Doll-A-Day 2017 #333: Gotz Modell

  Today's doll is a multitalented girl.

She's a Gotz doll.

The plastic tag sewn to her jacket says Gotz Modell.

Her talents include singing and walking.
 

This is the battery compartment for her singing mechanism. It's huge, and it's in her chest. It's so big it makes her skirt scoot down,and shows through her shirt.

This is her battery compartment for her walking mechanism. Each function takes a different battery size. This one takes AA batteries.

She sings "Jingle Bells".  Her walking sounded like it was going to start for a second, but then it did nothing. We're going to clean out her battery contacts tomorrow and see if we can get her walking. It seems she would walk like Baby First Step if we got her going.
 

She can also close her eyes, but you have to lay her down for that.

And she has brown eyes.Dolls like this almost always have blue eyes. I appreciate that Gotz  realizes not everybody has blue eyes, or wants a doll with blue eyes.

She has a big fluffy head of ash blonde hair.

She's a big girl, at about 20" tall.

Under her purple jacket she's wearing a knit shell.

At least, that's what those types of sleeveless blouses used to be called. Now everything is a 'top'. 'Top'! That's a placement, not a piece of clothing. That usage really gets on my nerves. Call it a 'shirt'. Call it a 'blouse'. A 'top' is one of those spinning toys!

She looks like she's been working out. Check out those muscley arms.

Her skirt snaps, but I'm not sure if it's supposed to snap in the back, or the side!
 

I put it in the back.

 It matches her scarf.

I'll update if I get her singing again and let you know what her song is.

Tomorrow we'll see what other doll I have dug up around here lately. I've been surprising myself with what I've been pulling out. As I have said, we used to do doll and toy shows, so we have tons of stuff, and I've been trying to get rid of a lot of things. I've been excited by some of the things I've found to share with you. Some of it's pretty interesting and not often seen. (It certainly hasn't been seen by me in a while!)

Doll-A-Day 2017 #157:Baby First Step

  We had a very nice weekend. Saturday we celebrated Emma's birthday with her. We shopped, and ate at The Cheesecake Factory,and basically hung out with Emma all day. Sunday Emma threw her tea party,and I spent part of the day making mini Battenberg cakes,small lemon tea cakes with sugared roses on top, and mushroom and Parmesan vol-au-vent. Emma had lots of goodies already. She and Ivy made tea sandwiches,and hors devors,and there were cookies and pastries. This weekend put two pounds back on me! Fuzz and his girlfriend Shanna joined us all in the evening. It was the first time we had all been together since Christmas,so any weight gain was a small price to pay.
   Today's doll is this cute little girl.

She's Baby First Step.

This Baby First Step was made by Mattel in 1965.

There were other versions over the years, but this is the first one.

Later there was even a talking Baby First Step.

Talking Baby First Step at the bottom. Notice that 'Baby Step' has the same face, and shoes and socks as baby First Step. I think the skates are the same too.

She has one of those typically '1960's Mattel' cute faces,with very rosy cheeks.

There are a lot of very similar looking Mattel dolls from this era. Baby First Step strongly resembles Mattel's Dee Dee, from 1965. If Dee Dee had inset eyes instead of painted eyes, they'd pretty much look identical.

She's 18" tall.

Baby First Step's gimmick was that she walks. You can watch a YouTube video of Baby First Step walking HERE.

And you can watch the original commercial for the doll HERE.
She's operated by 2 D batteries.

The battery door is in her back.

The doll in the far right of the line up above is misleading. the legs never reach that far apart when she walks. 

This is her original dress,with built in bloomers.

Her legs are hard plastic. Her arms are a different type of hard vinyl,more like Chatty Cathy limbs.

She has her original hair ribbons too.

 It's hard to completely clean up her hairdo with those ribbons in there. They are on two small locks of hair that still have the original rubber bands on them. The ribbons are in their original bows. I am really awful at tying bows, so I hate to redo them. They'll never be the same!

Her shoes and socks are original because they don't come off.

Her socks are cotton, and look like they would be removable, but they aren't because the shoes are permanent and not removeable.
  She also had roller skates that clipped to her shoes. That was how skates really worked in those days. Skates came with a 'key' that was used to widen them so they could be fitted onto the shoes. The key was then used again to tighten the skates so they wouldn't come off. It was also helpful that there were ankle straps on the skates. Of course,I had skates like I have just described,because I'm old. I never learned to skate. I did learn to fall quite well though.
    Her head is a softer vinyl. She has sleep eyes and 'real' lashes. 

Her hair is a combination of colours,rather than just straight blonde,which makes it more realistic.

  I got this girl at an auction here in town. There were two daughters in the family whose things were being auctioned. I know this because there were several dolls being auctioned, and there were two of  all of them.Besides Baby First Step there were two Charmin Chatty dolls, and two Susie Sunshine dolls.One sister must have been quite young when they got their dolls, and one old enough to look after her dolls,because every pair contained one beautiful near minty doll, and one really loved and worn one. This Baby First Step belonged to the older sister,but I identified with the younger sister. My sister is six years older than I am, and we had the same thing going. Her dolls always looked nice, and mine were messy and bedraggled. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't keep my Penny Brite's legs from permanently swaying to one side,my GI Joe from looking mangled, or my Swirl ponytail Barbie's hair from becoming a mess so horrible she eventually needed to have her head shaved and resort to wearing Fashion Queen Barbie's wigs.

Come back tomorrow for another doll.