Doll-A-Day 2017 #15: The Janitor, AKA 21st century Toys Mad Bomber

Today's doll has a double identity, at least in our house.

  I found this 12" tall guy at a thrift store when the kids were little. He had an interesting cranky face, and he was very different from all the other dolls we had,so I bought him.

We had no idea who he was. When the kids and I were playing doll school, which we did occasionally,and here I have to say, quite UNLIKE 'normal' school,I brought this guy out as the grouchy janitor.

Huh?

What's that noise?!

What's that?

What are those darn kids up to now?

I have to explain that I play weirdly. My kids played a little weirdly. It's just what we do. Everything has to be funny. When we played doll school there was always one kid who acted up and made smart remarks. Usually that kid was my doll, Tammy World. That's where her personality was formed. When The Janitor came to school, he wasn't a normal guy either. That's how I am. Fortunately my kids liked it. They LOVED the very disgruntled Janitor,especially Fuzzy.

All right! What's this mess?!

The Janitor was usually carrying a bucket, having just cleaned the floor.

Dag nab it! Look at this mess?! Who did this?!

"No scuffing the floor!"

As I said, he was grouchy...

Now I'm going to have to clean this up!

"No spitting on the floor!"

Especially about his floor.

"No throwing trash on the floor!"

Sometimes he would get really geared up and go on a tirade, using his whole arsenal of 'floor nos':
"No spitting on the floor,no puking on the floor,no scuffing on the floor,no dancing on the floor,no walking on the floor..."

It became a challenge to think of things he wouldn't let them do on a floor that were completely unreasonable, like walking on the floor, or sitting on the floor. Sometimes he complained about other things, like the sinks:"No washing your hands in the sink...

  When he got something cleaned he liked it to stay that way. Now that I think of it, I think somewhere in the back of my mind,there was something of my dad in The Janitor. My dad always made me dry the bathtub out when I took a shower,and the sink when I washed my hands. He used to use a lot of furniture polish on the coffee table,which had a laminated top and couldn't absorb it. Then he'd get mad if anybody touched it because it would get smeary fingerprints. He yelled at me all the time, but at least he'd wait until company left before he pulled out the dust cloth and started griping and wiping the table off. After he retired he worked as a custodian for a while and used to have a fit if anybody scuffed up his highly polished floors.
  The Janitor was one of those characters that were lovable even though they were grouchy, because he was so nutty. We still didn't know who he was originally, but it didn't matter.No matter who he had been, he would now forever be The Janitor. We saw him once at a toy show. He was loose, but he had a name on his tag,so we saw who he really was, although I had forgotten over the years. All I remembered was that he had some detailed accessories that looked very realistic. Pretty cool stuff. I remembered some disguises or something. When I decided to use him as today's doll, I had to find out who he was again. Imagine how surprised I was when he showed up in a picture online as The Mad Bomber by 21st Century Toys!

This guy had been a serious villain! Now, keep in mind he was an action figure meant for adults, and not a toy for kids.He had dynamite,a dynamite vest,(and by that I don't mean it looked really cool.) a case of C4 (with a working timer! Pretty disgusting, but a cool accessory!When the timer runs out there's an explosion sound.), a tool box that opens,a gun, a newspaper with a headline about him,and three masks, including a scary clown, a monkey, and one of those creepy clear masks.(I think those creep me out more than anything.) The little I remembered from the toy show was of somebody with disguises and so somehow I had remembered him as some kind of spy or secret agent.
   Apparently this guy didn't sell well. He was planned long before, but released right after 9/11, so the buying public wasn't too fond of him. He went on to be an on line only release, and pretty limited. But he still doesn't sell for much.So if you're in need of a mad bomber or a grouchy janitor with a really good tool box...

Darn kids!

  Join us tomorrow for another doll.

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.