That Ever Present Wish List

    Let's start with the obvious: It's been HOT lately!. Ken and I have been surviving in our house without air conditioning, but we have had to retreat to my sister's house a couple of times to cool off.

Tammy World came along for the ride, and because she gets hot too. She posed with my sister's rock collection, and a very colourful plant I've forgotten the name of.

 It's nice to get out of the heat, and it's nice to hang out with my sister, but it's an hour and a half drive each way, and by the time we spend any amount of time there, we have to drive back in the dark. The time before last we came close to hitting several animals, including a group of three deer, a mother racoon and her two babies, two more deer, and two more large lumps that I think were large raccoons. I hate driving at night these days. I'm tense the whole 90 minutes of the way home.

  I've been working on this post for ages. I don't get on my computer much any more because to charge mine we have to unplug Ken's. Then his dies, and he has nothing to do. My computer doesn't stay charged very long any more, so I can't get much done on a charge. We have minimal electric outlets we can use because of our wiring, so we're limited on outlets. We are a bit paranoid about another fire, so we don't want to leave anything charging in a room we aren't in either. Anyway, I'm sorry I don't post much any more, and sorry some of the posts have been a bit boring.

  As for Ken, he is doing well. He has been taken off medication after medication, and his recent blood work came back with great numbers. He has been released from occupational therapy, (but told to keep up his exercises and work on his muscles.), and will start physical therapy again in November. (Thanks to Medicaid  refusing to pay for more therapy right  now.) He passed his stroke-aversary July 14th. We forgot all about it until I happened to think of it much later.  

  I have taken loads of pictures of dolls I wanted to talk about with you, but I have never gotten around to posting them. I will try to do some of that soon. I'm still scooping up free toys via the Mini Brands displays, or at least I was. Yesterday, for the first time, I was told I couldn't have an empty box from our local Walmart. At least before that happened I managed to FINALLY snag the Lord of the Rings one, Two different Harry Potter boxes, and two different My Mini Baby ones. Walmart, it's not like I like you anyway. You're not doing yourself any favours. If it wasn't for the fact that I like your wet wipes, and you are the store most often selling yellow corn, I wouldn't even darken your door.    

  Reader Treesa sent me some wonderful Christmas gifts that I have yet to show you. I'll get to that when I have more time, but in the meantime, she asked me recently if I had any grail dolls left that were unattainable, for whatever reason. Well, of course I do. Those things are never ending, especially those expensive ones that are never going to be accessible.  So I thought it might make for an interesting post, to see what dolls I have wanted for ages, but will probably never get. 

  I have gotten pretty much all the dolls I wanted as a child, but never got as a child. Those include That Kid, which you're probably sick of hearing me talk about...

This particular boy was ruined in the water damage from the fire. He was amazingly quickly, (and cheaply!) replaced!

If not, I have several posts on That Kid. You can access them in the side bar, under That Kid.

...Mrs. Beasley.

Poor perfect Beasley, with glasses, got smoked in the fire  I have yet to get around to cleaning her.

The same goes for The Bease. I have a few posts on her, but the LONG one about her history is my most viewed post ever, and continues to get record views every day. You can check out the Mrs. Beasley posts by clicking that name in the side bar.

  My dream Beasley, which I got at a yard sale got all smoked up in the fire. I haven't tried to wash her yet. If I had had her at Emma's, with access to a washing machine I could trust, (as opposed to one at the laundry mat.), I would probably have given her a wash. She is sitting upstairs, all sooty. I will probably try to clean her up this summer and see how she does. I have a back up Beasley that was supposed to get sold, and she even has her glasses, so I might end up keeping her. Dream Beasley's glasses were on the vanity in my bedroom during the fire, and they melted a bit. They're still glasses, but they are a bit misshapen, and might not stay, (or even fit), on her head any more. I would never get rid of her though. I run into her original owner every now and then, and I can still tell her that her girl has a good home with me. Not so good that she didn't get smoked like a piece of meat, but still...

  I also got multiple versions of the Drowsy I always wanted, including the original kitty cat PJ version I didn't even know existed when I was a kid.

  You can see those by clicking Drowsy in the sidebar.

  I would still like some other dolls that use the Drowsy head sculpt, like  Baby Colleen, and maybe Teachy Keen.

The red head in the nightgown, top left corner, is Baby Colleen. Teachy Keen is the girl in the pink coat.

  I also had a desire for a talking Baby Beans. 

  I think the reason I never got one as a kid was that I was a little too old for a baby doll. I still wanted one though. I had a really nice Talking Baby Beans as an adult. That was years ago. But she still talked and was super clean and perfect, and she got sold. Now I have a not so clean one that doesn't talk. She'll have to do.

      Over the years I have gotten several dolls on my list that I thought I would never get, dolls like Betsy McCall. I now have multiple Betsys, in varying sizes. You can click on Betsy McCall in the side bar to see them.



I got this one at a doll show 

This girl was cheap at a doll show because she had dirt on her nose that the dealer thought was a nose nick!

This girl was cheap at a doll show for two reasons: The dealer knew nothing about dolls, and I had to fix her eye.

  Another was the Maru and Friends Savannah. She was more than I generally spend on a doll, and I thought I'd never get one. You can see Savannah's post HERE.

   Then I bought a big one and a little one from Emily at The Toybox Philosopher. And you can see little Savannah's post HERE.

 I wanted a Zwergnase doll, but they are so expensive. But Emily also gave me a really good price on one of those, so I ended up with one of those too. 

You can see her post HERE.

  I wanted an Agnes Dreary, and I did manage to get one for only $50 when they were clearanced on the Tonner website years ago.

You can see Agnes' post HERE.

  I love Dianna Effner dolls, and wanted a :Little Darling. Well that was never going to happen, until amazing reader Dorothy SENT ME ONE!

You can see her post HERE.

  I still can't believe she was so generous and thoughtful. Thanks again Dorothy!

I always wanted a Garden Patience, with her red hair and pretty dress, but I have given up and settled for the naked, dark haired Prom Patience I got cheap on Ebay years back. She's rooted, not wigged, so I can't make her into a red head, but the wigs are expensive anyway.

  Now for the dolls I didn't get. Of the dolls I wanted, but never have gotten that are not quite as expensive, there is the Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse Midge that I never got.

  She was the first Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse Midge, I think. She went up quite a bit after her original release, but she seems to have dropped in price lately.

  Of the dolls I still want, but will almost certainly never get, I still yearn for the Mezco Dr. Zaius Planet of the Apes doll.

  (I'm sure there are people who will insist that this is an action figure, not a doll, but let's be honest:  we all know they're the same thing.) He was affordable, (barely), and then his price rose on the secondary market. It looks like he's occasionally more affordable now, but he's still out of my price range these days.

  I still want a red haired Brikette by Vogue, but I'd even settle for a Jinx, by Kaysam or Jolly Toys,  which looks almost exactly like Brikette.

This is a beautiful Brikette I saw at a doll show.

  I still want that red haired Klumpe girl with glasses, and a suitcase. I can't find a stock photo of her, so you'll have to use your imagination...and your Google search. The closest thing I can show you is my red haired Roldan gardener girl, which is neither Klumpe, nor holding a suitcase. But Roldan's are kind of like Klumpes, so...

My Roldan gardener girl, the closest I'll get to the Klumpe suitcase girl.

   Something I always wanted came out when I was 13. Maybe I didn't get him because I thought I was too old for such toys. I don't remember. I did go through that stage, believe it or not. I still want one though. His name is Hugo, Man of a Thousand Faces.

He was made by Kenner. He's a puppet that came with loads of disguise pieces, like scars and wigs and false chins and noses. He even had sunglasses and an eye patch. If you've ever seen the pre-Playhouse 'Pee Wee Herman Show' HBO special, you'll have seen Hugo. He's so expensive these days, that unless I run across one in a thrift store or yard sale, neither of which I frequent very often these days, I'll probably never get one.

  I also still want the Mattel Squishies  witch I saw when I was nine years old. I saw her one time in a J.C. Penney while shopping with my mom, and I still want her. 

  You can see my post on her HERE.

  But the newer dolls that I want that I will undoubtedly NEVER get include Tonner's Wilde Imagination Hamish doll...

He has become REALLY expensive.

...and Sad Sally. I most want the red haired one, but I can't find a stock photo of the red haired Sad Sally dolls. I think there were two, the very first one, and a later one called Sad Little Witch. They both had crazy bushes of red hair. If you aren't familiar with Tonner/Wilde Imagination's Sad Sally line, I can direct you to my post on Sally's friend Bashful Burt.

  Keeping to the red haired dolls, there's also Helen Kish's Creamsicle Lark or Lark of the High Seas...

Lark of the High Seas.

Creamsicle Lark.

...and then there's Kish's Raggedy Riley. 

  These are all from years ago now. Of newer dolls, I wanted a red haired Ruby Red Fashion Friends doll. I have a Siblie,but I wanted the full size version. They do a lot of special edition dolls, and there was one I really loved, but I was willing to settle for Rock Star Stella, even though I don't care for her clothes.

  I'm sure I've forgotten something that I really want, but this has been hanging around in draft form long enough.  So, here it is. At least you know I'm still alive. Also, I do show up in the comments on other people's blogs sometimes. I will try and not leave it so long between posts in the future. See you soon...I hope.

Doll-A-Day 66: Oscar Week:Planet of the Apes Zira, Cornelius, and Dr. Zaius, by Sideshow

  Today we conclude Oscar Week with three dolls. These dolls were made by Sideshow around 2004.

  If you're a reader of this blog you'll know that Planet of the Apes is one of my obsessions. It has been since I was a kid.

They're supposed to have so many points of articulation, but they are still kind of hard to pose sometimes.

  These Sideshow dolls, (The male Apes collectors would probably prefer I call them 'figures'!) are some of the best that have been made. (The best are the Hot Toys dolls, but those are so far out of my budget that I'm about as likely to get one as Taylor was of getting back to his own time.) They are miles above the Hasbro dolls that came out around the 30th anniversary in 1998.The reason the Sideshow dolls are so good is because they are much more to scale than the Hasbro dolls, (with their giant heads and accessories. Zira's pencil is about the size of her arm. If it had really been that big Taylor could have held his own against Julius's club quite easily.), and more realistic and detailed. Also, they aren't just made to look like any general apes from the movies, but are specific likenesses of the actors who played the characters, in the make ups that were sculpted specifically for them. No other characters wore these specific appliances.

Dr. Zaius by Sideshow. The costumes are pretty detailed and fairly accurate.

Dr. Zaius, played by Maurice Evans, a Shakespearean actor best known as Samantha's dad 'Maurice' on "Bewitched".

Zira, played by Oscar winning actress Kim Hunter. Kim won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Stella in "A Streetcar Named Desire".

Dr. Zira

Kim Hunter

Cornelius

Hard as it may be to believe, for people who haven't seen the movie, it is actually easy to tell who's who in that make up. For example, Roddy McDowall as Cornelius in Planet of the Apes....

...as opposed to Sal Mineo as Milo in Escape from the Planet of the Apes.

Or Roddy McDowall as Caesar in the last two Apes movies.

Or come to think of it, even Roddy McDowall as Cornelius in Escape From the Planet of the Apes. They changed the hair from that movie on, making it smoother and more blow dried looking, and didn't put those 'I haven't slept in a looong time' black rings around Cornelius' eyes. The earlier hair, made from yak hair,  was more ape like, darker, shorter, and sort of dry looking and not so blow dried.

This sea air is playing havoc with my hair.

Roddy McDowall without his Ape face.

  Planet of the Apes was based on the novel "La Planete des Singes" by French author Pierre Boulle.  The French title actually translates to "The Planet of Monkeys", which is incorrect. The primates in the novel and the movies, are all apes, not monkeys. That kind of mistake in the Apes movies could get you killed with a dinner tray...

  Boulle was well known for his novel "Bridge on the River Kwai", which had been made into a very successful movie in 1957. Boulle didn't think  "La Planete des Singes" had the same cinematic possibilities, and wasn't one of his better books. Producer Arthur P. Jacobs thought so though, and bought the movie rights shortly after the novel's publication.
  Jacobs shopped the idea to several studios, all of whom turned him down flat. He began to work up a presentation, including a book full of paintings of what the film might look like. He asked "Twilight Zone" creator Rod Serling to write a script. Serling outdid himself.: He wrote 30! (By the way, someone has produced a faux Twilight Zone episode by editing scenes from Planet of the Apes, (and turning them black and white), and adding actual Rod Serling TZ voice overs. It's on the internet somewhere. It's quite good. **UPDATE: Found it! It's on the website Forbidden Zone. You can see it HERE.**)  The final script was written by Michael Wilson, although the famous ending is Serling's.
  Jacobs' next move was to acquire a star for his movie, one that would make the studios sit up and take notice. After talks with Jacobs, Oscar winning actor Charlton Heston agreed to play the lead human character and suggested a director. With all this on his side Jacobs managed to persuade Twentieth Century Fox head Richard Zanuck to produce the film. It seems to have helped that Zanuck was totally unaware of all the political overtones in the movie.
  The largest challenge to the making of the movie was of course, how do you make talking apes? Make up artist John Chambers was hired to develop the ape 'appliances'. Chambers had developed prosthetic limbs  for soldiers injured in World War 2 before becoming a make up expert. His most well known work, apart from the Apes make up, is probably Mr. Spocks pointy Vulcan ears on Star Trek.

 One million dollars of the movie's final five million dollar plus budget was for make up. Early on the make up applications for the lead apes took 5 hours. They managed to eventually cut it to 3. Kim Hunter had very sensitive skin and had to add an hour or two at the end of her day to have the make up carefully taken off. (In typical male fashion, Roddy McDowall ripped his appliances off.)
  The time in the make up chair wasn't the only hard part of being an ape. Some of the actors found the make ups very claustrophobic. They had to smoke with cigarette holders, in part to get the things to reach their mouths deep within the make up, and partly because the make up was flammable. They had to look in a mirror to eat lunch so they didn't tear their 'face' off. (They were actually told not to eat anything that required a lot of chewing, so the make up didn't come loose. According to John Chambers this order was ignored, and the ape cast came into the make up room after lunch to get their faces reattached, with their chin pouches full of 'leftovers'.)The make up, combined with the heavy costumes proved to be a bit much in the hot summer weather in California and Arizona. I recall reading that Maurice Evans fainted from the heat and fell off his horse. (After the first couple, subsequent Apes movies were filmed in cooler seasons.)

"What will he find out there Doctor?"   "Several sequels Zira."

  It was all worth it though. The film is considered a classic. It also became a massive merchandising success. There was Planet of the Apes everything in the stores. I own a large selection of merchandise myself. I'm only kicking myself for trying to act my age (at 12 and 13!) and not buying the dolls and playsets. (That treehouse is pretty cool...) It was perfectly ok for me to own the models, board game, and puzzles,(Which I did...do.), but not the dolls. I have since tried to make up for it. Ken has bought me most of the Mego Apes, plus I have the Hasbro ones and these Sideshow dolls...uh, figures. (Sorry guys.)
  Planet of the Apes was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Original Music Score, and  Best Costume Design. It lost both, but did win an Honorary Oscar for the make up.

John Chambers, left, accepts his Oscar from Walter Matthau and an unidentified companion. What are you laughing at John? His tux probably cost more than yours.(Well. He couldn't get his off the rack, now could he?)

 'Honorary', because at the time there was no category for make up. An Oscar for make up had only been given out one other time, another honorary Oscar, for The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, in 1964. There were no other Oscar winners for make up until 1981, when a Best Make Up category was finally created.
  Roddy McDowall, appeared in 4 Apes movies and an Apes TV series (albeit a short lived one.). He was cheated out of his one chance at an Oscar. He was the favourite to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Cleopatra (1963). Twentieth Century Fox somehow submitted him in the wrong category, 'Best Actor', instead of Best Supporting Actor, and his nomination was disqualified.

I dreamed I was being presented with this giant Oscar, and I was wearing a skirt...

  I always wondered why he never won a juvenile Oscar, as he was so fussed over as a child actor. He surely would have won for How Green Was My Valley, (1941). (Roddy was under contract to Twentieth Century Fox as a child actor. When casting was being done for How Green Was My Valley and Roddy's screen test came on, casting director Lew Schreiber told the director, "You don't want to see this kid. He's wall eyed." He still got the part.) It won almost everything else that year.

Ok Roddy, practically everybody else here is winning an Oscar and you're not. Get used to it. Now smile!

 In doing research for my post this week, on the Judy Garland/Dorothy doll and Juvenile Oscars I found out why he never won a Juvenile Oscar. They were very lax about giving out Juvenile Oscars in the first place, and during most of World War 2 they just sort of forgot about them. Story of his life.
   As long as I can remember I've found apes so interesting. They're so close to humans. Humans and chimps share between 96 and 99 % of the same DNA. Chimpanzee babies' intelligence grows at the same rate as human babies until they reach somewhere around 2 years old. As a kid I used to watch all the Jane Goodall TV specials and wanted to do what she did, living amongst the chimps and studying them. So I always found the whole 'what if?' idea of the Apes concept fascinating. I was 6 when the original movie came out. I don't know when I became aware of them. I just know I had wanted to see the movies for ages before they were shown on TV when I was in 6th grade, (I was 11 or 12.) From then on they have been one of my favourite things. I am nerd enough to have made an Apes scrapbook around age 12, and I still have it. (Ok, it's a combination Apes/Roddy McDowall scrapbook.) Ken happened to have made one when he was a kid too. I always tell him that if we ever get a divorce, I get custody of his Apes scrapbook!

"What are you doing Zira?"  "I think I lost a contact." "Oh! Those things are the Devil's pawn!"

  

  That concludes Oscar Week. See you tomorrow for Skipper Saturday.