DOLL!!!  She has the tattoo on her tummy and everything.  That being said, I started seeing Mackie dolls when I was about eight.  The head got its start on those crazy-expensive dolls that Bob Mackie designed, but later started popping up on playline dolls as well.  Bead Blast Barbie is my personal favorite of these, but it's hard to pick just one when there are so many nice Mackie-headed dolls out there.  The Mackie head was used heavily during the Fashion Fever years, and during the Barbie Basics era, and it still appears on the more affordable collector dolls, like the Christmas dolls.  I only have four Mackie dolls in my collection, and of those four I could only find and photograph Maddie (above) and Cherry, a rebodied Christmas doll. 

For some reason Cherry has a Stardoll body.  Remember those, the ones that had no joints at the hips?  Yeah...I'm going to have to fix this somehow.  eBay might have a spare Made to Move body somewhere. 

MBILI

DOLL PICTURED:  So In Style Baby Phat Grace

DOLL'S NAME:  Grace

This face is used almost exclusively for black dolls, though I have seen one Latina with this face.  I didn't like the first doll with this face, but it's since grown on me and become one of my favorites.  The Mbili face can look approachable and fun-loving like Grace, or focused and ambitious like Chandra...

...or innocent like Trichelle...

...or edgy and fierce like China. 

I like the detail in this face as well; if you look closely it's possible to see laugh lines and other contours that a real face has.  I've heard collectors complain that the Mbili head is overused, and this may be a valid claim since I see it in every major Barbie line that Mattel creates.  Basics, LOOK, and Fashionistas all use this face heavily, and I have so many in my collection that I can't show them all here without making this post crazy-long.  I do love the face, though.  It's very versatile, which may explain why Mattel uses it so heavily.

RAQUELLE

DOLL PICTURED:  Life in the Dreamhouse Raquelle

DOLL'S NAME:  Raquelle

I'm pretty sure that this one is a one-off; after the Dreamhouse line ended I never saw it again.  I can understand why since it's pretty character-specific, but I still think it's a shame to only use it once or twice.  Dolls with lopsided smiles are not particularly common inside or outside the Barbie world; Raquelle and her Dreamhouse compadre Teresa both had cockeyed grins, but that's it!  I love the goofy snarkiness of this face, by the way.  It's perfect for Raquelle's role as the show's "antagonist," of sorts.

STEFFIE

DOLL PICTURED:  Cool Times Midge

DOLL'S NAME:  None yet; I tend to call all my Midge dolls "Midge" for some strange reason.

The Steffie head goes back quite a way; I think 1971 was the year that the first doll was released.  The character herself didn't live too long, only seeing three incarnations (Busy Steffie, Talking Busy Steffie, and Walk Lively Steffie).  The head though...it's been around a lot.  Midge has used it twice so far, first in the late eighties (seen above) and again in the Dreamhouse line.  Christie, Teresa and P.J. used this face, as did a long list of short-lived characters and Barbie herself.  Pilar, below, is an All-American Teresa.

It saw usage in the Barbie Basics line, and the entire Birthstone Beauties line was comprised of Steffie dolls.  Like the Kayla/Lea head this head is very versatile, lending itself to all the main races at will.  Given the wide array of head molds used in the Fashionistas line, I'm surprised that no Steffie has cropped up there yet.  Maybe I just need to be more patient.  Either way I'm extremely fond of this head and I never pass up an opportunity to add another one to my collection. 

???????

DOLL PICTURED:  Fashionistas #57 Zig and Zag, curvy

DOLL'S NAME:  Deborah, usually shortened to "Deb."

This is apparently a newly introduced head, so new that I don't know the name of it, or even if it IS named.  As with the Mbili headI didn't like it at first, but as you can see it grew on me.  It's the lip color that I don't love, and I apparently am not alone in thinking that.  I lack the ability to repaint doll faces, so my doll is stuck with that pink crap for now.  I'm looking forward to seeing what else Mattel may do with this head, though. 

And there is your random load of dolly blather!  LOL, sometimes I get the mood to post something for the sheer pleasure of it, and this is one of those posts.  I make no guarantee that you'll learn anything, but I do hope you'll enjoy my pictures...even if they are poorly lit.

Cordially yours,

RagingMoon1987