Doll-A-Day 2023 #73: Sailor Tommy

   Today's doll survived a damp box from what I am now calling The House of Fire. Ken brought a wet box that contained mint boxed dolls that had no damage, amazingly enough. Even their boxes were fine. This doll was one of them. He's Sailor Tommy.

  I'm pretty sure this doll was part of Fuzz's collection. Not this boxed one, but one just like it. Fuzz's Tommy's didn't stay in the boxes! They were played to death...or at least had their clothes and things stolen for Fuzzy the Doll.

There was an earlier Tommy who came wearing blue shorts and a red and white striped shirt with an anchor decal on the front. He wasn't 'sailor Tommy' though, just 'Tommy' 

  I said this recently, but, I miss the old Tommy and Kelly dolls. I think they were so much cuter than today's Chelsea and friends. Look how cute little Tommy is!

The early Kelly and Friends were 'Kelly Club' dolls.

He has real rooted hair. Today's male Kelly friends dolls have molded and painted hair styles. These little guys had bowl cuts, like I used to give Fuzz. Back when kids looked more like kids, and not miniature adults. 

  His clothes are much better made and cuter than the modern ones too.

His outfit is all one piece, and he has an anchor on his shirt.

  Did I just say 'modern' ones?! Sheesh! It wasn't THAT long ago, was it?!

2000?! Holy cow! That was 23 years ago! That's a whole adult person ago! That's Ivy ago!

  He has a little multicolour sailor hat.

He's wearing little Kelly tennis shoes, but you can't see them.

  He came with a little tug boat. 

It was originally rubber banded to his hand, but after all these years, the rubber band disintegrated.

You don't get accessories with the simple dolls anymore either. Something else you're a lot less likely to get these days: free stuff! You'll notice that in the first picture you can see that it says on his box that you can get a free child size t-shirt with the purchase of three dolls. I don't know how we never took advantage of that one. I suppose it was when Ivy got past toddlerhood that she fell in love with Kelly dolls. When this offer was out, she was only a baby. She was busy nursing like she learned from Popeye, and not sleeping from the colic that caused. When she became a toddler she loved Krissy dolls, those tiny dolls with loads of inappropriate-for-a-toddler sized accessories. (Don't worry. I was with her all the time. She never played with them alone. And she didn't put toys like that in her mouth...just books, paper, chalk, and bird seed...)

  That's the doll for today. If I had access to Fuzz's Tommy dolls, I'd try to figure out which one was this one, and show him to you out of box. It would probably be difficult though, because there was a lot of similarity in some of those Tommy dolls. Out of box it's often difficult to tell who is who.

  Tomorrow: another doll. (What a surprise.)