Doll-A-Day 227: Review of Moxie Girlz Friends Tally

  To begin with, I have to thank Emily at The Toybox Philosopher for her wonderful review of this doll. (And if you're one of the couple of doll collector's in the universe who haven't checked out The Toy Box Philosopher and have somehow stumbled onto my blog instead, you really should  check out Emily's blog too.) It's where I learned about this line in the first place, for one thing. And as usual, Emily did a great detailed review. Her reviews usually make any other review of the same item pretty much superfluous, but this particular doll had some problems. So I thought it would be helpful to see if another of the same doll had the same problems as Emily's, or if hers was just a fluke.
  The Moxie Girlz Friends are 5" dolls. They're sort of the Moxie Girlz version of Barbie's Kelly/Chelsea. They're about the same size, and can serve as great little sisters for the Moxie Girlz.There were four available from the line at the Target I went to: a blonde, an African American, a red head, and a vaguely Hispanic girl. I bought Tally, the little red haired girl with freckles because I love red haired dolls, and because my favourite Moxie Girl is Kellen, the red head and I have one to pair Tally with..
The boxes are very minimal, which I like. It means less waste, and do we really need all that extra packaging?

I looked at all the Tally's they had. This one seemed to have more of a neck than the others. Most of them look pretty stumpy.

Emily mentioned that the dolls at her local Target were heavy on the dirty faces and messy hair, and she wondered if it were due to the open packages. I didn't find those problems at all with the Moxie Girlz friends at the Target I went to, so maybe her Target just got a bad batch, or have employees who don't take care with the merchandise.

Her feet were held in, and her shoes held on, by clear rubber bands.

 She was attached to her packaging mostly with clear rubber bands, but also with tiny plastic ties on her skirt...

...and bigger ones in her head.

I found this out after I opened up the layers of the package to reveal all the attachments on the back of the inner layer.

I cut the clear rubber bands and yanked her out of the package. That then left me to cut the giant plastic thingies out of her head. I cut them as close to her head as I could without snipping hair, and then shoved them into her head the rest of the way so they wouldn't show.
  Out of the package she had some messy hair in the back, including some that was actually in her neck joint. I had to ease her head up a little and pull it out.

She has a cute face, with a somewhat concave forehead in profile, just like the regular Moxie Girlz.

Her hair looked pretty good. I could feel that her hair was only rooted along the edges. And having read Emily's review about how the hair isn't rooted all the way (Because of it being in ponytails.), I didn't dare take the ponytails down. I'm not good with hair, and I knew she would never look as good if I did. But what about little kids who like to play with the hair? At $2.99 these dolls are about half the cost of a Chelsie, but the hair seems to be one of the cost cutting features. It does feel soft though.
  Emily had some trouble with the clear rubber bands on the shoes/ankles causing bad indentations on both. My Tally did too, but not as bad as Emily's I think.

My Tally seems at first to have a little knee cap detail too, but then I noticed it's only on the left leg. Maybe it's just a defect.

Her shoes weren't nearly as misshapen either.
  She did seem to have one of the other flaws Emily's Tally had though: She can't stand up. She leans to one side.

  She had to do a lot of leaning on the background to stand up. On close examination I see it's because one of her legs is considerably shorter than the other!

On the other hand she has a beautiful face with nicely detailed lips.

  Now if only one of our dolls had done that you could say it was just one bad doll. But two? It seems to be a flaw in the design. how could they not notice that the right leg is so much shorter when they ere designing/making these dolls?
  Another cost cutting move seems to have been not finishing all the seams in the clothing. I didn't have the stitches that didn't catch the whole skirt hem that Emily had, but I had the same raw edges on the bodice.

All along the neckline, (Wasn't that a Jimmy Hendrix/Bob Dylan song?),and the arm holes the edges were just asking to start fraying.

And one shoulder just wouldn't come up even with the other. No matter what I did it was still one sided.
  On the positive side, she has soft rubber arms that you can move around, even if they can't actually hold all the poses you can do wit them. She has the usual articulation that this type of doll has. She can raise her arms up.

And her legs move back and forth. That's it. Her head turns side to side, but doesn't have much, if any, up or down movement.
  I decided to compare her to a current Chelsea doll, but I didn't have one handy. Oh, I reviewed Darrin recently. He has the same body as Chelsea. He won't mind...

Darrin seems oblivious to his situation, but Tally looks a little uneasy.

  She's a little more cartoon like than the Chelsea line, especially with her big head and less realistic face design,but then, Moxie Girlz are more cartoon like than Barbie.
  They have a similar long, thin body with long legs. Darrin has much bigger hands,(And since it's the same body as Chelsea, it's not just because he's a guy.), but only slightly bigger feet.The Chelsea/Darrin body also has more of a lower torso, which is what accounts for the difference in height. Tally just seems to go from crotch to waist, with nothing in between.

Like Chelsea/Darrin, Tally has molded on underwear.

Here you can really see the defect that looks like knee cap detail, and how much shorter the left leg is. Not much in the way of disfigurement from the rubber bands on the ankles though.A little shiny, but not too bad.

But can they share clothes?

Tally actually looks really cute in Darrin's clothes. The colour even looks good on her.

 But the pants look a little Steve Urkle.

"Got any cheese?"

The shoes are a little big.

Foot size comparison. Tally on the left, Darrin on the right. His feet are a little wider.

But her shoes fit Darrin fine. Hold on. It gets worse...

I'm really sorry about this Darrin...

"Not half as sorry as I am..." Before anybody gets upset, he's ONLY A DOLL. I'm just comparing body types. He's plastic. I don't think there'll be any permanent damage done to him.

 
But at least I didn't show your face. No one will ever know it's you.

The dress wouldn't go up over the shoulder on the Darrin/Chelsea body at all on the left side. And it wouldn't Velcro in the back either. But doesn't that hem look nice?!
  And after taking the dress off Tally, and putting it on...Darrin...it was really fraying at the neck and shoulders.

This is going to be bad, especially since it has to be tugged extra hard to get it up on her left shoulder. Conclusion? This dress would never last through even a couple of days of normal play. I think they should definitely have stuck with cotton fabrics and finished those upper body seams. Of course, the finished seams would add to the cost.
  In general though, I think the dolls are a nice alternative to the Chelsea line. For the price of one Chelsea a kid on a budget could buy a couple of these dolls. (I think I might pick up an Amorie myself! I really wanted the red head, but I think Amorie might just have the cutest face in the line.) I think the doll itself will last nearly as well as a Chelsea, but those clothes will be a problem. The dolls would  make nice little party gifts too, and at $2.99 that might even be affordable (As long as your kid doesn't invite everyone they know.)
  Here's Tally with Moxie Girl Kellan,since they make good sisters.

They should have had matching eye colour though, to make them look more alike.

The Friends don't have the Moxie Girlz pointy chin. Just look at Tally's beautifully detailed mouth. Kellan's freckles are much less uniform, and more realistic looking.

That's not completely necessary though. My girls have different eye and hair colour. (From each other that is. Well, they have different colour eyes than their hair too...)

So there you have it. Don't forget to check out Emily's review too.