Doll-A-Day 2023 #4 and The Grand Tour Part 4: Off the Hook Alexis, and The Crown

   In under the wire! It's not midnight yet, so it's still day number 4!

  We're combining the next installment of the posts on the trip, with the latest Doll-A-Day. That's because I got the doll on one of the days of the trip we'll be covering.

  When we last left off on the trip, Ken and I had been taken to Burton Constable Hall by his sister and brother-in-law. The next day was one I was excited about. I hadn't seen my friend Jenny since 1986. I didn't get to see her the last time we were over, seven years ago. But this time we had set an appointment, and I was to meet Jenny on this day. She has a lot of health problems and wasn't sure how we could meet without putting her at risk for Covid or whatever else I might carry. With the curse we had been bringing on everybody, we were taking a chance anyway! In the end, she decided that if she wore a mask and didn't get too close to me, as in a hug, she would be okay. 

  So we were to meet Jenny in a parking lot in Hull, as she also lives in the town where Ken's sister lives, (and one of his other sisters lives in a suburb of Hull, just outside the actual city.) Jenny is actually the reason I had already been to the town where Ken is from. She was going to art college in Hull, and I visited her there. Nobody goes to Hull on a trip to England! So when I met Ken and he told me he was from Hull, and I said, "I've been there.", he must have thought I was lying, or very strange. (You can read the story of how Ken and I met and got together HERE.) 

  As we pulled into the parking lot, brother-in-law Alan said, "What does she look like?" I said, "I don't know. I haven't seen her for thirty six years."  Alan was flabbergasted. "Thirty six years?!" But we found Jenny, and as she later said, it was as if no time had passed.

  Jenny's parents were always the best tour guides. They took me everywhere, and their motto was always, "It's your holiday." They didn't pressure me to leave anywhere, and always stressed that the time to leave was, "Whenever you're ready. It's your holiday." They took me to Castle Howard, because I loved Brideshead revisited, (The original series, and the new one were both filmed there.), to Whitby, where we climbed the 199 steps to Whitby Abbey, to Kirkham Abbey, Knaresborough to see Mother Shipton's Cave, (England's oldest tourist attraction to charge a fee, operating since 1630.), Helmsley, and Jen and I spent a lot of time in York, which was very close to the tiny village where she lived. Jenny and her parents always pointed out all the interesting things a person should notice in all the places we went. So this day Jen had been trying to think of some place interesting nearby that I had never been, where she could take me. She decided on Beverly, and off we went. As her parents used to do, Jen pulled over for anything I might find interesting.

Like this windmill.

We arrived in Beverly, which was, as Jenny had said, a very pretty town.

  Jen's idea was for us to have a look in Beverly Minster, but it was closed for a graduation ceremony that day! So we were reduced to viewing it from the outside.

  I brought over some American goodies Jenny's husband was missing. He had requested Hormel tamales, pepperoncini peppers, Hostess fruit pies, A1 steak sauce and Heinz 57 steak sauce, and Jenny wanted zingers. Ken knows what it's like missing things from home, so he could relate. Jenny had brought me some things too.

  We had a nice day. We talked, we laughed, we ate, we shopped. I bought myself a Bakewell Tart, which I forgot to photograph until I had almost eaten it all a day or two later.

  Jenny and I went in an antique shop, and Jenny got a gift for me:

She's a Royal Doulton girl.

   We stopped somewhere else on the way back to Hull and got dessert. Then we got to Hull and had to say goodbye. It was hard. I know I cried. Jen broke down at the end and gave me hugs anyway.

  Luckily Jenny didn't get sick from our visit. As you may have read in the previous posts on this trip, we cursed everybody, and people were getting sick and injured left and right. Jenny was no exception. When we met up she told me she had fallen a couple of days before and broken two ribs! Well, after I saw her she was fine. A couple of weeks or so later, as her ribs were getting better, she got a cold or something, and coughed so hard that she hurt the ribs on the other side! She also got a problem with one of her hands and could barely use it for a couple of weeks. So our curse continued.

    While Jen and I were in Beverly, Ken and Gloria and Alan traipsed around Hull. They discovered that part of Hull had been made over into 1940's London for an episode of  "The Crown".

Notice the green screen so they can do composite images.

  So if you happen to see that episode of  The Crown, that's not London. It's Hull.

  The next day it was on the front page of the newspaper.

But all the stuff had been taken down. Only some barricades, and cranes and lift things were left.  

  

  Anyway, after Jenny went off home, we ended up going to a fish and chips place so Ken could get fish and chips...again. 

He ate the biggest piece of fish I have ever seen. But he got a free t-shirt for doing it.

Ken in his free t-shirt the next day. This picture is three times relevant. For one thing, we live on Prospect Street! For another, Ken left England for 'Yankee land', and for yet another, 'Just Eat' is the motto for Ken's life. The weird thing about Ken's shirt is, it says, "I'm the Papa." because Papa's was the name of the fish place. But the kids referred to my dad as 'Papa'. So when I showed the picture to, I think it was Emma, she responded with, "But he's not."

The day after Jenny, Ken and I spent the day around Hull by ourselves, since both Gloria and Alan had to work. (We were supposed to have spent the day with Marjorie and Cliff, but we had cursed Cliff into hospital with a hernia operation.) I couldn't resist buying a beautiful roll of wrapping paper, which ended up serving the purpose of transporting a few posters home safely. (I asked for a couple of posters advertising Hull Fair from a couple of shops, since it was after the event. Ken was sad we had missed it. The other poster we'll hear about later.) I also ran across some Santoro products, including figural keyrings. I had seen some Santoro things the last time we were over, and I really liked them, in spite of the characters' missing noses and mouths. I checked out the dolls online when we got back, but they were too expensive. So when I found them, I settled for a little figure on a keyring. (If the dolls look interesting to you, check out The Toybox Philosopher's recent review of hers.)

Tammy World thinks it makes a good size doll for her.

  I ran across this card, which features Sindy dolls.

If I had a doll friend I send birthday cards to, I would have bought it.

  There were these doll clothes.

The orange hoodie reminds me of the vintage Barbie and Ken ones from the scuba diving sets. But cheaply made though.

I also bought today's doll. She's Alexis, from the Off the Hook line of dolls.

I liked her colours and she was small, and I hadn't seen these dolls at home. 

Plus she only cost 3 pounds. So I bought her. Turns out, you can get these dolls here. Oh well. It's always hard to know what is and isn't available here as well.

The box has a cute hanger on the top.

Cute gimmick in itself, but, as part of the packing, it will most often go directly into the trash. What a waste.

  Alexis' name is only displayed on the side of the box.

  The gimmick to these dolls is that they come apart and the body parts/clothes can be mixed and matched with the extra 'fashion' or parts from other sets in the line.

It's not an original idea. Does anybody at Off The Hook's company, Spin Master, remember Pop N Swap Polly Pocket?  The other gimmick is that the part that 'hook's' together is shaped like a hook. It doesn't really hook though. The 'hook' just slips into the slot in the adjoining piece.

  Later I found another couple of the dolls in the line at another store.

Is it just me, or does the girl on the right look like she would glow in the dark? That I could have gone for.

They were also 3 pounds. I like the one I got better than these two.

  So my girl can trade parts with these two. Since I didn't get these two, I'm glad I like my girl's clothes and hair better.

  It was murder getting into the package. I got the plastic insert out, but then I couldn't get the doll out of that! She was stuck in there tightly, and it had nothing to do with the plastic band across the front of her. She was wedged in the vacu-form plastic. 

I finally managed to pry her out.

She's about 4 and a half inches tall.

She came with a pair of sunglasses, a cloth skirt, and not one, but two spare torso parts.

That is one very tiny waist hole. That's because you have to pull her apart to put it on her. You can't just slip it on.

I only found one of those black packages on the left in the bottom of the box. But then another one fell out of the sky. I have no idea where it came from.

One mystery part was this footless torso.

The other contained this upper torso part.

But there's a problem...Wait. Let's go back and look at Alexis as she came first. Here she is in those sunglasses.

They didn't fit over her hair very well. But guess what: her hair comes off.

So does her head, so you can just swap heads to change outfits.

The sunglasses fit much better without the hair, or, at least, under it.

Her feet come off too.

Especially when you don't want them to.

There were 5 other characters in all, and the included paper shows a huge selection of hats, hair accessories, wigs, upper and lower torsos, feet, and purses and bags. 

The paper says 'collect all surprise fashions' and  'sold separately', so I'm not sure if they were sold in sets, or piece by piece? That seems unlikely.

Her skirt is decidedly shorter than the more BoHo looking longer skirt on the included insert.

  But how well did her body pop together and apart? Well, the first time, it was a bit hard to get the parts...apart. I was also hard the first time of two to get them back together. I was worried kids might not be able to do it. I was also afraid I was getting stress marks in the plastic if the hook that is the part that has to be pushed into the opposing hole. A close-up proves this wasn't the case here. 

You'll notice there does appear to be some paint wear already though.

  And while we're looking at the 'hook' joint, (That, as you will recall, doesn't really hook.), let's look at what that joint can do. 

It's a swivel ball joint.

This allows her to sit.

But not very well. She doesn't been enough to sit in, say, a chair. She would have to kind of lean.

This is as far as she can bend.

Also, her arms don't move. I suppose that's supposed to not be a big problem, since you can just change her upper torso, which includes her arms. At least her head can move. But let's look at the real problem with this toy. You may have noticed it already, if you've been paying very close attention. First, let's look at that waist joint again.

Are you noticing anything? Compare this torso to the extra torso that came with Alexis.

Notice anything?

 There's no hook! Now maybe that piece was supposed to stay in the upper torso. Maybe it belongs in that half. But you know what? There's not one in that half either!

In the original OR the extra one. So obviously that ball joint is supposed to be in the bottom half.

The paper says 'any bottom fits any top'. Unless you didn't get a joint piece!

See?! The bottom is supposed to have that piece!

So I couldn't try the other bottom half on her. That made me forget to show her with at least the top half changed.

And what do I think of Alexis? I actually like her. She has some great colours in her hair, make-up, and clothing. I like it all together. But I'm not sure her playability is what it could be. Her feet don't have anything to actually hold them together, so consequently, they fall off easily. Her arms don't move, and she can't sit down properly or move her legs. Her head moves, and her wig is removeable. But how do you get all those spare hair and clothing pieces? It could end up costing a fortune. The other problem is that she is left being one of those toys that are really only good for changing the clothes on. You can't do much with her. The Swap N Pop Polly Pockets, with a similar gimmick, worked better, and often came in sets full of pieces. They could move their arms too. So I think the Off the Hook dolls don't meet up with those. I don't think I'd want to pay much more than 3 pounds, (which at the time was about $3.40.),for what I got with this doll. I'm cheap though, so you may not want to go by me.

That's the doll for today. See you tomorrow for the next doll of the day!