The Doll Book of the Month Club Twofer! : Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, and Little Plum

 I'm making up for missing last month's Doll Book of the Month Club by giving you TWO books this month. They are "Miss Happiness and Miss Flower", and it's sequel, "Little Plum", by Rumer Godden.

  Ivy always had a special love for Rumer Godden's book, "The Story of Holly and Ivy". (You can read my review of it HERE.) So we looked for other books written by Rumer Godden. We came across these two at a library sale or thrift store I think, or maybe one of each. I read the first one at least to Ivy, and we thought it was okay, good, but not "The Story of Holly and Ivy" good. I don't think we ever read the second one though. So I have read it now. But let's start with the first one.

  I have seen this book described as ' a children's book for adults', in that, adults can enjoy it too. Miss Happiness and Miss Flower are two Japanese dolls. 

They have been sent to a little girl named Nona, who has been sent from her home in India to live with her aunt and uncle and cousins, (including Belinda, who is a year younger than Nona), in England. 

She feels out of place, so she feels sorry for the dolls, being so far away from home. As she and her cousins make a Japanese house and accessories for the dolls, Nona begins to feel more at home too.

   

Belinda is a crabby character who makes life hard for Nona, but that gets straightened out as well. And throughout it all, we get to hear what Miss Happiness and Miss Flower are thinking, for they can hear each other, but, of course, can't be heard by humans. 

  It's a sweet story, and there are details for how to build the Japanese house in the early editions of the book, that I think are left out in later ones. And by the end of the book, there is another Japanese doll in the dollhouse.

 

  The book gets some complaints these days for not being  politically correct in some of it's terms and stereotypes, but it means well. I think it's still readable these days, and those things can be discussed with the child at the time.    

  "Little Plum" is a Japanese doll too, but she doesn't belong to Nona, or her cousin Belinda.

In fact, there isn't nearly as much of Miss H and Miss F, or their thoughts, or even Nona, in this book.  This book centers around Belinda, and her war with the new girl next door. 

  The new girl is named Gem Tiffany Jones. Okay. Let's forgive Rumer Godden for that one. Belinda and Gem can't seem to get along. What is worse for Belinda is, Gem has a Japanese doll too, but she doesn't play with hers. Day after day the doll sits alone and forlorn in Gem's bedroom window. This riles Belinda no end, and she decides the doll needs some things, and Gem needs scolded. Add into the mix that Belinda decides to hand deliver the items to Gem's bedroom window sill via tree, not only because she has been told by Gem's snooty aunt not to come to their house. (Belinda is 'too rough' to be allowed to play with Gem.) It's made clear that no child except Belinda would or should even think of doing such a thing. Good save Rumer.

  The gifts Belinda begs Nona to make for Gem's doll, whom they name "Little Plum", sound wonderful. The fate of the gifts, well...And do Gem and Belinda, who at one point beat the tar out of each other, ever become friends? Does Little Plum ever get to be played with? You'll have to find out for yourselves. 

  I enjoyed this book actually. It's not as, shall we say, dry, as the other one. The other one is good though. I don't think you necessarily have to read the first one to enjoy the second one, but I think you'll want to.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #320: Snowman

   I know. I'm another day behind for the year. My computer was being so slow and not loading pages and not letting me do anything last night. So it wasn't even worth trying to do anything with it. So today I'm back, with more catching up to do! It's also the day for the Doll Book of the Month Club, which WILL be posted, along with last months post! So, you get a bonus today! 

  Today's doll is this little fellow.

  I've had this little guy since I was a kid. He comes out every Christmas. I spotted him still sitting out in our bedroom last week and had to bring him back and give him a bath. He was a bit sooty, and still doesn't look very white, but he's better, and at least he's not melted!

   I bought him when I was a kid. They were Christmas decorations, not toys I think.  I bought two sets of these snowmen. There were two in each set, and an accessory. I don't remember what the other accessory was, but I know one of the sets came with a sled, made of  a slab of plastic peppermint with candy cane runners. There were two yellow and orange snowmen, and a green and pink one, and a red and pink one. One of them at least is in a sitting position so he could ride the sled. The others are packed up, so this guy was all alone.

He's about 3 or 3 1/2 inches tall, and made of soft hollow rubber. His head can turn, and his arms can move.

   When I got them, I thought they looked cold, being in the snow, (and made of it!), so I made them scarves. 

  I totally forgot that they all have hats! The yellow ones have yellow stocking caps with white pom poms on the ends, the red one had a red hat, and I haven't seen the green ones hat for a while. I think it's pink. This guy's hat is actually here. It was in the box for the Christmas stockings. That was brought here early on because I needed to clean the stockings and put them away. But I forgot to put it on him for his photos. It's a bit  stiff, and doesn't stay on very well. Originally the hats were glued on, but of course, I had to take them off!

  

  I bought these snowmen on vacation in Kentucky one summer. That's how I got a set of my Christmas elves too. They must have kept Christmas stuff around for ages in those stores!

  He's here making this room more Christmassy.

  That's all for today. See you again tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #319: Police Woman

   Today's doll has a little problem with her wardrobe: She doesn't have one. So excuse her plastic nudity. She's Police Woman.

She's 9 inches tall.

  "Police Woman" was a TV series, that ran from 1974 to 1978. I remember watching it. Friday nights, I think. Yes. Apparently the first two seasons aired on Friday nights. The show was based around the main character, police officer 'Pepper Anderson', played by Angie Dickinson. The doll is supposed to look like her.

It doesn't really look like Angie Dickinson, except for the hair is a bit messy on this one. I always thought that, "Police Woman" era Angie Dickinson anyway, looked like she didn't own a comb.

As my dad would have said, her head looks likes a wall mop...whatever a wall mop is.

The doll does have her dimple though. 
 

 The doll was made by Horsman, and came wearing a red jumpsuit and a trench coat.. 

She's marked 1976 on the back of her head.

  She has jointed knees, similar to Barbie, and hinge jointed elbows and wrists.

  

This doll has the same problem as dolls like Dawn, Dusty, and others, in that her plastic body reacts with her rubber legs, causing a sort of melting, making her hip joint frozen in place. 

    There were separate fashions available for the doll, that included a skydiving set, and undercover outfits like a stewardess set, (see above), a scuba diving set, and a motorcycle set, and a thief set that included a black cape, a mask, a bright red swag bag with a dollar sign on it, jewels, the safe to steal them out of, and a couple of bundles of dynamite to blow the safe up with! What side of the law was she on?! 

  I like that the costumes were fitting for a police woman of action. Unlike the Bionic Woman, for example, there don't seem to have been any evening gowns made for Police Woman. The series wasn't really kid friendly though, considering some of the crimes and undercover situations dealt with on the show.

  By the time Angie Dickinson played Pepper Anderson, a supposed hot looking babe, she was  43 years old, (47 by the end of the show's run.) I don't think they'd cast someone that old in a role like that these days. So you have to sort of commend them for that, I guess. 

    Apparently, "Police Woman" is the oldest TV series to have all of it's main cast still living.

  Trivia for today: Angie Dickinson was married to composer Burt Bacharach from 1965 to 1981. Angie is 92 years old, and still going strong.

  That's the doll for today. See you tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #318: Charlie's Angels Kris? or Jill?

                                       *****THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED*****

  Today's doll is Kris, from Charlie's Angels. Or is it Jill? Please see the conversation in the comments. I saw this doll, in package online, and she was a Kris doll. Then I saw many more, in the green suit, with this head, and they were Jill. The doll looks like Cheryl Ladd more than Farah Fawcett, but it is wearing the white suit that came on Jill, (Although I also saw the white suit on one of the other characters too! I think Hasbro played fast and loose with their character control.),and most of the Kris dolls I'm seeing have a different face, with a slightly more closed mouth. So, probably Jill? Did Hasbro maybe make the early Kris dolls using the Jill head?

The Charlie's Angels doll were first made, by Hasbro, in 1977, and based on the popular TV series of the same name. I never watched the show myself. I just got this doll in an auction box lot. She needs to go. I have another Charlie's Angels doll, so maybe we'll see her this week too. Kris, produced in 1978, was the first replacement Angel, after Farrah Fawcett left the show. She was played by Cheryl Ladd. The doll isn't a bad likeness of her. It makes a better Cheryl Ladd than Farrah Fawcett.

  There were three Charlie's Angels, but there were three replacement 'Angels' during the course of the series. I don't  think second replacement Shelley Hack, or third replacement Tanya Roberts, ever had  dolls made of them. 

The dolls were 8 inches tall. All four made wore the same knee high black boots, and the same outfit, just in different colours. Farah Fawcett came in a white suit. Cheryl Ladd came in a green suit, but I've also seen a never removed from card doll in the white suit. It may be another case of Hasbro initially using the last of their Jill stock to make the Kris doll. Anyway, Kris should also have a navy blue neckerchief. Jill would have had a green one. There's also a possibility that Kris had navy blue boots. And possibly the dolls sometimes had white boots? I've seen that too!

  There were also fashions produced for these dolls. They show up a lot less frequently than the dolls themselves, or maybe I just don't recognize them when I see them.

   Mego reproduced the classic Charlie's Angels women as 8 inch figures in recent years, but they apparently didn't own the likenesses, or were just really bad at sculpting them. 

  Some trivia for you: 

Cheryl Ladd was the daughter-in-law of  1940's/50's star Alan Ladd, of "Shane" fame. 

When the Mrs. Beasley doll was reproduced by Ashton Drake, it,(and the new 5.5 inch Mrs. Beasley talking ornament), was voiced by Cheryl Ladd.

 That's the doll for today. See you tomorrow. 

Doll-A-Day 2023 #317: Barbie's Toy Dog

   You know sometimes you buy a bunch of things and amongst them there is a  cute little thing, and you wonder, "hmm. I wonder what that goes to?" Today's 'doll' is one of those things that probably stumps a lot of people. 

 He's a cute felt dog, about a couple of inches tall.. He might be mistaken for a homemade dog. But he is, in fact, Barbie's toy dog, from one of the first Barbie fashions, Nighty Negligee.

Nighty Negligee was produced for the first five years of Barbie's history, (1959 to 1964.), meaning, there are quite a few of these guys around. 

They show up fairly often in lots of vintage Barbie stuff. However, since he is real wool felt, he sometimes has had run ins with critters smaller than himself, who have snacked upon him.

  Barbie's dog coordinates with the blue cat from Skipper's pajama set, "Dreamtime".

  That's today's doll. It will soon be the end of November, and you still haven't gotten last month's Doll Book of the Month! You will get one this month though. Two, if I'm really a good girl. Then December will be upon us, and we'll see how many Christmasy dolls I can come up with. Who knows? See you tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #316: Barnum's Animals Crackers Kelly

   Today's doll is part of a 2002 series of  Kelly dolls called Barnum's Animals Crackers.

Better known as just 'animal crackers', the 'crackers' in question are the little animal shaped cookies that come in the little boxes that look like the wagons circus animals used to be hauled in.

  There were three dolls in the series: Jenny as the tiger, Kayla as the lion, and Kelly as the elephant. The boxes were made to look like they were circus wagons too, with wheels. The box also has a string handle, like real boxes of animal crackers.

Why didn't Kelly have to paint her nose? And what happened to her shoes?

Kelly is wearing an elephant costume with a completely vertical trunk, and big ears lined in pink.

The bottoms of the pant legs have black elephant toenails on them. And all the dolls came with a mini animal cracker box.

  That's it for today. See you again tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #315: The New Talky Tina is on Sale For Black Friday!

   Remember Talky Tina? She was the villain in an episode of the original Twilight Zone TV series called "Living Doll". (You can watch a condensed version of the episode HERE.) Talky Tina was 'played' by a customized Vogue Brickette doll. 

  The episode has proved to have something of a cult following, even amongst Twilight Zone's cult following. A little girl brings home a Talky Tina talking, moving doll. Her stepfather, who is under some bill paying pressure, resents the money spent, and hates the doll. When he mistreats the doll, it starts threatening him. The mother and daughter don't hear it, of course. The stepfather, played by Kojak himself, Telly Savalas, tries to destroy Talky Tina. He can't, naturally, and Tina gets the last word...literally.

  Tina's been so popular, that there have been multiple...well. I can't say 'remakes', since there was never a real Talky Tina in the first place. But companies have made versions of Talky Tina over the years. There was a six inch action figure type Talk Tina, in 2010, made by EMCE. She was made in grey tones, to mimic the black and white episode. She had rooted hair, and was jointed at the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, ankles, and, I think, hips and knees. She was a limited edition. If you can find her these days, she isn't cheap.

  In 2013 Bif Bang Pow made an 18 inch Talky Tina doll in colour. She had vinyl head, arms, and legs, and a stuffed cloth body. She also talked and said 5 of her phrases from the show.

  In 2022 Bif Bang Pow also made a terrible 3 3/4" version of Talky Tina. Also grey, and also jointed at the neck, shoulders, and 'hips', (She really was jointed 'at the dress'.), she didn't much resemble the doll from the show. She still brings in about $60 though.

  

  The more popular, and more expensive, version of Talky Tina was a 21 inch doll made by Trick or Treat Studios in 2011. She was also made in shades of grey. She wore a recreation of Talky Tina's plaid dress, white ankle socks, and Mary Jane shoes. She was all vinyl, and jointed like a standard Brickette doll, at the neck, shoulders and hips. She had rooted hair, and actually talked. Tina said 'all' her phrases from the TV show, like "I'm Talky Tina, and you'll be sorry." "I'm Talky Tina, and I don't think I like you." She wasn't a pull string doll, like the one on the show. She used batteries. Still. She looks just like Talky Tina, and therefore, just like Brickette. Of course, she's also about $600 these days. $300 if you're lucky.

  So those of you who may be longing for a Talky Tina of your very own will be glad to hear that there's a new Talky Tina in town, and she's available in today's Black Friday sales from Entertainment Earth for only $123.50. She's limited to 1,004 pieces worldwide.

  This Tina is 18 inches tall, which is slightly smaller than the Brikette doll used as Tina in the show. She has a vinyl head, and limbs, and a stuffed cloth body, so that's different too. The original was all vinyl/plastic. She does look authentic, and is made in shades of grey. She says 5 phrases used in the Twilight Zone episode:

 "My name is Talky Tina, and I love you very much."

"My name is Talky Tina, and I'm going to kill you."
"My name is Talky Tina, and you'll be sorry."
"My name is Talky Tina, and you'd better be nice to me."
"My name is Talky Tina, and I don't think I like you."

  She has rooted hair and sleep eyes, and a plaid dress that is not removable, since the wind up cranks are through her dress. (I'm not sure they're functional.)

  Now get out there and buy your Talky Tina...or you'll be sorry.