Doll-A-Day 2023 #91: Kissing Barbie

   Today's doll is one of the butt ugliest dolls Mattel ever made. She's Kissing Barbie.

  What was Mattel thinking? This thing is homely!

She does have a gimmick though. When you press the button in her back, she puckers. 

And her head is stitched closed! She's like a Frankenstein. That stitch doesn't always stay closed either. And how many curious kids do you think cut that stitch to see what was inside her head?

And ideally she makes a smacky kissing noise, but mine's not making it any more. Here's her regular face compared with the kissy face.

No kissy.

Kissy kissy.

She even came with lipstick, so she could leave a kiss mark on Ken's face, or your hand...or the furniture, walls, or your brother. 

  A lot of these dolls are found stuck in the pucker position, making them look like they've had bad upper lip implants. This doll isn't quite as ugly as many I've seen. Still.

I think her pucker is somewhat stuck, because when activated, there isn't as much difference from her regular mouth, and not as much as in most of the Kissing Barbies I've seen. And even when she's not being activated, there's still something of a pucker.

 

She was produced in 1979. She has an era appropriate dress, which is emblazoned with lips, in case you forget what doll you bought.

The bodice has ruffles.

  The dress also has flowers printed on it, but it depends on which part of the fabric was used where, as to whether or not they are very visible. They can be overpowered by the lip design. 

You can barely see the flowers here.

This dress on the left, compared with another Kissing Barbie dress on the right. See what I mean?

She has those weird arms I always hated. They look like she's trying to describe the size of the fish she caught.

But I guess they're good for hailing a cab.

  Her hair looks a little thin in the front, but it's not. She just doesn't have that piece of hair pulled over to her right to make swoopy bangs.

She actually has a very full head of hair. This was before Mattel over rooted every doll in the 80's and 90's.

 

  I'm sorry. Does it sound like I don't like this doll? Well I don't. I think she's ugly. She has a pretty dress. She has a gimmick that could be pretty neat, I guess. It just didn't work out the way it was intended.

  So that's today's doll. Ivy is coming for Easter! We haven't seen her since Ken's birthday in February, and who knows when we'll see her again. She's busy working doing alterations at David's Bridal in Indiana, and living in her own apartment. So, we'll see you tomorrow for another doll.