Doll-A-Day 2023 #50: Happy Meal Stacie

   Well. we're up to 50 at least. I'll catch up those other 6 some day. But we'll get to the doll in a minute.

  Tomorrow is a doll show, and for the first time in years, Emma is going with me! I'm pretty excited to have this day out with her. But I have to be very careful about buying anything, because I can't get anything big and keep it at Emma's. I am taking up enough space with stuff already. But I think we'll have fun.

  Now for today's doll. She's this little girl.

 She's Happy Meal Stacie.

Not to be confused with Barbie's friend Stacey, from the 60's. Stacie is 'Barbie's littlest sister', or at least, she was when she premiered. She came in once they had aged Skipper out of childhood and into her teenage years. They needed another little one, the age Skipper was when she first came about, (about 10 years old or so.) Stacie premiered in 1992, although the head sculpt was first used  in 1990 in a Barbie wedding set, for a doll named Kelly. This was before the baby sister Kelly came out, and took over the name. 

  Now here's a question. Why does Mattel think they have to keep making Barbie's siblings grow up? They're dolls! They could stay kids forever! For Heaven's sake, they haven't made Barbie be an old lady. Why do her siblings have to get older? Then they just have to come up with another sibling to be the little one. They got rid of Tutti and Todd, then they made Skipper grow into a teenager. That made them have to come up with Stacie. They had Kelly, who was originally supposed to be Barbie's baby sister. She came with a crib and a bottle and diaper. Then they made her school age, and had to come up with Krissy. Krissy eventually disappeared. She must have gone off to college.

  Anyway, back to Stacie. Happy Meal Stacie was one of a line of Happy Meal dolls that also included Happy Meal Todd, Happy Meal Whitney, and Happy Meal Janet. You can see Emma's Happy Meal Janet in THIS POST.

  Happy Meal Stacie came with the same old Barbie brush, in red, a GIMONGOUS Happy Meal box that came up to her waist, and a tray of Happy Meal food, none of which could be taken off the tray and played with. FAIL!

Gimongous Happy Meal box: 

Back when McDonald's still used Grimace...

...and the Hamburglar and Birdie.

  There was a reason for the giant Happy Meal box, I found out. When I was taking the pictures, I found a pair of play Barbie earrings in the box. I had no idea how they got there, and thought they must have come from something else. As I was doing this post I found out that the Happy Meal dolls came with 'surprise jewelry'. So guess where the earrings came from? Ha ha! 

 

 The little tray of Happy Meal food includes French fries, a hamburger, a drink, and a smaller, much more in scale Happy Meal box, (that would no way fit all that food inside.).

The tray has a thingy on the bottom so Stacie can hold it.

It clamps on her arm.

  I guess it does look like she's carrying it on the palm of her hand...

...as long s you don't look underneath.

That looks a little stupid.

  Stacie is wearing a McDonald's shirt, which closes in back with a snap.

Her shorts are stretchy polka dot ones.

She has blue socks and red high tops.

Her hat has a hole in the top.

She also has red earrings.

And of course, being Barbie's sister, she has mountainous hair.

The nice thing about Stacie was, she could tilt her head, as well as turn it.

 

She can even tilt her head down a little.

That makes for some cute posing, even if she has minimal articulation, just shoulders, hips, and neck, along with click bend knees that don't bend very far.

With those big shoes she can be balanced in such a way that she can stand on her own.

But not without them.

  That's today's doll. Tomorrow we just might see something from the doll show.

  

Doll-A-Day 2023 #49: Dream Date Skipper

   I am well aware that I am still 6 days behind on the year. I have been helping around the house, doing most of the cleaning and laundry, to make life easier for Emma, since we are staying here with them, cramping their lifestyle and being annoying, and filling their fridge with our stuff. I've also been drying out wet things from the house, cleaning sooty things, washing sooty laundry. plus trying to take pictures and keep up with the blog. I am way far behind with the posts on our trip, and am starting to forget what we did. I have tons of pictures for a post on things we've saved...or not, from the fire. While I was on steroids for my lung inflammation all that was easy. I was pain free and could move easily. Climbing stairs was easy. Of course, as soon as the steroids ran out, the pain and stiffness began to return. Now it's going full force. My back is killing me, my feet hurt, it's become difficult to go up and down stairs again. And Emma lives up a LOT of stairs. There's a flight from the parking area to the level the house is on, more stairs to the sidewalk to her front door, and once you reach her door, there are loads of steep stairs up to her apartment. In fact, there's a big set of stairs, and a short set of stairs. The final set is short as far as number of stairs go, but the stairs themselves are very tall, (for me anyway). Plus, Emma has an old clawfoot bathtub, and I'm so short it comes higher than my knees. Add to that my stiffness, and I have to get in and out with a step ladder. (That's not funny!) We're sleeping on an air mattress. which is probably more comfortable than our real mattress at home, but hard for two old people in pain to get in an out of. I'm also afraid I'm going to run out of dolls to post if I catch up with those 6 days. I had enough posts predone at one point to catch up most of the way, but I figured I'd better hang on to them for the time being in case I needed them. And of course, things needed done and I didn't get anything else photographed until I had used all those up. So I was right. And now I'm low on dolls, and I can't fill Emma's house up with stuff. So I daren't bring any stuff here unless it's stuff that needs rescued from the house. That's one reason I have been posting so many of Emma's dolls. They're already here. 

  Today's doll is both. She's Emma's, but she came from the house and needed rescued. She was in a box of dolls that had gotten some water in it, but not everything was wet. Today's doll just needed the faint smoke smell aired out. She was in a ziplock bag and stayed dry, and fairly smoke free. Emma decided she wanted this doll, and even bid on one in an auction the other day. She lost that one though, and who am I to turn Emma down if she wants something at this point? So I gave her to Emma. She's Dream Date Skipper.

  She was produced in 1990. 

  This head sculpt, which Mattel began using in 1987, is usually referred to amongst Skipper collectors as the 'big eye' sculpt. The sculpt was used for several years, before Mattel changed Skipper's head to a more realistic sculpt. In the meantime they also used the big eye sculpt for a Tinkerbell, and a Peter Pan Wendy doll.

   She has HUGE hair. I suppose that even though that was an 80's thing, there was still some around in 1990.

She came with instructions on how to 'release' that giant hair from one of those stupid plastic strips they sew the hair to.

Yeah. Like it's that easy.

 Skipper's box stated that she came with "3 Pretty looks and a trendy hairpiece too!"

I'm not sure how trendy this hair piece was for teens in 1990.

 It also told kids to "Put on her hair piece and she's absolutely gorgeous!". Can't she be gorgeous without it?

I'm not sure if that band goes behind her head or under her chin, and the instructions don't tell you.

It doesn't sound easy, or even clear!

"How glamourous she looks for a party, dinner, or dancing". Because all early teens go out to dinner, or 'dancing' dressed like they're going to a ball.

Look at the combed back bangs part! This is without the big hair piece. I was afraid to ruin her hairdo. It's made it all these years and I have given her to Emma. It would be a bad time for me to try to deal with hair. You know how I am. I remember in the 80's when Unsentimental Niece used to have those huge stand up bangs that looked so stupid from behind. A Giant wall of bangs. Ivy think I had 'big hair' in the 80's, but it was nothing like this. 

As you can see, her bangs are the colour of the hair piece, and not her actual hair.

The instructions show two options for her outfit. The skirt is in two pieces: a short tutu looking thing, and along skirt. See that 'disc' it's telling you to tie the bow on to use as a bracelet of hair piece? Remember that.

The box tells you she has: "Glossy shorts for the ice cream shop!"

Because everybody wears shiny shorts to the ice cream shop. And what were they calling an 'ice cream shop' in 1990? Those weren't the days of Mickey and Judy going to the ice cream parlour!

The box also expected her to attend the movies in a giant tutu. "Fabulous mini for the movies."

She looks a little over made up, over dressed, and overhairdoed for a kid barely in her teens.

How old was Skipper supposed to be in 1990? I know they had aged her up a bit, but how much? I mean, they have her dating. But this outfit looks more like a prom dress of the day anyway.

Oh my goodness. Look at that hair.

Her accessories included a pair of blue flats...

 

...a hunk of tulle that's supposed to be that 'bow'...

...a brush, a heart shaped purse, and that disc you were supposed to use as a hair piece or bracelet. This thing would make a HUGE bracelet.

The disc and the purse came with stickers to decorate them.

She also has a bracelet that isn't that huge disc.

And there's a huge necklace to go with it.

And she came with this stuff. 

 This doll came in some I got at an auction. There were some in there that I liked, but this isn't one of them. She's a bit too much for me!

  That's today's doll. Come back tomorrow and see what else we have for you.