Willa

 I remember Zombies from a few years ago.  It was on one of the Disney channels or services.  Nothing about it appealed to me, not even the dolls I saw in stores.  Therefore I know next to nothing about this franchise.  Less even than I knew about Nightmare Before Christmas on my last review.

MyFroggyStuff recently reviewed three new dolls from that line.  From Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires.  Two of the dolls are blondes with a bad case of Vapid Face.  But Willa... 

If Sally was little-goth-on-the-prairie, Willa is gothic mountaineer.

I guess she's a werewolf.  Her last name has "Lycan" in it and the box mentions she's the leader of the pack. There's a wolf on her belt buckle.

Girl's got some hair!  

Her bicep wrap and rope bracelet came off with the packaging.  Necklace and belt were not on her person.  I'm going to take a stab in the dark and assume the necklace is a moonstone amulet of great power. 

Several tattoos on her arms.  You can also get a gander at that beautiful shirt and the bracelets that stayed put.  The tattoos look like art from a certain Disney Princess who shares ethnicity with a certain other-franchise lycanthrope.  

She goes to the same hair stylist as Bellatrix.

MyFroggyStuff says that's makeup, but she's my doll and I say it's facial tattoos like Midna's.  

Pointy ears like Midna.  (Midna is a Fairytopia Sunburst, by the way, rebodied.) 

 

Willa with Tris, Four, and Midna.  Showing off their ink!  

Disney ily 4EVER

WARNING NEKKID DOLL BOOBIES

RUN FOR THE HILLS 

I haven't bought any of the Disney ily 4EVER dolls for a couple of reasons.  One, they are ridiculously expensive.  I don't even want to think about the price of the Disney Store versions.  The Jakks Pacific play line ones are more than a Barbie with more articulation.  Two, the only ily thing I've seen that really fired me up is this fashion pack.  Which I did buy.  Don't ask the price.

 They're based on the tradition of Disney Bounding, in which a guest at the amusement park dresses "inspired by" a favorite character as a way to circumvent rules against adults in actual costume.  None of them floated my boat until I spotted this gal. 

I didn't buy her but kept eyeballing her.  The high price was mitigated for me by the second outfit, but still more than I was willing to pay.  Today I found her in the Clearance aisle for less than 20!  You know she hopped right in my cart.

Some of the outfits don't strike me as practical for a day at the amusement park!

 I must confess I have never seen Nightmare Before Christmas.  What struck me about this doll was the whole Little-Goth-On-The-Prairie thing she has going on.  Unlike most of the dolls in this line, this gal bears a passing resemblance to her inspiration. I'm just going to go ahead and call her Sally.

Her earrings (which are removable) look like Jack Skellington.  Her hair tangles badly around that gray coming out of his noggin.  I might snip that - the gray, not the hair.

Here she is in her second outfit.

She has molded on panties and lots of articulation.  You know I gotta have them knees and elbows!

Her coffin shaped bag opens.  The necklace features the curvy hill I see in much of the Nightmare merchandising and the purse charm looks like Jack's ghost dog.  The clutch purse doesn't open and the handle has the ghost dog and a Jack head.  I could not manage a decent picture of it, but that's some cool detail.  The clutch makes me think of Yzma (Wrong movie, Kronk!).

Phoebe (a reissue Barbie and the Rockers doll) is similar in articulation.  Sally's head and feet are  larger, but that's okay.  A lot of my dolls have more realistically sized feet than Barbie.  And Sally's head ain't bigger than her torso like certain (freaky) doll lines I could name.  Jakks Pacific does dolls well.

Lil McDonald's POP

 

My Barbies got all kinds of goodies today!  One of the shift managers at our local Micky Dee's is a friend of mine and claimed this POP (point of purchase) display on sight.  "For Jeanie, for her dolls."

Of course, we had to wait until after these toys were featured and the POP came down.  

The scale is all over the place, but that's nothing a bit of imagination can't fix.

One problem with a POP is the white squares that hold the toys in place.  They always leave some of themselves behind.  But that is absolutely not a deal breaker here.

There's your problem.

We'll start with the Happy Meals.  There's even one tray that's just a huge order of fries.  The bigger ones and the Halloween bucket open. 

 The bucket has a sticker on top of a sticker sheet.  The boxes have real sticker sheets inside.  

The scale on these is excellent for the Barbies.  

These aren't bad either.  I think a true to-scale Happy Meal box would be somewhere in between the sizes we got from this POP.  I can certainly see why my friend thought of my dolls.

The bits pictured here are almost to scale with each other, except for the giant drive up menu!  Most of these are static (they don't do anything) but the truck rolls and...

The roof comes off the building!  The interior wall is cardboard, glued in place.

Jenny for scale.

Most of these have interactive features.

The order kiosk and POP have double sided paper inserts.  POP can be empty shelves and kiosk can be in waiting mode.  The register screen tilts.

The register is a good size for the dolls.  The kiosk and POP are too small to be toys, but work well on a doll-size counter.  

The dolls' dolls can have a seat in the booth.

Drink station, fries in the fryer, burgers on the grill.  

Fries are up and burgers are seasoned.

Ice is pouring and the platen on the grill is down.

A play cell phone with the McD's app on screen and its own case! Real phone for comparison.  

A bit large for the dolls.  Maybe I could use it as a wall-mounted order kiosk.  Or Gage might be holding a really big tablet. 

Either way, quite a score!  My dolls are happy!

Barbie Exhibit

We went to Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal for the Barbie Exhibit.  

CMC seems to be developing a habit of having these things during June. 

Twice now they've lured me in with Pompeii.

It's like they know when my birthday is!

This is the first thing in the exhibit proper.

This is the main reason I so love Barbie.

This was slightly later, after the story of how Ruth Handler created Barbie.

Barbie has always been about the possibilities.

I'll fight anyone who says different.

Here's me in the original Barbie Dream House.

They had a lot of these fun photo ops!  

My minions got pictures in a Disco and with a surfboard.

Most of us got into Barbie's Corvette.

We even got into Barbie Boxes!

They give a good overview of how the dolls are made.

Most of the exhibit is in chronological order, showing dolls, accessories, and fashions.

It was fun and informative for our whole group, even those not into Barbie (weirdos).

Recommended for all Barbie Lovers and their weirdos.

Doll Dramatics: Shirley Jackson's "Charles"

 This story is the property of the Shirley Jackson estate.  I am doing this as a homage to one of my favorite writers and making no money from it. 

Charles was first published in 1948.  I've updated certain details and altered it to fit this format.  

Mother: Do you think kindergarten is upsetting Laurie?  All this tough act, bad grammar, and this Charles boy sounds like such a bad influence.

Father:  He does.  Cussing, hitting the teacher, bouncing a seesaw off someone's head, disrupting lessons, and throwing chalk.  But it will be all right.  Bound to be people like Charles in the world.    Might as well meet them now as later.

Laurie: Charles yelled.  The teacher from first grade sent a boy to tell the teacher to keep quiet and Charles had to stay in at recess.  

Laurie:  Teacher had a friend come to see her at school today.  It was a man who came and he made us do exercises, we had to touch our toes.  Charles didn't even do exercises.

Father (coming in): Didn't Charles want to do exercises?

Laurie: Hi Pop, ya ole dust mop.  Charles wasn't allowed to do exercises because he kicked the teacher's friend. 

Mother: I want to go to the PTA meeting but the baby and I are sick.  I wonder what they're going to do about Charles. 

Laurie: Throw him out of school, I guess.

Father: What else has Charles gotten up to? 

Laurie: He yelled during story time and hit another boy in the stomach.  

Laurie: Charles was so good today the teacher gave him an apple.  

Mother: Really?  Charles?

Laurie: He gave out the crayons and collected the books and Teacher said he was a helper.  

Laurie: Yesterday, Charles told a girl to say a bad word and she said it! Charles told her to say it twice and she did. She had to sit in Time Out.  

Father: What about Charles?  

Laurie: Nothing.  He was passing out crayons.  Then, today he said it a few times and threw chalk.  

Mother:  I'm definitely going to the PTA meeting, cold or no cold.  

Mother looks for Charles's mother at the meeting, but no one looks haggard enough.  No one stands up to apologize for the way her son was acting.  No one mentions Charles.  After the meeting, she seeks out the kindergarten teacher.

Mother:  I've been so anxious to meet you.  I'm Laurie's mother.

Teacher: We're all so interested in Laurie.

Mother: He certainly likes kindergarten.  He talks about it all the time. 

Teacher: We had a little trouble adjusting, the first week or so, but now he's a fine little helper.  With occasional lapses, of course. 

Mother: Laurie usually adjusts very quickly.  I suppose this time it's Charles's influence.  You must have your hands full in this kindergarten, with Charles.

Teacher: Charles?  We don't have any Charles in the kindergarten.