Doll-A-Day 2023 #310: Kenny Little

  First of all, I apologize for the blurriness of the photos. The latest development in the ongoing saga of my camera problems is that now it has ceased to work at all. I am forced to use my phone or Ken's camera, which he's not crazy about. These were taken with the phone, and it wouldn't focus on something so small.

  Today's doll is one I got at the miniature show yesterday. He's Kenny Little

  The Littles were a series of 'little' dolls, with a house and lots of furniture, released by Mattel in the early 1980's. There was a whole family of Littles, including Mr. and Mrs. Little and the baby, who came packaged together, as well as several daughters, and a son named Kenny. I see Mrs. Little and various daughters occasionally. I have never found Mr. Little or Kenny in the wild before. 

Kenny has freckles.

Kenny is about 2 inches tall, with cloth clothes over an all vinyl body.

Kenny originally came with a rocking horse, a wagon, a teddy bear, a blanket, and a pillow. He had a twin sister named Becky, who came separately. Becky came with a rocking chair with a cushion, tiny dollhouse, blanket, and a cat. Like all The Littles, he's jointed at the neck, shoulders, and hips.

So her can stand or sit down.

And he can raise his arms.

As I have said before, dolls are generally cheaper at toy shows, and toys are cheaper at doll shows. In addition to that, miniature shows don't put much value on dolls. They're more about the furniture, accessories, and building materials. So I only paid a dollar for Kenny.

  In spite of being 80's toys, The Littles have a very 60's/70's look about them. Am I right? Kiddley, aren't they?

  You may have seen my post on Mrs. Little and a couple of daughters. I talked a bit about the Littles universe and what was available. You can find that post HERE. I also gave you a link to a page with loads of Littles information and pictures. You can see that page HERE.

  That's the doll for today. See you tomorrow for another doll I picked up, (and actually paid for and brought back, Why do people say they 'picked it up', about things they bought?), at the miniature show. See you then.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #309: Leaky Lindsay

   Today we're taking a look at a doll based on a popular series of collector stickers from back in the 80's. It's a Garbage Pail Kids doll!

Lyndsay is 8 and a half inches tall.

  Her name is Leaky Lyndsay, and yes, she's disgusting. But if you know anything about Garbage Pail Kids, you know they were all about disgusting.

  Garbage Pail kids premiered in 1985. Unsentimental Niece was a child of the late 70's/80's, and she LOVED Garbage Pail Kids. She had quite a collection of the stickers. She actually went with us to a toy show we were dealers at once, in the late 90's, and while there she scooped up a bunch of Garbage Pail stickers she didn't have. 

  Created by Art Spiegelman, the guy behind Wacky Packages, they were extremely popular for a while. They were obviously a parody of Cabbage Patch Kids. In fact, a little too obviously.

Lyndsay's tag.

They were eventually sued by Original Appalachian Artworks, who owned the rights to Cabbage Patch Kids. The case was settled out of court, with Garbage Pail Kids agreeing to change the appearance of the characters, so they didn't resemble Cabbage Patch Kids, and the logo, so that it less resembled the Cabbage Patch logo. Sales declined after the changes, whether due to the changes, or the novelty of the product wearing off. The next series of stickers was cancelled, and the craze was over. But not before a Garbage Pail Kids movie was released in 1987. A cartoon series was stopped before it started, due to complaints by enraged parents, and only later appeared on TV and video.

Lyndsay in her display box. There were 5 other Kids in the series. She's the last Kid standing.

  

The inside of Lyndsay's tag, showing the whole collection.

 

   As with most things that have been popular with kids, when the Garbage Pail Kids kids reached adulthood, GPK made a comeback. Stickers were released again in 2003, which were actually the original (shelved) set intended for release in 1988. The next year an all new set was released. On the 20th anniversary, in 2005, GPK celebrated by releasing special randomly inserted cards available in cases at specialty stores only, that featured artwork by the original 80's GPK artists. As you can see by Lyndsay's doll, released in 2022, Garbage Pail Kids are still going strong.

  That's it for today. My sister and I went to a miniature show today, and tomorrow we'll see a doll I got there. See you then.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #269: Baby Sisters Doll

  Today's doll is a tiny one. She's a Baby Sisters doll.

  She was made by Blue Box, as far as I have been able to learn, in the late 80's or early 90's.

  The Baby Sisters are small dolls, about the size of the Uneeda Pee Wees. The dolls came in a round cannister package that included four dolls. They were cheap dolls, with the cannister of four selling for around $4. Still, they have rooted hair and actual clothes. Each set of sisters all had the same face, but different hair colours and styles. Some of the dolls had curly hair. The sisters also had totally different dresses, in different fabrics and colours, and even different styles. This doll is wearing her original dress. There seems to have been more than one series of the dolls, as I have seen others in the cannister, with different head sculpts than this one.

  I had a different doll planned from yesterday when I didn't post it. I had some other stuff to do today, and although I wasn't as tired today, I haven't felt great. So you got this girl. See you again tomorrow for another doll, but at this pint i don't know which one!

  

Doll-A-Day 2023 #268: Cool Times Ken

   I had another doll planned for today, but I'm still having trouble with that new lens, and my pictures came out blurry. I don't want to have to use a flash because of reflection from the flash so we're stuck with this. I did take another lazy day today, and, in fact, took a nap! Maybe tomorrow I'll be awake enough to take some more interesting pictures.

  Today's doll is Cool Times Ken. For some reason my computer isn't letting me copy pictures, and I wanted to keep the full picture because these guys are all for sale. So I am stuck with the full photo. Cool Times Ken is third from left.

  Cool Times Ken was made in 1988, and that kind of shows. He has a very 80's outfit, including a yellow shirt with orange sleeves and a pizza decal, black stretch pants with white stripes down the sides of the legs, and black and white checked suspenders.

Now that's an outfit.

  He doesn't have a very 80's hairstyle though. The hair looks more 70's to me.

  The Cool Times series of dolls included Cool Times Barbie, Ken, Christie, Midge, and Teresa. The outfits were full of checks and polka dots. Once again Ken was the lone guy. 

  I still haven't seen the Barbie movie. I intended to go, but the opportunity has never arisen. 

  See you tomorrow for another doll.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #224: Teddy Ruxpin

  Today we are looking at an old favourite...not of mine. I was way too old by the time this guy came around, and even Unsentimental Niece was already more than eight years old. I was aware of him at the time though, especially since I worked at a retail store. He's Teddy Ruxpin.

  Teddy Ruxpin has been the favourite of a lot of people though, since he premiered in 1985. At the time, the technology that allowed him to move his eyes and mouth in sync with the tapes that were played in the slot in his back, and essentially 'tell' stories, was considered to be pretty amazing. 

This particular Teddy Ruxpin is a later model, made by Backpack Toys, made in 2005. Like the other Teds, his battery compartment and controls are on his back, under his shirt.

Instead of cassettes, like the original Teddy, he uses digital Rom Cartirdges.

The cartridge goes in where the yellow thing is, but I tried, and it doesn't pull out. I haven't delved into the question any further, in spite of having his original instructions.

Teddy always came with books, so kids could read along while Teddy told the story.

The Treasure Series belongs to this Teddy. The other books go to a Worlds of Wonder Teddy Ruxpin. Unfortunately, we have no cassettes for the WoW books, and I'm not sure what's in his back is a ROM cartridge. I tried to pull it out and it wouldn't budge. I have no idea if this Teddy works.

  Teddy Ruxpin was the best selling toy of 1985 and 1986. He was named the official spokesbear for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children not long after his appearance in the toy world. He had his own TV show in 1986 and '87. He spawned a friend, Grubby the caterpillar, who could be connected to the WoW Teddy with a cable and the two could have conversations. Teddy also had a 'sequel' of sorts, Worlds of Wonder's Talking Mother Goose, who, like Teddy, came with a book, was activated by a cassette, (under her wing), and had moving eyes and mouth. There were WoW clothing sets available for Teddy and Grubby.

Like this nightgown and cap set. Pretty sure only the WoW Teddys had clothes available. 

  

  Worlds of Wonder, or WoW were the makers of Teddy Ruxpin, and also Laser Tag, another popular toy of the day.  WoW then came up with Nintendo. As popular as Nintendo became, it's hard to imagine that WoW had trouble selling it. But retailers were wary of video games, after video game sales died off following oversaturation of the market around 1983. In order to get Nintendo sales off the ground, WoW did a little Columbia/Three Stooges move. (In my post on the Three Stooges I explained that, while telling the Stooges that they couldn't give them a raise because their short subjects were barely making money, their studio, Columbia, was using the Stooges shorts to sell their B-movies. If theatres wanted the very popular Stooges shorts, they had to also take Columbia's lesser quality feature films.) Retailers were told that if they wanted Teddy Ruxpin and Laser Tag, they had to also take Nintendo. It worked, and Nintendo went on to massive sales. Oddly, it was Nintendo, and the company's confidence in Teddy Ruxpin, that helped kill Worlds of Wonder. In 1987 WoW invested too much in Teddy Ruxpin production, ignoring the fact that Teddy's sales had declined, while sales of Nintendo were soaring. To make a long story short, WoW overinvested in Teddy, ended up in debt, and went out of business. Since then Teddy has been made in various forms by various companies.

  My tastes run more to T.J. Bearytales. Now he is cute. This Teddy is looking for a home. If anybody want him, since he's untested and they thing in his back may or may not be a cartridge, you can have him and his instructions and book, in it's case, for $15 and postage. Just eave me a comment with your contact information.

  See you tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #220: Ginny

  Today's doll is the 1986 version of the Ginny doll.

She's a 'dress me' doll, meaning she comes in her underwear. There seems to be another thing about her that they really wanted you to know, in case you hadn't noticed.

The back of her box explains that she's not a baby, or a lady: she's a little girl.

As her box says, she's an 8 inch doll, made by Voguem which was a division of Dakin at the time.

Hard to tell through the dusty and reflective plastic on her box, but she has a gold Vogue tag on her wrist.

She comes with a comb, a two part stand...

...and a brush.

She has the same face sculpt as all the Ginny's of the 80's. It was a return to the old style Ginny face, after the 70's had changed to a more modern and slightly more realistic face.

She has sleep eyes with hard plastic lashes.

Her undies are a two piece satin set of teddy and long pantaloons.

She has a magnificent head of curly hair.

Sorry bout the annoying sticker residue.

  That's all for today. See you again tomorrow. By the way, Ginny is looking for a new home. If anybody is interested, please leave a comment with your contact information.

Doll-A-Day2023 #208: Bottle Time Baby...Twins!

 Today's doll is actually two! It's a couple of Bottle Time Baby dolls.

They were sold separately. They are about ten inches tall and are wearing their original outfits.

Bottle Time Baby is from 1984.

She has hair sculpted on the back of her head. Remember that for later.

They're obviously Mattel dolls, as you can tell from their faces. I'm guessing they were sculpted by Martha Armstrong Hand. There's a resemblance to Baby First Step, and many other Hand creations for Mattel.

As you can see from their name, and their mouths, they were meant to be bottle fed, and they did, indeed, come with a bottle. (The girl has worn paint on her lips, so I'm guessing she was fed a lot.) But there was more to their bottle than just feeding. These dolls had another gimmick: Their box exclaimed, "Twist bottle and he wiggles!" The bottle activated their arms and legs. I wondered why their limbs made ratcheting sounds when I tried to make them sit down, and their arms moved in unison with their legs.

  The boy has straight hair, and the girl has a head of curls. 

It's not as cute from behind. Well, his isn't.

Both have thinly rooted hair, but the boy's straight hair looks thinner. It has trouble laying down. I pulled some of it forward and pulled his visor down to make it stay, so he has some bangs.

I don't think it was meant to do that though.

The girl has curly bangs, and I'm pretty sure they were meant to be that way.

There's a thin spot in the hair between the back and the bangs, for the visor to sit in.

He doesn't have a thin spot like that though. He still has a string where his visor was sewn to his head.

His whole head is a thin spot. Unlike his sister, he has bangs sculpted on his forehead.

So I put the 'bangs' back.

They both have painted eyes .

   That's today doll. And don't think you're done seeing Baby Beans. Martha Armstrong Hand sculpted those too. Anyway, see you tomorrow.