363: The Muppet Christmas Carol Gonzo as Charles Dickens Funko Pop

   Christmas has passed, but the toys linger on. I spotted the Funko Muppet Christmas Carol figures online a few months ago and alerted Emma. Then she found the Amazon exclusive flocked Gonzo as Charles Dickens. We both got one. Ken gave me mine for Christmas.

  It's not just Gonzo. He also comes with Rizzo. Both ae flocked.

Here's the back of their box.

The Muppet Christmas Carol came out in 1992, when Emma was a year old. I took her to see it at the theatre. Some people will smirk at me saying this, but The Muppet Christmas Carol is one of the most accurate versions of the book, and uses more of Dickens actual prose than just about any version too.

Of course, it veers from the book in one big way: Instead of Jacob Marley, Scrooge's business partners are The Marley Brothers, Jacob and Robert. There were figures of the Marley Brothers this year too, (amongst other figures in the series), and an exclusive glow in the dark version of The Marley Brothers. Ken got me the glow in the dark one, but 'can't find it'. Uh uh. I have a feeling I know what I'm getting for my birthday...

  It was fitting that they made the ghostly Marley into two characters, and made them Statler and Waldorf. Jim Henson, who voiced Waldorf, and Richard Hunt, who voiced Statler, had both died in the two years preceding the movie. 

 I'm glad I got the flocked version of Gonzo. It's a bit more fun than the regular one.

Only his furry parts are flocked.

Rizzo is also flocked.

But they forgot to flock his hands.

  I suppose I could pass on the other characters, except I would like to have the Scrooge/Michael Caine one.

  Here we are at #363! You know what that means, don't you? It means I am in line with days of the year now! Two more days to go, and I have done every day this year, even with all that's happened. Check out today's other posts, and come back tomorrow for #364.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #325: Kelly as Lullaby Munchkin

   I would have sworn I posted this doll before, when I did a load of Ivy's Wizard of Oz dolls, (See those posts HERE, HERE, HERE, and the Dorothy doll to go with them HERE.) But I can't find her amongst my posts, so I must not have. So today, here she is. She's Kelly as Lullaby Munchkin.

  "The Wizard of Oz" scene with the Lullaby League happens when Dorothy is being welcomed to Munchkin Land, (with a fa la la la la...). There are three members of the Lullaby League, all wearing pink ballet outfits and toe shoes. Their pink outfits are shiny like this one though.

  There were three dolls in the series this girl is from. The other two wear the Lollipop Guild Munchkin, and the Munchkin Mayor. You can see both of those in more detail by following the links to Ivy's Wizard of Oz dolls above. The series was made in 2007.

 

  

  She is a pretty little doll. She looks good as a regular kid if you remove the Munchkin costume and out her in regular clothes.

Ivy, Emma, and I all have one of these dolls. She was popular around our house.

  She got a little wet in the Room of Water. She was in a box full of boxed Kelly and Tommy dolls, and several of them got a little mildew on their boxes. All survived okay in the end though. Lullaby's box plastic is just a little  dirty now. I should have cleaned it off, but I have a lot going on right now. It's Christmas time, and we're trying to prepare to get back in our house.

  That's today's doll. See you tomorrow!

Doll-A-Day 2023 #285: The Wicked Witch of the West

   Yesterday we saw Glinda, the Good Witch. She got a bit wet during the fire. Well Glinda wasn't alone on that shelf. With her was her arch nemesis, The Wicked Witch of the West. Karma must have been at work, because The Bad Witch fared worse than The Good Witch.

Sorry. I forgot to photograph her with her box lid on.

  We thought for a while that the stuff on that shelf didn't even get wet at all. So it was left while we dealt with other things. When I discovered that it had been doused with water, the witches had already started to mold. Fortunately, their boxes were the worst parts. They are moldy inside and out and between the layers of cardboard they're made of. They're going to have to be thrown away. I don't think Glinda herself even got moldy. But the Wicked Witch, on the other hand...

  The bottom of her dress got a bit moldy. (Once again, she's been sitting here without her box lid, airing out, so sorry for the dust and cat hair.)

  It's a shame too. While she doesn't look anything like Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch...

She's too pretty.

And why is her hair so curly?

... her costume is fairly screen accurate. She has the leg o' mutton sleeves...

...and the lace up bodice.

She even has the little pouch the witch carried.

And of course she ahs her witch hat. Her hat has the long, sheer tail, (or whatever you call it).

One difference from the screen costume though, is that this witch isn't wearing any stockings. As we know from the scene where the Wicked Witch runs down the stairs sneering, "Ring around the rosie, a pocketful of spears...", she was wearing black stockings. 

One really cool item included with the witch is her broom. It's a straw broom, like the real one. You'll have to excuse the look of it. Emma and AJ's cat Arthur, (Our Jimmy, Joey, and Arc's nephew.), stole it out of her box and took it to the living room to play with.

  It's a little skinnier around the part that holds the bristles in, but they got the design right.

        

Even the handle.

  One line of dialogue in the movie that always gets me is where Dorothy asks the Winkie guard if they can have the witch's broomstick, and the Winkie says, "Yes. And take it with you." What? You give it to them, but they have to leave it there? Of course they're going to take it with them. Another thing we always think of when we watch it is my fault. I made a joke when the kids were little and to this day they still repeat it. The heroes are escaping and the witch screams to her guards to chase them: "Half of you go that way, and half of you go this way!' I said, "And the rest of you follow me." (Three 'halves', get it?) 

  Poor Maragret Hamilton. Her agent called her to tell her she had a part in The Wizard of Oz. Hamilton, a former kindergarten teacher who was then 37 years old, and the mother of a little boy, excitedly asked which role. Her agent replied, "The Wicked Witch of course." That's rough, guy. She's your client. Be nice! And when she and her son saw the movie, he was scared of the Wicked Witch!

The particular line this doll is from contained dolls of most of the movie's characters.

  That's the doll for today. Unfortunately I don't have the other characters. But we'll see some other doll tomorrow. See you then.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #284: Glinda the Good Witch

  This isn't the first Glinda the Good Witch I've shown you. (See the other one HERE.) It's not even the first one Mattel has made. But she's a good one. (Well, obviously...)

  

  She could look a lot better though She was on the first landing at the house...not the one the fire was directly off of. This one was down a flight of stairs from that one. But unbeknownst to us, a shelf down there got more of the water than we thought. I found this doll, and a couple of others down there on a shelf, which I had been told didn't get wet. Guess again. They had gotten wet and were molding. This one isn't too bad. The lid and top of her box are the worst parts. Inside the box doesn't seem too bad though. I've had them sitting open getting dry adn hoping the mold would die, which I think it has. She'll still need washed, at least the bottom of her dress. And of course, while she was airing out she has collected some cat hair.

  She is part of the Barbie Collector Pink Label line.

  Here she is without the lid of her box. I only put it back on for the picture. I need to take her out of the box and clean the bottom half of her. The rest of her is fine. They did a pretty good job on her dress. It's a lot more screen accurate than the Hollywood Legends Barbie as Glinda that was made in 1996, or the singing play line Glinda Barbie doll that was made in 1999.

  

  And believe me, I know, because I spent hours with the video frozen on Glinda when I made my second Glinda, costume for Ivy, when she was Glinda for Halloween one year. Emma was Glinda one year too, but I was newer at sewing then, and didn't realize how much fabric it took to make  a really puffy skirt. By the time I made Ivy's dress, I was much better at sewing, and had figured out the volume thing. I also had come across yards and yards of tulle at a yard sale, which I washed up and used for Ivy's costume. (Somewhere on this blog there's picture of Ivy in that dress, when she used it for playing dress up, and had almost outgrown it.) There's a lot to that costume when you really look at it. There's the butterfly thing at her throat, and the one on the bodice, and the one at her hip. 

Butterfly on the sleeve too.

  Her wand isn't accurate, because the shaft was silver, and not glittery.

  Then there is also that awesome crown. I have to admit, there were certain aspects of Ivy's crown that were better than Emma's. For one thing, I thought to use fishing line to make the things the stars float on above the crown. I bought 4th of July decorations and cut the little silver foil stars off and glued them to the fishing line. But overall, Emma's crown was better. I used clear vinyl that comes on huge bolt rolls at the fabric store, and made it a few layers thick so it would stand up. I made the designs out of glue and sprinkled silver glitter on. If I redid it now I would use silver glitter hot glue, because the way I did it, it flaked off over time. Mind you, it lasted through Halloween and Emma wearing it to school for Crazy Hat Day. For one or both of the crowns I sewed rhinestone stuff along the bottom. I don't know what it's called, but it's rhinestone stuff you buy by the yard at the fabric store. I know that on Ivy's I also sewed it along the part where the bodice joins the skirt. If you really look at the movie, there are rhinestones there.

They didn't do as good a job on her hair though. The real Glinda, played by Billie Burke, had thick waves that curled at the bottom.

 

  And honestly, Billie Burke was prettier too.

   In 2014 Mattel produced a Glinda doll for the 75th anniversary of the movie. She had a Billie Burke head sculpt that wasn't too bad. She also had jointed elbows, and her dress and want were a lot like this one, if not a little less screen accurate.

 For this line of dolls they made most of the other characters from the movie. The Winkie guard and flying monkey were great!

  That's today's doll. Come back tomorrow, (as the Wizard said.), and see what doll we're looking at then.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #195: Mini Mary Poppins

   This will be a quick post today, because I have been having a bad time with my shoulder. It's been popping in and out in what I think is called  shoulder sublaxation. It's been really painful for a while, and for the last three days or so I haven't been able to get it popped back, to the point where it's less painful, and I can actually do things like reach behind me without screaming. This morning I finally got it popped back, and even though it still hurts, I did manage to get a bra on today, and try on my dress for Emma's wedding! So I thought I'd take it fairly easy today and let my shoulder pain die down a bit more.

  So, today's doll is a tiny one, rescued from the dollhouse. She's a tiny Mary Poppins.

Mary is looking a bit grubby these days. Sorry about that. But at least she made it through the fire and the piling of all the dollhouse things into boxes. Some of the stuff I'm sure was rounded up off the floor, so she could have ended up trampled.

She's about 2 inches tall.

I got her at a yard sale. At the sale there were several room boxes made by the wife of the guy running the yard sale. They were all really cool, and full of good stuff. Most of it she had bought, but I think her husband said she made the little dolls.

 

I'm not sure if I was making my own tiny dolls by then or not. If not, they were almost certainly inspired by this lady's dolls. She, in turn, may have been inspird by an old copy of Nutshell News miniatures magazine, which showed how to make tiny dolls, with wooden bead heads, like these.

  I would have liked to have bought more of the lady's room boxes, but I only bought one. It was a big, plain wooden box made into what I think was supposed to be Santa's workshop, but it really just looked like a toy store with a table in the middle with Santa and an elf at it. A bunch of my favourite tiny toys came out of that room box, and it was FILLED with miniature dolls. I wanted to be able to use all the toys, and I didn't like the flooring and some of the other aspects, so I...don't kill me! I took it apart. I took the stuff out and plan to use the box to make my own room box. 

She looks really grubby!

  To clarify a few details, the dollhouse sat on a chest, in a corner of the first landing, (at a point where the two flights of stairs meet.), and was jostled by the firefighters. I guess some things got knocked out. The house has since made it's way up the stairs to the main landing, just outside Fuzzy's room, to make carrying the stuff out of the room and down the stairs easier. I know when Emma and her friends rescued stuff from the house, not long after the fire, she said one of her friends was loading a box with miniatures. Some of them were in the floor I guess. I know a few things are broken, including the beautiful wooden and ceramic screen I have. It's fixable, but will never be perfect. I am missing a few small things, including a kitchen cannister and most of the lids. I still have some super tiny things though, like the kitchen match holder, and the tiny spatula. The glass cookie jar and lid made it too. And my Claudon cats! Of all the things in the dollhouse, I worried about my dollhouse dolls and my Claudon cats! The cats were in a ziplock bag, awaiting their own house, so they stayed nice and clean.

  See you tomorrow!