Doll-A-Day 2023 #230: Dolly Parton

   Here's a little preview of the doll show from today. It's a celebration of Dolly Parton. And why? Because it's aways a good time to celebrate Dolly Parton, because she's awesome.

As it says, she is a 12 inch posable doll.

  This Dolly Parton doll was made by Eegee/Goldberger, in 1978. It isn't nearly as pretty as the real thing.

Her outfit is pretty on point though, and typical of the kind of thing Dolly wore around that time.

She has Dolly's signature mole, but the hair isn't nearly big enough.

  In 1978 Dolly was seeing a new popularity, following her first million selling single, and her first pop chart top ten single, Here You Come Again", the previous year. She won a Grammy in 1978 for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for the album "Here You Come Again".

  There were other Dolly Parton dolls, made by Goldberger, and other companies. None of them are very good likenesses.

  That's today's doll. Tomorrow we'll look at another one.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #98: Flowerkins Black Eyed Suzie

   I'm embarrassed to say that the dealer told me who this doll is and I forgot! And I can't find her online at all.

UPDATE: She's from a series called Flowerkins. They all were named after flowers and had hats shaped like upturned, (downturned?), flowers. This particular doll represented the black eyed Susan flower, and her name is Black Eyed Suzie. She would have originally had an orange felt flower hat and orange felt shoes with cardboard soles. I swear the dealer gave me some other name for her, because this is nothing like the vague memory I have of the type of name. They were wring I guess, because I have seen pictures of the whole series of six of these dolls together, and with their hang tags and hats and shoes. So there you are. More updates throughout the post, below.

Her sleeves had gathers abive the wrist. You can still see the stitches, but they aren't gathered any more.

  I got her at a doll show recently for only $5. I thought she was so cute that I couldn't resist.

Not all of the dolls in the series had the same head sculpt, but at least three of them had this one.

She's 16 inches tall.

She's marked Eegee on her head, and Goldberger on her body. That's because they were the same company.

  She was made in 1963. That makes this little girl 60 years old!

She has the standard five points of articulation: neck, shoulders, and hips.  This allows her to sit down.

She has a cute, goofy smile, and a little double chin.

  She has big brown sleep eyes and brush lashes.

And funny high dimples and a watermelon smile.

There's that double chin again.

  I don't know if any of her clothes are original. I think the dress might be.

The orange skirt is a separate piece.

But the tights are short and sewn to her underwear because they can't be pulled up all the way.

  She also has cute little kid hands.

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

Doll-A-Day 285: Happy Birthday Ivy! and Goldberger "Baby"

  It''s been quite a day. Thank goodness Emma is running everybody back and forth tonight because I don't think it's safe for me to drive! Today is Ivy's birthday, so I had a cake to bake. As I told Ken, Murphy's Law, ("Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."), was in full effect today. From letting an egg roll off the counter and break in the floor, to the cake batter not spreading out in the pan, producing a somewhat dry, (albeit delicious) cow pattie, to the glaze running off the cake and all over the place,to starting to cut and serve the cake before putting the candles on and letting Ivy blow them out, I was on a roll today.(And so was that egg...) It didn't help that I still have some of this cold and woke up feeling nauseous this morning. My back was killing me all day too, but at least the headache that has accompanied this cold seems to be over.
  As I said, today is Ivy's birthday, her 15th in fact.

Ivy's pretend 'sweet' face, during her present opening. The poor kid had to fit her birthday celebration in between 2, when she got out of school,and 4 o'clock, when she was due back for 'play practice'. She'll be a beggar woman in "Les Miserables"  for three nights,starting on Friday night.

In her honour today I was going to feature her favourite small doll, Blue.

Blue on vacation in "Doll Italy", visiting the statue of David, with a strategically placed head... This is a picture from an email Blue 'sent' to Ivy while she was there years ago. She still had most of her hair then.

Blue came to us as a 'Tommy as Colonel Candy' from the Barbie Nutcracker movie, but she was so pretty we decided she must be a girl.

Wow. Did Blue ever have that much hair?!

Ivy was tiny, and only knew one colour: blue, and was naming almost every doll she got about that time 'Blue'. This Blue is the only one that still bears the name though.
  However, when I went to her room to find Blue, she was nowhere to be seen. Also AWOL was Ivy's other favourite, Blue's sister Rose.

Blue and her sister Rose, in a picture from another doll vacation email from "Doll England". These dolls 'travelled' more than I do.

See?! This is Rose and Blue in "Doll Italy" again.

(Rose was originally part of the Barbie and Kelly Bedtime Stories set. Emma and Ivy split the set, with Emma, Ivy's older sister, taking the older sister and Ivy taking the younger sister. They gave them their own middle names, Olivia, and Rose.)

Predictably though, Ivy's favourite bigger doll, "Baby" was on her bed. (Don't tell her friends, but I recently went in Ivy's room late at night and found her curled up with Baby under her chin. Shh...)

"Baby" is a Goldberger doll.

  Baby has been Ivy's favourite doll longer even than Blue and Rose.

She has a vinyl head and limbs,with a cloth body. Her original stuffing was an inflatable pouch that Fuzzy popped by squeezing her too hard when he was little. She was packaged laying on some super soft polyfill stuff because she was supposed to be 'soft as a cloud' or something like that, because she was filled with the inflatable thing. After her pillow popped we stuffed her with her 'cloud', although it has had to be supplemented over the years!

I bought her for Ivy when Ivy was a baby herself. The reason I bought her for Ivy was because at the time, Ivy only had two lower teeth, and blue eyes exactly the colour of Baby's, (Although Ivy's changed to 'green with brown in the middle', as she says.),and they looked alike.

Well, it was cute at the time...

I could put the end of my hair, (since it's long enough to do this...), over Baby's forehead and put Ivy's baby bonnet on her, and it was an amazing resemblance.

Baby was originally wearing a one piece pink suit with matching headband. Ivy, who likes to sew, at some point made her these jammies from an old t-shirt of her own.

That used to be a peace sign on there.

She never quite finished them though. She must have found these PJs while cleaning her room recently, because this is the first I've seen of them on Baby in ages.

As usual, Ken balked at buying Baby, as he does most things. He didn't see that Ivy needed her. I just kept going back to see her though, at the KayBee toy store that used to be in our local mall. Finally I put my foot down and we bought her. I'm glad we did. You never know what's going to become the 'toy love' of your child's life, the toy they'll keep forever, even if they hide it away when they're old enough for it to be embarrassing. Baby became Ivy's. (She hasn't been hidden yet though.)

Since Ivy was tiny when she got Baby, too small to make Baby talk herself,I used to make her talk to Ivy. I gave Baby a crazy voice and something of a Southern accent. I don't know why.

I'm amazed, and a bit disgusted when I see stores selling those ready made 'lovies', usually a tiny blanket with a stuffed animal head attached. You're supposed to buy those for your kid so they don't haul a ratty blanket everywhere. You can't choose what your kid will fall in love with! They'll love what they love. And as far as ratty old blankets go, although Ivy never fell in love with her blankie, my other two had very close relationships with theirs. They both had names, (Somewhat predictable ones: Baa and BaBa.), and went everywhere with them for a while, and are still dearly loved, if not used any more. Emma's even wore clothes, 'ate' plastic food,'drank' with a straw, and was even given a middle name (Rosebells). Yes, they looked a bit gross, especially later in their respective childhoods, but did that really hurt anybody? They were washed regularly, (I have a sweet picture of toddler Fuzz trying to reach Baba as 'he' hung over the shower rail to finish drying.), had a lot of repair work done, (Fuzz always made me leave the piece of satin trim hanging out that got left out in a very early repair. It became known as Baba's 'tail'.),and Baa doesn't even have any pictures you can make out on her any more.But they are full of love. In a fire they're still some of the first things I think they would grab.

She's about 15" tall. Her head is hooked on with a cable tie, and it tends to turn around backwards some times!

Baby is another of those 'fire grabs'.She's been washed many times, but she won't come clean any more. Even her nose has a dirt stain! And look at those finger tips!I think the only way I could get that off is with a baking soda scrub! I'm not sure Ivy would allow it though!

Everybody always loved Baby because the darned thing is just so crazy looking!

So, happy birthday Ivy. From me and Baby.

Doll-A-Day 151: Happy 124th Birthday to Stan Laurel:Stan Laurel Ventriloquist Dummy

  I decided to put off my post on my flea market find until tomorrow, partially because it rained before I could get all my pictures taken, and partially because I had already planned on a specific doll for today. So I'll get to the Flea Market post this week, probably tomorrow.
    Today's doll is a Stan Laurel ventriloquist doll/dummy, in celebration of what would have been Stan Laurel's 124th birthday today.

 Stan was born in Ulverston, England on this day in 1890. For more information on the real Stan, and to see some other Laurel and Hardy dolls,check out my Oscar Week post on the Hamilton Laurel and Hardy dolls.

In case you forget which one is which.

This dummy was made by Goldberger, who produced many different ventriloquist dummies, also known as 'vent dolls'.

 There was also a matching Oliver Hardy vent doll.The dolls also came in two sizes. (I mean there were two different series. Of course Laurel and Hardy were different sizes.That was kind of the point.)

The string in the back of his neck controls his mouth.

 And also, to some extent, his collar!
 This doll did come with a hat, just not when I got him.

Although most people think of Laurel and Hardy in suits, they did do several shorts dressed in bibbed overalls, but still with their stand up collars, ties, and derby hats.

If you ever check the copyright on a Laurel and Hardy item made from the 60's onward, you'll notice that it says   'Copyright Larry Harmon". Larry Harmon, obtained the rights to Laurel and Hardy's images from Stan and his wife, and Oliver Hardy's widow Lucille. Harmon was a friend of Stan's, and was known as the owner and portrayer of Bozo the Clown. (In spite of Harmon's frequent claims to have invented Bozo, Bozo was created by Alan W. Livingston in the 1940's,and was first portrayed by Pinto Colvig. Bozo even served as the mascot for Capitol Records, before Harmon bought the rights from Capitol in 1956.)

I debated using this guy, or an action figure Stan that Emma bought me. In the end this one was easier to grab and it was about to rain. But the action figure Stan will probably show up on here some day. He came in a really cool 'film canister' and has changeable hands.