Doll-A-Day 2023 #185: Real Baby

   Today's doll is this chubby babe.

  She's Real Baby, described on her box as 'wide eyed real baby'.

  She was made in 1985, by Hasbro. Her original retail price was about $30, which was nothing to sneeze at in 1985.

  She was a vinyl version of a porcelain doll, designed by doll artist Judith Turner, also known as J. Turner.

The side of a Real Baby box tells the story.

  She measures 21 inches tall, but being a floppy baby, she can't stand to show you. (Being as she's a baby, maybe I should have said 'long' instead of 'tall'.)

Or can she?!

  She has a soft, stuffed nylon torso, with a vinyl head, arms, and legs.

  She has inset  eyes, and 'real' lashes.

And very faint, almost invisible eyebrows...like I do these days.

This particular doll is blonde, but Real Baby also came as a red head, and a brunette. There were also   Hispanic and African American dolls.

  A lot of Real Baby dolls you will come across have lost their hair, and usually their eyelashes too. Although the box claims the doll has "wigged hair", I have seen dolls that still have a few straggly hairs on their heads, so they didn't lose an entire wig at once. Unsentimental Niece had a Real Baby when she was a kid. It lost all its hair, and got the disturbing nickname, 'Cancer Baby'.

  Another problem common to Real Baby is paling. The faces sometimes pale toa ghostly white. This girl only has some pale areas on her face.

  Her outfit consists of a gingham seersucker sunsuit, a bonnet, white socks, and booties that match her bonnet and sunsuit. 

The booties have a strap that velcros on the side. This doll is missing a sock and a bootie. (But she has her hair!)

  Originally Real Baby came with a bottle, a disposable diaper, 5 birth announcements with envelopes, and a booklet of baby names for you to choose from. She has a 'bottle mouth', so you can pretend to feed her. but she is  not a drink and wet doll, since she's stuffed.

    Real Baby has a heft to her, so she feels like holding a 'real baby', although she weighs a more child friendly carrying weight of 3 pounds . In fact, she is so realistic, that once my sister was selling baby slings she had made, at a street fair, using Unsentimental Niece's Real Baby to demonstrate the baby sling she was wearing. For some reason she had to run at some point. She tripped on the sidewalk and belly flopped...right on Real Baby. People came running to help her and ask if her baby was all right!

  Hasbro also made a Real Baby Newborn doll, which was 17 inches tall, and  was advertised as weighing 2 pounds. Newborn had a different face.

  That's today's doll. She came from the Room of Water, but she apparently stayed dry. Her outfit is a bit dirty, but she is smell free and in good shape. She'll be going on the sales page, so let me know if you have any interest in her. See you tomorrow.