You Can Tell It's Martha Armstrong Hand. It's Swell!

  It is SO HOT! It's been in the 90's,and in our house, with no air conditioning, even hotter. It rained today, but it didn't help. On top of that, I can never close my computer, because if it goes off, I can't get it back on. I am going to be getting away from all this soon,to go where it's even hotter, to help Lori move. Yes, Lori is moving AGAIN. She just moved to Georgia a year ago last month. Unfortunately she is not moving back to Ohio. She's only moving about 45 minutes further North,to a place where the property taxes aren't so high. I'm going down soon to help her finish packing her house up. I'm kind of looking forward to driving 12 hours, just to sit in the air conditioned car! And of course, I get to see Lori. (I hope that didn't sound like I'm looking more forward to the air conditioning.)
  You know that old Mattel advertising slogan,"You can tell it's Mattel. It's swell!"? A more accurate version would have been,"You can tell it's Martha Armstrong Hand. It's got that face!". Martha's dolls have a particular look. Their faces are usually chubby cheeked, with big eyes. Once you've become accustomed to Martha's dolls, you can spot one easily.

Martha with some of her creations, including Baby First Step, Shoppin' Sheryl,Drowsy,Baby Beans,Baby Pattaburp, (on her lap), Tearful Cheerful,and Tatters on the right of her lap.

  Back in the 60's and 70's many of Mattel's dolls were sculpted by Martha Armstrong Hand. Some of her Mattel sculpts include  Baby Pattaburp, Baby First Step, most of the first Liddle Kiddles, the Sunshine Family, Rosebud Baby, Love n Touch Baby, New Living Skipper, Drowsy, Baby Beans, Barbie family dolls Skipper, Midge, Alan, Skooter, Ricky, Tutti, Toddd, and Barbie's friend Steffie, a sculpt still popular with Barbie collectors and still being used by Mattel. She also sculpted the heads for Tutti's friend Chris, and the Tutti sized Buffy doll. Both Chris and Buffy's heads had previously been used for Kiddles. Several of Martha's dolls have been featured here on the blog. Baby First Step had her day HERE.

Shoppin' Sheryl was seen HERE.

Different versions of Drowsy were posted HERE and HERE.

Other dolls made form the Drowsy head sculpt were seen HERE and HERE.

Cuddly Beans.

 

Sleeper Keeper.

    You can see a Rosebud Baby HERE.
 

Malibu P.J.,who has the Steffie head sculpt can be seen HERE.
 

 Love N Touch Baby was featured in THIS POST.

You saw one of my Living Skippers HERE.

  Martha was well known as a doll artist, but in her early career she worked for View Master, costuming, and, eventually, sculpting figures for the 3-D photos.

This is from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea".

Martha sculpted many of the figures for the View Master Disney reels. I used to love the 3-D settings View Master did, like this one from Bambi.

Martha, working on a View Master setting.

Martha touches up her Bambi.

Her Disney sculpts for View Master included Peter Pan, Bambi, Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge and Chip and Dale.
  Martha also did some work assisting animators at Hanna Barbara on such well known characters as Tom and Jerry.
   Martha is known for her 'ahead of their time' ball jointed dolls, which were extremely posable. She authored the book, "Learning to be a Doll Artist", which showed how her ball jointed dolls were made.
  

   Photos of Martha's amazing jointed dolls were used for the book, "Living Dolls", written by Martha's husband, David. David is quite famous himself, having worked as an animator at Disney, and as supervising director on "Snow White" and "Bambi", amongst other Disney projects.

  

The book told the imaginary story of what happened when Martha's dolls came to life.

 The photos in the book featured a collection of  limited edition dolls made by Martha, called "America's Future". The dolls, with their diverse ethnicities, represented America.

  The book is available on Amazon.
  A NIADA (National Institute of Doll Artists) member called Martha, “the most technically correct doll artist of our time”. You can see Niada's page on Martha HERE. It contains information on Martha, and some photos of her wonderful dolls.
  If you're still curious about Martha Armstrong Hand and her dolls, a video called, "The Work of Martha Armstrong Hand" can be purchased HERE. It can also be viewed on YouTube HERE.

The Toys of Christmas Past: Lori's Photos Part Four: 1965 and 1966

  There are only two photos in this post,but there are still some interesting toys. We'll start with Christmas, 1965.

  In this photo four year old Lori is holding her Baby First Step doll. You can see my post on Baby First Step for a better look at one of the dolls, HERE. The gimmick for this Mattel doll was that she operated on batteries and actually walked. You can watch a video of the doll walking HERE. There were later versions of Baby First Step, including a talking version. Lori's is the first version though. You can see a commercial for the original version HERE.
   That's the only photo from 1965.so let's move on to Christmas, 1966.

  On the left is the Budding Beauty Vanity and matching stool,by Marx. I remember seeing those in the Christmas catalog when I was a  kid.

You can see the commercial for the Budding Beauty vanity HERE.
  On Lori's right there's a Hasbro Talking Telephone. It's the red one, which was the Mickey Mouse Talking Telephone. You can see a commercial for the Mickey Mouse Talking Telephone HERE. There were several others,including Snow White, Jungle Book, and Mary Poppins. You can see the commercial for the line of Hasbro Talking Telephones HERE.  The phones ran on batteries and used records to make them talk. There were 8 two sided records included with each phone.
  The green cube also on Lori's right is a Suzy Homemaker washing machine. Suzy Homemaker was made by Topper. There was a whole line of Suzy Homemaker
 appliances, like stoves that really baked, washing machines that really washed clothes, and a blender that really blended. I had the Suzy Homemaker blender. You can watch a commercial for the Suzy Homemaker line HERE. You can watch a video of the washing machine at work HERE. Note that it was referred to as a washer and dryer, but the only thing it did to dry was spin the water out. That's what's known as the 'spin cycle' on a washing machine, and not a drier!
  The doll Lori is holding is also made by Topper.
 

She's Baby Magic.

Baby Magic had a gimmick. She had several actions, all of which were operated without actually touching the doll.

'She does all this without touching her.' But is she 'the greatest doll ever invented'? Come on. Isn't that a bit of a huge claim?

 To say she did it all without needing to be touched was a bit misleading. She didn't have to be touched, but the actions did require a magnetic thimble to be waved over her in certain ways.

For example, to make her cry you waved the magnet over her eyes in a horizontal direction. To make her eyes open and close the magnet was waved up and down in front of her eyes. You can see her wink HERE. You could also make her riase her arms, which made her smile. Then you could press her arms down, which would change her smile to a frown. Sears offered a bunch of exclusive accessories and a nightie. Not sure if they were actual Topper Baby Magic things, or if they were just generic things Sears offered as part of their bundle.

 
  There's one more post on Lori's Christmas photos. After that we'll see my review of the newest doll from Maru and Friends. And soon we'll be off on a new year of Doll-A-Day!

Doll-A-Day 2017 #157:Baby First Step

  We had a very nice weekend. Saturday we celebrated Emma's birthday with her. We shopped, and ate at The Cheesecake Factory,and basically hung out with Emma all day. Sunday Emma threw her tea party,and I spent part of the day making mini Battenberg cakes,small lemon tea cakes with sugared roses on top, and mushroom and Parmesan vol-au-vent. Emma had lots of goodies already. She and Ivy made tea sandwiches,and hors devors,and there were cookies and pastries. This weekend put two pounds back on me! Fuzz and his girlfriend Shanna joined us all in the evening. It was the first time we had all been together since Christmas,so any weight gain was a small price to pay.
   Today's doll is this cute little girl.

She's Baby First Step.

This Baby First Step was made by Mattel in 1965.

There were other versions over the years, but this is the first one.

Later there was even a talking Baby First Step.

Talking Baby First Step at the bottom. Notice that 'Baby Step' has the same face, and shoes and socks as baby First Step. I think the skates are the same too.

She has one of those typically '1960's Mattel' cute faces,with very rosy cheeks.

There are a lot of very similar looking Mattel dolls from this era. Baby First Step strongly resembles Mattel's Dee Dee, from 1965. If Dee Dee had inset eyes instead of painted eyes, they'd pretty much look identical.

She's 18" tall.

Baby First Step's gimmick was that she walks. You can watch a YouTube video of Baby First Step walking HERE.

And you can watch the original commercial for the doll HERE.
She's operated by 2 D batteries.

The battery door is in her back.

The doll in the far right of the line up above is misleading. the legs never reach that far apart when she walks. 

This is her original dress,with built in bloomers.

Her legs are hard plastic. Her arms are a different type of hard vinyl,more like Chatty Cathy limbs.

She has her original hair ribbons too.

 It's hard to completely clean up her hairdo with those ribbons in there. They are on two small locks of hair that still have the original rubber bands on them. The ribbons are in their original bows. I am really awful at tying bows, so I hate to redo them. They'll never be the same!

Her shoes and socks are original because they don't come off.

Her socks are cotton, and look like they would be removable, but they aren't because the shoes are permanent and not removeable.
  She also had roller skates that clipped to her shoes. That was how skates really worked in those days. Skates came with a 'key' that was used to widen them so they could be fitted onto the shoes. The key was then used again to tighten the skates so they wouldn't come off. It was also helpful that there were ankle straps on the skates. Of course,I had skates like I have just described,because I'm old. I never learned to skate. I did learn to fall quite well though.
    Her head is a softer vinyl. She has sleep eyes and 'real' lashes. 

Her hair is a combination of colours,rather than just straight blonde,which makes it more realistic.

  I got this girl at an auction here in town. There were two daughters in the family whose things were being auctioned. I know this because there were several dolls being auctioned, and there were two of  all of them.Besides Baby First Step there were two Charmin Chatty dolls, and two Susie Sunshine dolls.One sister must have been quite young when they got their dolls, and one old enough to look after her dolls,because every pair contained one beautiful near minty doll, and one really loved and worn one. This Baby First Step belonged to the older sister,but I identified with the younger sister. My sister is six years older than I am, and we had the same thing going. Her dolls always looked nice, and mine were messy and bedraggled. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't keep my Penny Brite's legs from permanently swaying to one side,my GI Joe from looking mangled, or my Swirl ponytail Barbie's hair from becoming a mess so horrible she eventually needed to have her head shaved and resort to wearing Fashion Queen Barbie's wigs.

Come back tomorrow for another doll.