Doll-A-Day 2023 #265: Ella Cinders

   Today's doll is Ella Cinders.

  Ella Cinders, an obvious transposing of 'Cinderella', started life in 1925, as a comic strip, created by Charles Plumb, Fred Fox, and Roger Armstrong. The comic strip originally followed a similar storyline to "Cinderella", with 'Ella' living with her stepmother and two horrible stepsisters, who constantly gave her work to do, and generally treated her badly. In 1926 the comic strip was made into a movie starring Colleen Moore. Yes. THAT Colleen Moore. The one with the amazing dollhouse which you can still go to see at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Being as it was made in 1926, it's a silent film. You can watch the movie HERE. Colleen Moore had a similar haircut to Ella's anyway, so she was perfect for the part.

  The comic strip ran until 1961. Over the years there were also books, comic books, board games, and of course, dolls, based on the character. The original dolls, made by Horsman, had composition head, arms, and legs, with a stuffed cloth body. This doll is a Horsman reproduction, made in 1996. 

  She has a hard vinyl head, and partial limbs. Her upper arms and legs, and her body, are stuffed cloth. Her arms and legs are jointed though, at the shoulders and hips, so they can be posed a bit and hold the pose.

 

 

  For some reason her shiny plastic head appeals to me.

I also like her freckles and her slightly worried look.

This Ella is 17" tall. There was also a 9" reproduction Ella made the same year, dressed exactly the same as this one.

  She's wearing her original outfit, minus her black Mary Jane shoes.

Her dress is accented with lace and pink buttons.

  

She has a pretty flowered apron that is separate from her dress.

 

Both close in back with Velcro.

Under her dress she's wearing white pantaloons.

 

She's wearing what looks like gym socks! They are elastic knee socks.

Since her hair is painted on, she has two pink bows stuck to the top of her head.

  In spite of her hard plastic head and shiny face, she seems very cuddly. I had had about half an eye on Ella Cinders, after seeing her online. I was excited to find her in an antique mall on our anniversary day out. Ken bought her, and the Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat book for me at the same place. I like Ella even better in person.

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

Doll-A-Day 2023 #55: Brenda Starr, Girl Reporter

   Today's doll is Brenda Starr.

 This is the original 12 inch Brenda Starr, Girl Reporter doll , by Madame Alexander. 

  The doll was produced in 1964. Brenda's creator Dale Messick actually made some public appearances to promote the doll.  

  Although the doll has a long piece of hair to add to the styling possibilities, sleep eyes with eyelashes, and jointed knees, she was no match for Barbie, (which was the intention).

   Brenda came as a dressed doll, or a doll in underwear only. There were also additional fashions sold for her. 

 

  Madame Alexander chose not to pay the licensing fee for the Brenda Starr name after the first year, so in 1965, the same doll was sold as 'Yolanda'. Apparently the main difference between the Brenda Starr and Yolanda dolls is that Brenda was usually a red head, and most of the Yolanda dolls are blondes, and the Yolanda doll has slightly larger, more round eyes. Yolanda was discontinued after her only year on the market.

 'Dale' Messick was the working name of Dalia Messick. Dalia started trying to sell her comic strips straight out of high school, in the 1920's. She attended the Art Institute of Chicago, and went on to a job  designing greeting cards. After submitting more comic strips, which were rejected, Dalia decided to use a pseudonym, 'Dale', so that prospective employers wouldn't know she was female. Still, her strips were rejected.

  In 1940 Dalia created a 'girl bandit' named Brenda Starr, which she submitted to the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate. It was rejected by the syndicate chief Joseph Patterson, who was anti-female cartoonists. His assistant, a woman, suggested Dalia change Brenda to a reporter, and Patterson agreed to run the strip as a comic book supplement in the Sunday Chicago Tribune. He refused to run it in the New York Daily News at all. It didn't run in that paper until 1948, two years after Patterson passed away. 

  Brenda Starr was always a bit racey. The editors of the comic strip kept an eye out for things they disapproved of, and were know to erase cleavage and belly buttons from Brenda's image. At one point the strip was banned in Boston because Brenda was shown smoking a polka dot cigar!

  The strip was at the peak of it's popularity in the 1950's, and was appearing in 250 papers. By 2010 the strip was down to 65 papers. Dalia drew the strip until 1980, when she retired, and was replaced by various teams of female writer and illustrators over the years. The final strip ran in 2011, when it was decided the strip was no longer profitable for the Chicago Tribune, and the last writer/illustrator team decided to 'move on'.

  Brenda was a reporter for the fictional 'Flash' newspaper. She traveled the world, getting stories for the paper, dealing with  tempestuous love life, (For years Brenda had a romance with a Mystery Man with an eye patch, before being married to him at the end of Dalia's run as illustrator and writer.),and looking fabulous. The original comic strip image of Brenda was based on movie star Rita Hayworth, and Dalia always made sure Brenda's hair styles and clothes were fashionable. But Brenda was more than just a  pretty face. She was an early fighter for women's equality on the job.

  In the 1940's, Brenda Starr was represented in comic books and a movie serial. There were a couple more movies over the years, including the notorious flop starring Brooke Shields, filmed in 1986, but not released until 1992.

  Effanbee and Tonner both came out with their version of Brenda Starr. Tonner's was 16 inches tall. They also produced Brenda's eye patch wearing Mystery Man, Basil St John.

  That's today's doll. Tomorrow we'll see another one.

Doll-A-Day 2019 #189: Dennis the Menace

   Firstly, there were some comments from yesterday that were accidentally deleted somehow. If you left a comment yesterday, please repeat it,because it disappeared when I tried to publish them.
  Korglady,have you received your doll yet? If not, I have to be ashamed of the U.S. postal service,compared to the British postal service. I bought a doll the other day. I made my Paypal payment very late at night Monday,so it was actually early Tuesday morning. The seller,who was in England, wasn't familiar with sending overseas,so I asked her if she could just send it to our niece in Huddersfield. She agreed. On Wednesday Jane messaged me to let me know the doll had arrived! Now the travel time between the two places is an average of about 5 hours,but there is a faster route. Who know which one the post took? The average travel time between Korglady and me is about 4 and a half hours. So,USPS,you're under pressure here. As for the doll,you'll definitely see it when I actually get it in my possession. I'm pretty excited about it myself.
  Well,I got that pesky yard taken care of last night. I still need to go over the side yard, but the front and the tree line are whipped.And it still hasn't rained!
  Today's doll is this little fella.

He is,of course, Dennis the Menace.

This particular Dennis was made by Ideal.

He's 13 inches tall,13 and a half to the top of his cowlick.

He was sold in 1976.

He would have looked like this in his box.

His clothes are removable,and his shirt closes with snaps.

His shoes are part of his feet, and not removable.

There have been A LOT of Dennis the Menace dolls. My favourites are the 1959 vinyl Dennis with cloth clothes...
 

...and the somewhat evil looking 1950's Magic Skin Dennis. My Dennis looks like he did as the Spokescartoon for Dairy Queen.
 

  Dennis and his friends represented Dairy Queen for thirty years, between 1971 and 2001. He was retired as a mascot when Dairy Queen decided younger customers didn't really know him anymore.   Dennis has also acted as a spokescharacter for Unicef, The American Red Cross, and the Boy Scouts of America.
  Dennis the Menace premiered in 1951,as the five and a half year old main character in the comic strip of the same name, drawn by Hank Ketcham. Ketcham got the idea for the comic strip one day after his wife Alice angrily informed him that their four year old son Dennis had...uh...pooped his pants, and proceeded to spread it all over his room.
  In 1959 the TV series began it's four season run,starring Jay North as Dennis. Herbert Anderson,who played Dennis' dad, Mr. Mitchell, actually really looked like the drawings from the comic strip. Jay North,who later starred on the TV series "Maya" with Sajid Khan and an elephant,had to have his strawberry blonde hair dyed platinum blonde for the role of Dennis.

 The 1993 John Hughes' "Dennis the Menace"  movie was approved by Ketcham, as long as Hughes wrote the script himself. Hughes was a long time 'Dennis' fan, and his movie "Home Alone" was very Dennis inspired.
  When Americans think of Denis the Menace, they think of our guy,a somewhat mischievous kid who unintentionally aggravates his neighbour Mr. Wilson. But the British think of this guy:

The British Dennis, and his dog Gnasher, premiered in the children's comic book Beano in March of 1951, just five days after the premier of our Dennis.While American Dennis started out as an evil kid,doing things like hitting people with shovels and intentionally causing fights,he was eventually smoothed out to a merely rambuctious kid who unintentionally caused trouble. The British Dennis the Menace,however, is a truly evil kid. He's just intentionally mean. His slogan is 'The World's Naughtiest Boy'. The Beano Dennis was so popular that in 1974 he permanently replaced Biffo the Bear on Beano's cover.
  The real Dennis Ketcham had a similar reaction to the comic strip that Christopher Robin Milne had to his father's Winnie the Pooh books. He expressed unhappiness with his father using his childhood for his strips. Dennis Ketcham turned out to have some problems. He was kicked out of boarding school,and the older Ketcham has said he regretted naming the character after his son,saying it had 'confused' his son. In the later years of Ketcham's life he and Dennis, (the son), were somewhat estranged. However, son Scott Ketcham,born in 1977,loved the comic strip and cartooning. He became a storyboard artist for TV shows,including The X-Files. Today he is an editor on the Dennis the Menace comic strip.
  That's today's doll. See you tomorrow for another one.

Doll-A-Day 2017 #354: Pig Pen

  Wow. Only 10 more days to go in this year of dolls. I'm this close to completing a whole year,with no missing days. I didn't manage that the last time I did this,but then there were alot of things that prevented it last time, including my dad passing away. But, as close as I am this year, there is something now that may prevent me from finishing...
  Have I ever mentioned that I have a back problem? Ok, that's an understatement. I have a lot of back problems. Way back in 1983 or 84 I shredded,(Complete with ripping sound.), my back, lifting something at work. I was in agony for ages,and my back has never been the same. It hurt so bad that I felt sick,and the pain was so relentless that I would go home at night and just lay in the floor and cry. There was no escape from the intense pain and it just drove me insane after a while But I never missed a day of work.That was pretty stupid actually. I would have healed a lot better and more quickly if I had rested my back. I had a worker's compensation claim going, so I could have been paid while I was off too. But that felt wrong to me. Now I think I should have taken time off.
  At the time I had a lot of tests done to see exactly what was up with my back, and found out that I never really had a whole back in the first place. Apparently I was born with only a 'rudimentary vertebrae and rudimentary joint' in the lower part of my back. So probably not a good idea to be lifting heavy stuff in the first place.
  Then I hurt my shoulder at my next job. I was a cashier in the electronics department. We were expected to stock the shelves too,and if the stuff wasn't put up off the selling floor by the end of the day, we were in trouble. I used to carry TV sets up a 16 foot ladder to stack them three TVs tall on the shelf above the actual selling floor. At 5' tall and 105 pounds,that was undoubtedly more than I should have been doing.  But I learned that if you aren't the cute flirty girls, the stockroom guys wouldn't help you do squat. My shoulder got strained or sprained or something. I had such intense pain I used to sit behind the counter when I got a chance, and shove the corner of a microwave box into my shoulder blade to relive the pain. My back occasionally went out too. I nearly passed out from the pain once when I leaned over to get something out of the showcase for someone.(The customer panicked and asked if I was ok. The manager of the store,who was standing next to me, totally ignored me.)
  So ever since then my back and shoulder go out on me occasionally. Ken still freaks out when he thinks about the time, right after we moved into our house, that my shoulder went out, and the pain was so intense I could hardly speak. With all the box shifting I've been doing lately, lifting, and being on my feet a lot,my back has been bad lately. Last night I could hardly get into bed. Our bed is a pretty tall old four poster that was old when it entered in my family when I was a kid. I have been telling Ken that when I get old I'm going to need a step stool to get in and out of bed. I really could have used it last night. When I tried to go to bed I ended up dangling with one knee up on the bed and my face in the bed, screaming every time I tried to get the other leg onto the bed. Eventually I forced myself up, but I'm sure the neighbours heard me do it! I spent most of today in bed unable to move.
  So hopefully I'll be able to get around enough to keep up with the posts throughout the end of the year.
  Today's doll is from one of my favourite Christmas shows,"A Charlie Brown Christmas".

He's Pig Pen. Luckily I had these photos of him already taken. I discovered recently that I had two of them! (That happens sometimes!) I took these of the one I sold,or I wouldn't have a doll for today.

This doll was made by PMI. They made quite a few of the characters. I'm particularly fond of Pig Pen, with his crazy plastic hair,the Linus and pumpkin patch set, and the teacher's desk included in one of the sets. It talks,with that 'whaa whaat' Charlie Brown's teacher's voice.

He's trade marked UFS: United Features Syndicate.

He's 5" tall.

You have to love all the dirt marks and his hair. I love the bit in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" where Freida complains that Pig Pen's dust is taking the curl out of her 'naturally curly hair'. Charlie Brown responds,"Don't think of it as dust. Think of it as maybe the soil of some great past civilization. Maybe the soil of ancient Babylon. It staggers the imagination. He may be carrying soil that was trod upon by Solomon, or even Nebuchadnezzar." Then Pig Pen says, "Sort of makes you want to treat me with more respect, doesn't it?"You can watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" HERE.
  Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow!