A New Gift and a Barbie Mystery For You to Solve

   I have to thank reader Treesa for a recent gift. She read a recent post where I was loving the new Poison Ivy doll, so she sent me the closet thing she had: another Poison Ivy doll, for World Doll Day! I have been very lax in showing you the gifts Treesa sent me at Christmas time last year, but I am showing you this one. Following that, I have a dilemma I'm hoping you Barbie scholars can help with.

 Treesa says the doll is the Super Hero Girls Poison Ivy, redressed in a Crayola Pixie Doodles doll Razzle Dazzle Rose fashion pack dress, and she has named her Poppy.

  She has jointy wrists, elbows, and knees.

 I've been having a lot of trouble getting around lately, due to my sciatica acting up, so I had to take the pictures without getting down to the doll's level. Sorry about the quality.

  Now, while I have you here, I have a mystery that needs solved. Maybe one of you can help. Emma, who works for ShopGoodwill, got this dress in recently. She recognized it as a vintage Barbie dress, and it is tagged, but, even though she searched online, she couldn't find this dress anywhere. 

  I recognized the fabric right away as the same fabric used for Francie's skating outfit, in the JC Penney exclusive Sportin' Set. But I couldn't find it either. Does anybody know what it's called? If you do, please leave the answer in the comments.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #326: Hawaiian Barbie

   Today's doll has seen better days, but apparently she's rather rare. So we'll look at her even though she isn't as much to look at as she used to be. She's Hawaiian Barbie.

  There has been more than one Hawaiian Barbie. This one is from 1975.

  This is her original bathing suit. 

She also originally came with a lei and a grass skirt.

This girl has a bigger forehead than Sade, (if anybody remembers her. I liked her.)

  That's today's doll. See you tomorrow, when we start trying to catch up for the year, before it's next year. 

Doll-A-Day 2023 #317: Barbie's Toy Dog

   You know sometimes you buy a bunch of things and amongst them there is a  cute little thing, and you wonder, "hmm. I wonder what that goes to?" Today's 'doll' is one of those things that probably stumps a lot of people. 

 He's a cute felt dog, about a couple of inches tall.. He might be mistaken for a homemade dog. But he is, in fact, Barbie's toy dog, from one of the first Barbie fashions, Nighty Negligee.

Nighty Negligee was produced for the first five years of Barbie's history, (1959 to 1964.), meaning, there are quite a few of these guys around. 

They show up fairly often in lots of vintage Barbie stuff. However, since he is real wool felt, he sometimes has had run ins with critters smaller than himself, who have snacked upon him.

  Barbie's dog coordinates with the blue cat from Skipper's pajama set, "Dreamtime".

  That's today's doll. It will soon be the end of November, and you still haven't gotten last month's Doll Book of the Month! You will get one this month though. Two, if I'm really a good girl. Then December will be upon us, and we'll see how many Christmasy dolls I can come up with. Who knows? See you tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #91: Kissing Barbie

   Today's doll is one of the butt ugliest dolls Mattel ever made. She's Kissing Barbie.

  What was Mattel thinking? This thing is homely!

She does have a gimmick though. When you press the button in her back, she puckers. 

And her head is stitched closed! She's like a Frankenstein. That stitch doesn't always stay closed either. And how many curious kids do you think cut that stitch to see what was inside her head?

And ideally she makes a smacky kissing noise, but mine's not making it any more. Here's her regular face compared with the kissy face.

No kissy.

Kissy kissy.

She even came with lipstick, so she could leave a kiss mark on Ken's face, or your hand...or the furniture, walls, or your brother. 

  A lot of these dolls are found stuck in the pucker position, making them look like they've had bad upper lip implants. This doll isn't quite as ugly as many I've seen. Still.

I think her pucker is somewhat stuck, because when activated, there isn't as much difference from her regular mouth, and not as much as in most of the Kissing Barbies I've seen. And even when she's not being activated, there's still something of a pucker.

 

She was produced in 1979. She has an era appropriate dress, which is emblazoned with lips, in case you forget what doll you bought.

The bodice has ruffles.

  The dress also has flowers printed on it, but it depends on which part of the fabric was used where, as to whether or not they are very visible. They can be overpowered by the lip design. 

You can barely see the flowers here.

This dress on the left, compared with another Kissing Barbie dress on the right. See what I mean?

She has those weird arms I always hated. They look like she's trying to describe the size of the fish she caught.

But I guess they're good for hailing a cab.

  Her hair looks a little thin in the front, but it's not. She just doesn't have that piece of hair pulled over to her right to make swoopy bangs.

She actually has a very full head of hair. This was before Mattel over rooted every doll in the 80's and 90's.

 

  I'm sorry. Does it sound like I don't like this doll? Well I don't. I think she's ugly. She has a pretty dress. She has a gimmick that could be pretty neat, I guess. It just didn't work out the way it was intended.

  So that's today's doll. Ivy is coming for Easter! We haven't seen her since Ken's birthday in February, and who knows when we'll see her again. She's busy working doing alterations at David's Bridal in Indiana, and living in her own apartment. So, we'll see you tomorrow for another doll.

Doll-A-Day 2019 #343: Elly May Clampett

Today we're visiting with an old friend from the 60's. She's this lady.

She's Elly May Clampett.

Elly May was a character from the popular TV show,"The Beverly Hillbillies",which ran from 1962 to 1971.

The cast of the original Beverly Hillbillies. Elly May was portrayed by Donna Douglas, far right.

She is made using the retro Barbie sculpt.

Not just the face,but the body too.
 

I think they made new molds for the retro Barbie dolls,because the original molds were no longer usable.

They got a lot of things right with this doll,including her jeans and rope belt...

 

...her unnaturally fitted button up blouse...

...and her twin ponytails with pink ribbons.

One thing they did not get right is her shoes.

Elly May wore penny loafers,not wedge heels. I'm sure her character would have objected strongly to them. Elly May was definitely a Tom Boy,and you can't chase 'critters' in wedge heels. I realize you also can't keep penny loafers on those high heel Barbie feet. But still...

Her jeans are so tight that this is as far as she can sit down!

   Elly May is from the 2010 Barbie Collector Pink Label series of dolls, which also included Samantha from "Bewitched", and Jeannie, from "I Dream of Jeannie",both also in the vintage Barbie sculpt. (You can see Ivy's Jeannie doll HERE.Elly May is hers too. And yes, she loved both shows.) I think it would have been a good idea for them to also have done Lisa,from "Green Acres",who was played by Eva Gabor.

Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor,Zsa Zsa's little sister, in "Green Acres".

Not as iconic maybe, but she was made to be portrayed by a Barbie doll.
  Elly May has been a doll a few times. The first time was in 1964, during the run of the show. Officially the doll was called Calico Lassie,but she bore a striking (and unlicensed), resemblance to Elly May. Her hair was in two ponytails,and she wore a fitted button up shirt, and jeans with a rope belt. The doll was available as a mail-in offer from Kellogg's Corn Flakes. She looks similar to Ideal's Tammy, the Horsman dolls of the era,like Mary Poppins,and most of all, Shelley by Eegee. (You can see my Shelley HERE.)

 

The second Elly May doll was sold in 1997,when Premiere/Exclusive Toy Products,who do a pretty  good job with their male dolls,made a really ugly Elly May for it's three doll "Beverly Hillbillies" line. (The other two dolls in the series were Jed and Jethro.) Premiere/Exclusive Toy Products made several dolls I have featured on the blog,including Ingrid Bergman from "Casablanca", Laurel and Hardy, and the Gilligan's Island dolls.
   The Beverly Hillbillies was still popular when it was cancelled in 1971,when CBS decided to cancel all of it's 'rural programming',in what was to become known as the 'Rural Purge'. This included "Green Acres", the 'Andy Griffith Show' replacement, "Mayberry RFD",and "Petticoat Junction, which had already met it's fate the previous year. The idea was to do away with the programs set in a rural environment, and replace them with more sophisticated shows.Trivia: Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and The Beverly Hillbillies were all connected, and many of the stars of the shows appeared on the other shows. Green Acres and Petticoat Junction were all based around a town called Hooterville. The Beverly Hillbillies were from a nearby area, and showed up on the other two shows ocasionally. Bea Benederet,the voice of Betty Rubble and Lucille Ball's first choice for the role of Ethel Mertz,originally appeared as Jethro's mother,Mrs. Bodean,on The Beverly Hillbillies. Eventually the character was dropped,and Benederet went on to Petticoat Junction as Kate, owner of the Shady Rest Hotel. 

 Donna Douglas passed away in 2015, at the age of 82.
   That's the doll for today. Tomorrow we'll look at another doll. Remember too, that review of a new doll is coming soon!