Skipper’s Boys Club

Last week I was surprised (and rapt) to find the Skipper Babysitter’s Club Inc boy doll at my local Kmart. It means that now, all five of the slim box Skipper Babysitter’s Inc dolls have been released here in Australia.  It’s been so long since Skipper has had any friends, let alone a male friend, that it got me thinking about the boys Skipper has been chums with over the years.

Skipper’s male friends; Scott, Ricky, Kevin and the new Babysitter’s Inc boy.

Ricky wearing ‘Sunday Suit.’

Skipper was first given friends back in 1965, with the introduction of Scooter, a cute little pig-tailed girl, and a boy called Ricky.  I love Ricky.  He has such a fabulous face sculpt, with a cute little turned up nose, a smattering of freckles and red hair.  He really does look like a little boy straight out of a 60’s sitcom.   I always think of Scooter as being a little sister for Midge, and to me, Ricky looks like Allan’s little brother. Ricky used the same body as Skipper and Scooter, but did get his own fashions.  His original outfit was, like Ken and Allan’s, shorts, bathing jacket and cork sandals, but he was also given six additional fashions of his own, from sleepwear to his ‘Sunday Suit’.  A couple had some great accessories, ‘Little Leaguer’ came with baseball mitt and hat and ‘Skateboard Set’ came with – you guessed it – a skateboard.  Ricky was available here in Australia in 1966 for a whole $2.79.

Scott Skipper’s Boyfriend in original outfit.

Scott Skipper’s Boyfriend, hit the shelves in 1980, although I’m pretty sure it wasn’t shelves in Australia.  Skipper had been given a bit of makeover, no longer a cutesy little girl, she was now a teenager, and her male friend was now actually defined as her boyfriend, right there on his box.  Scott is one of my favourite dolls. How could he not be with that mop of hair?  He came wearing jeans, tank top, jacket and navy runners and had shorts and roller-skates in his box too, but unfortunately got no further fashions of his own.  He has a lovely face sculpt and has a new body sculpt – he’s quite buff but unfortunately, his legs don’t bend.  His copyright dates are interesting.  His body is marked 1968, which makes me wonder if a seventies update of Ricky was in the works at some time.  He also has one straight and one bent arm which is a bit strange.  Other dolls of the time either had two straight or two bent arms.  Perhaps they couldn’t decide which to give him so went with one of each.   Anyway, he reminds me a bit of Greg from ‘The Brady Bunch’ and would fit in nicely with Kristy McNichol in ‘Family’. With that smile and all that hair I can’t help but think of him as a little brother for Sport and Shave Ken.

Basketball Kevin in original outfit.

Kevin was issued in at least six incarnations from 1991, although I don’t think he hit Aussie shores until roughly 1993/4, when Toys R Us and World for Kids opened their stores.  As much as I love the idea of another male friend for Skipper, I find Kevin a bit bland and expressionless.  But then these were the days of the big headed, big eyed Skipper dolls, so they’re a good match.  Kevin’s body has the same copyright date as Scott’s, but I haven’t compared them to see if they are the same.  He has two straight arms and his legs don’t bend, making him look a bit stiff and awkward.  I have Basketball Kevin who has painted blonde hair, but some versions have brown.  He came wearing jeans, tee shirt, bright orange jacket and high-top runners, with socks, shorts and basketball also included. Kevin was given at least three fashions of his own and these were also sold here in Australia.  Two are quite nice – jeans and shirt, pants and a hoodie, albeit in 90’s fluoro colours – but one is decidedly weird, consisting of purple striped short overalls and blue tee shirt.  Not an outfit I remember being fashionable at the time (or perhaps, ever).

Skipper Babysitter’s Club Inc boy doll in original outfit.

And that brings us to the present Skipper Babysitter’s Inc boy.  I really like this doll.  He has a lovely sculpted head and new body mould, although unfortunately, like the girls in this range, his arms and legs don’t bend.  He wears a blue and grey striped tee shirt, grey pants and white runners and comes with a mobile phone and some cardboard cut outs. Skipper doesn’t even rate her own fashions these days, so I won’t hold my breath for extra outfits for this guy.  And that’s another thing.  With the exception of Skipper, none of these dolls has a name, which I find disappointing.  I suppose I’ll just have to make one up.  It’s just so nice to have another addition to Skipper’s very limited, male friend roll call.  (More about Skipper Babysitter’s Club Inc dolls can be found here)

Skipper Babysitter’s Club Inc dolls.

(C) Jennifer B – All content is subject to copyright and may not be re-published or reproduced without written permission.   

Tuesday Taylor and friends

I owe my childhood Tuesday Taylor and Dodi dolls to my older sister, a nifty gimmick (well two in Tuesday’s case) and the power of good marketing.

Made by the Ideal Toy Corporation and released around 1976/77, Tuesday Taylor was a twelve inch version of the 18 inch tall, Tiffany Taylor doll. Ideal loved a hair-play doll – their Crissy family and friends dolls had grow-hair features – and Tiffany Taylor was no exception (though unrelated to Crissy).  Tiffany had a rotating scalp, half rooted in blonde hair, half in brunette, allowing the doll’s hair colour to be changed with a twist.  This groovy gimmick was translated to the new smaller version, renamed Tuesday Taylor.  There were several issues of Tuesday Taylor, some with the rotating scalp and some without, but mine had an extra gimmick.  She’s Suntan Tuesday Taylor, put her out in the sun and watch her tan. As soon as I saw her advertised and in person, I wanted her.

My sister bought Tuesday and her little sister Dodi for me and I think she was as fascinated by them as I was.  Tuesday came in a stylish 70’s, white bikini and a groovy orange and yellow caftan and has white sandals and big gold sunglasses too.  Dodi came in a cute little red floral bikini, and both dolls have ‘sun doodles,’ little stickers that you can stick on them, then once they’re tanned, they have decorative white patches.  The dolls tan really well and every so often, I put them out in the sunlight to see if whatever magic made them tan still works.  It does, and it still fascinates me.

Of course, I loved the idea of a doll with changeable hair too, but that aspect of the doll is problematic.  I quickly learned, after two or three scalp twists that it took a lot of brushing or combing to get the hair to sit right once the scalp had been rotated, and the hair quickly started to frizz.  I was a bit disappointed but being the sort of child that liked to look after her toys, I decided that Tuesday would remain a brunette – with a few blonde streaks at the back of her head, as there really wasn’t enough of either colour to cover the other.  There were other things I loved about Tuesday too.  Not only does she have bendable legs, but bendable arms and movable wrists too.  This gave her much more flexibility than most of my Barbie dolls. She also has rooted eyelashes, something that most Barbie dolls had dispensed with.

Both Tuesday and Dodi have frizzy hair, so I gave them a quick treatment with the hair straighteners. Neither is perfect, but their hair is a lot smoother and shinier.

Being roughly the same height and build as Barbie, Tuesday was able to borrow from her wardrobe, although she did have a range of fashions of her own.  I only had one of these as a child, blue pants and a yellow tee shirt with ‘Tuesday’ printed across the front.  As far as I know, poor old Dodi didn’t have any extra fashions, so had to share with Skipper.  In fact, poor old Dodi was short changed on several fronts.  For a start, she wasn’t really a new doll. Her name, face mould, arms and body were recycled from Ideal’s Tammy dolls range from the 60’s.   Tammy’s sister, Pepper, got a friend called Dodi in 1964 and Suntan Dodi is basically this doll with a 70’s re-vamp.

Suntan Dodi and Dodi (1964) from the Tammy range of dolls. Both use the same face, arm and body mould, although their legs look to be a little different.

There was another doll in the ‘Suntan’ range, Tuesday’s boyfriend Eric, and Tuesday also had a best friend, Taylor Jones.  I don’t think either of these dolls were sold in Australia, but if they were, it must have been in limited numbers.  I don’t recall ever seeing them.  I’ve now added them to my collection and love them.  Eric is a big doll, much bigger than Ken (and he weighs a ton!), and came wearing an orange one-piece swimsuit.  Like Tuesday, he suntans, has bending arms and legs and moveable wrists.  He’s blonde, with a somewhat goofy expression and every time I look at him I’m reminded of an old ad for Masseur sandals featuring Sven the masseuse.  These dolls are prone to joint melt, and unfortunately my Eric has a bead of melt at his neck joint that I haven’t yet dealt with.

 Taylor Jones, Suntan Eric, Suntan Dodi and Suntan Tuesday Taylor make a nice little collection.

Taylor Jones is really just a black version of Tuesday, with the same rotating scalp feature but this time with black and red hair.  This was one doll I bought NRFB (never removed from the box) and – I still feel a bit guilty about it – opened.  As much as I love rescuing pre-loved dolls, it’s so nice to get that childhood feeling of opening a new doll again, and have a pristine doll.  Taylor came in an orange swimsuit with white trim and a matching white skirt with orange waistband, so she fits in nicely with the Suntan dolls.  I have so far resisted the urge to spin her scalp, though I am curious to see her as a redhead.  Her hair is so silky smooth though, I really don’t want to ruin that.

Suntan Tuesday Taylor and Taylor Jones share the same face and body moulds.  Both are gorgeous dolls, but Taylor Jones is especially beautiful.

Tuesday had a couple of nifty structures released for her.  One is the Summer/Winter Vacation House, a beach house that converts to a two story chalet and a Penthouse Apartment with a day-to-night feature.  I’m not sure that they were sold here, though if they were, again, it was in limited numbers and I’m guessing they would have been expensive.  Both look fabulous with lots of accessories and features, I would have loved these as kid (who am I kidding, I’d love these now!).

I loved these dolls as a child.  They worked well with my Barbie dolls and now, form a nice little collection on their own.  I also love the Suntan aspect.  Growing up here in Australia, sun worship is almost a part of our culture.  Although we now know something that Tuesday and friends didn’t.  The importance of slip, slop, slap.  Just where is her bottle of sunscreen?

(C) Jennifer B – All content is subject to copyright and may not be re-published or reproduced without written permission.   

Suspect Dance and Flex dolls

Today’s topic presents a dilemma.  In fact, I’m not even sure how to describe these dolls – clones, pirated, stolen?  Whatever they are, I find them irresistibly intriguing, despite the dilemma they present.  Let me explain.

These dolls were sold at a few discount stores here in Australia, around, I’m guessing, 2003/2004.  They use the Dance and Flex Barbie body, but with a variety of different head moulds and hair colours.  I’ve seen several of these dolls (though have only photographed three) and some are fairly ordinary, blonde or brunette dolls, but some, like these three, have interesting hair colours – something that collectors love.

Now to the dilemma.  There is no doubting that these are real Mattel Barbie heads and bodies – they all have the correct Mattel markings – but obviously, they are not sold by Mattel.  There are several theories as to where and how these types of dolls come to be: that they are seconds or production over-runs that the manufacturing factories keep and sell; that they are seconds or production over-runs that manufacturing factories throw out that are then stolen/rescued/re-cycled (depending on your point of view) and sold on; or that the manufacturing factories make a few extra dolls on the side to sell.  It’s probable that none of these options has Mattel’s blessing, so quite clearly their intellectual property/copyright/trademarks are being infringed.  Insert law suit here.  And this is where the dilemma arises.  I have had my copyright infringed, my work stolen and reproduced without permission, credit or payment and it sucks.  On the other hand, I find dolls like this, well, as I’ve said, irresistibly intriguing. Firstly, they present a mystery – and I love a good mystery, and second, the mix of head moulds and hair colours is brilliant.  But to buy them means I am doing to Mattel what has happened to me.  Of course, some people point out that Mattel is such a huge, multinational company, with enormous mark up on their products that its almost social justice to buy dolls like these.  Others will tell you it’s theft, pure and simple.  And it’s not just Mattel’s dolls that this happens to.

I often wonder why the companies involved don’t crack down on this problem, but then again, I suppose it’s not easy.  A few dolls here and there that are sold in faraway places like Australia, may fly under the radar, so to speak, although a few years ago now, it was rumoured that Mattel had approached Aussie authorities about cracking down on pirated goods and it did seem that clones were harder to find at that time.  Some of these ‘dilemma dolls’ are readily and easily available on online auction sites, so you’d think that it would be fairly easy to target the sellers, but no one seems to.  So, do the big companies not care?  Does chasing up these things take more time and money than they’re worth?  That still doesn’t make buying them right, but if they are out there for sale and no one else is doing anything about it, why should potential buyers?  See, dilemma.  So what to do?  To buy or not to buy? That is the question.  Well, I’m not going to tell you, you’re going to have to make your own decision there.  What I will do though, is show you these dolls.

All three of these dolls use the Dance and Flex Barbie body from 2003.  These bodies are fully articulated, but have no visible joints.  Mattel first used a body like this on the vintage Tutti dolls back in the 1960’s.  This Dance and Flex version is similar to the Takara Jenny PG (photogenic) or Natural body, first used around 1999.  This type of body does allow a wide range of very natural poses, and is great for photographing as there are no ugly joints showing, but it’s also possible to achieve some very unnatural poses, making the dolls look like a road accident victim.  I’m also guessing that like the vintage Tutti dolls, eventually the wire armature inside the limbs will break and the dolls will no longer hold poses.  Still, they are fun.  All three of these dolls do seem to have a fault of some sort on their bodies, giving weight to the factory seconds theory.

The Dance and Flex body allows for some very natural and unnatural poses with no visible joints, making them great for photographing, but also a bit disturbing!

All three of these doll’s bodies do have faults: marks in or on the vinyl, gouges in the vinyl and/or armature poking through wrists.

Three different head moulds are used on these dolls. The first is the Barbie head, but rooted with bright blue hair; the second looks as though it may be the AA Dance and Flex Barbie head which used the Asha mould, but rooted with pale blonde hair; and the third is the Shakira doll head which uses the Lea/Kayla mould, rooted in bright orange and pale blonde hair.

One doll has the Barbie face with blue hair, the second looks to be the AA Dance and Flex face but with pale blonde hair and  the third is the Shakira doll head that has the Lea/Kayla face with orange and pale blonde hair.

The clothes the dolls are wearing are fairly cheaply made outfits – and not very fashionable at that – although the shoes look to be genuine Barbie shoes or at least clones of them.  The dolls came in plastic bags simply marked ‘Dong Da Wan Ju’ and ‘NO. 168’, and cost the grand sum of $3.  I know some people bought and sold them for much, much more on online auction sites.  Wherever you stand morally and ethically on these dolls, they certainly make doll collecting a lot more interesting.

The doll’s outfits are very cheaply made and not at all fashionable, but the shoes look to be genuine Barbie or at least cloned Barbie shoes.

(C) Jennifer B – All content is subject to copyright and may not be re-published or reproduced without written permission.   

Childhood Doll Shopping

Last week, a post on a Facebook doll group got me thinking about where my childhood dolls came from.  Many were Christmas and birthday presents, but quite a few dolls and lots of fashions and accessories, I bought myself.  I used to get weekly pocket money which I saved, and I also owe thanks to my grandfather for many of my purchases.  Nana and pop lived in the country but would come to town on the train and stay for several weeks.  Pop often sat by the kitchen door, reading, and every so often as I passed by him he’d hold out his hand and say ‘here, I wrote you a note,’ and a folded up one, or if I were really lucky, two dollar note would be pressed into my palm.  At other times he’d say, ‘here take this weight off me,’ and he’d hand over all the loose change in his pocket.  I’d save every penny and then when I had enough, spend it on dolls.

Quick Curl Cara (in a Best Buy fashion and in original outfit) was my first black doll and is still a favourite.  She has the beautiful Steffie face mould.

Deluxe Quick Curl PJ ( in a Best Buy fashion and her original outfit) uses the Steffie face too.  She may be blonde, but has brown eyes, which in the 70’s was unusual.

Mr C, who ran the local toy shop, knew my passion for dolls, and often when I wandered in, he’d pull a doll out from under the counter where he’d put it aside to give me first dibs on it.  He knew I liked dolls that weren’t your average blonde haired, blue eyed Barbie and I can still remember the day he placed Quick Curl Cara before me on the counter.  I fell in love instantly, she’d become my first black doll, even though I usually I had to put the dolls on lay-by and pay them off over a few weeks.  It was in this way I added Deluxe Quick Curl PJ to my dolly ranks too.  I remember seeing The Bionic Woman Bubblin’ Bath and Shower there, and although I would have loved it, it was very expensive and after agonising for ages, I decided to spend my pennies on dolls instead.

Ideal’s Beautiful Crissy was a must have doll, as she has lovely red hair and reminded me a little of the bigger, grow hair Chrissy dolls, not to mention her fabulous stand that allowed her to ‘skate.’

Superstar Barbie (in Get – Ups ‘n Go ‘Silvery Spark for After Dark’ fashion and original outfit)  was the most glamourous Barbie I’d ever seen, and she came with a child-sized, gold star necklace, which I couldn’t wait to wear.

I can vividly remember going to the local Coles Variety Store and poring over the Barbie Best Buy fashions, moving the ones that I really wanted, but couldn’t quite afford yet, to the back of the rack, hoping they’d still be there when I’d saved enough.  I occasionally bought dolls there too. I can still remember how thrilled I was to find Beautiful Chrissy and her Ice Skating Rink, a Barbie sized doll by Ideal who had gorgeous red hair and came with a stand that allowed her to ‘skate’.  I was even more thrilled when I looked at the price tag, only $1.99, I wouldn’t have to lay-by her.  I got Superstar Barbie there too, the edition that came with the child-sized necklace.  She was just so glamourous.

Hawaiian Barbie (in original outfit), who again, sports the wonderful Steffie face, was another ethnically diverse doll that I just had to have and Mego’s Farrah Fawcett doll (in original fashion).

There was another, bigger, toy shop in the next suburb and it was always a good day when I got to have a look around in there. They often had things that the other shops didn’t, and it was here I found Mego’s Farrah Fawcet doll – she was expensive, about $7.99, but luckily I had enough saved – and Hawaiian Barbie (again I was rapt to get another non-white doll and she came with a sailboard!).  The Toy Shop chain, Children’s Palace often had pre-Christmas sales at the Showgrounds.  It was at one of these sales that I bought not only The Sun Set Malibu Ken, but could also afford The Sun Set Malibu Skipper, my first Skipper doll that wasn’t a hand-me-down.  Any two-doll-day was a very good day indeed.

The Sun Set Malibu Ken in his original swimming trunks, seems to be getting more tanned as he ages.  His head also seems to have shrunk a little.

My first brand new Skipper, The Sun Set Malibu Skipper in a Best Buy fashion.  Unlike Ken, her face and body seem to be paling slightly as she gets older.

A big Kmart store opened close by in the early 1970’s and it was a good source for doll accessories too, although the Best Buy fashions sold much more quickly there, no matter how hard I tried to hide the ones I wanted at the back of the rack.  I remember seeing the Barbie Beach Bus there and dropping hints and hoping it would be mine at Christmas time.  I was so excited to see a Beach Bus sized present under my Aunt and Uncle’s Christmas tree, but oh, the disappointment when it turned out to be a hydraulic car jack for my cousin, and I got a doll-sized patio furniture set.  It was a great set, but couldn’t appease the let-down feeling at not getting the Beach Bus.  Luckily, I got some Christmas and birthday money and it wasn’t long before I was able to buy the Beach Bus myself and somehow that makes it that little bit more special.

I often wish for a time machine to go back to those times and buy all the things I couldn’t afford.  But then, don’t we all?

(C) Jennifer B – All content is subject to copyright and may not be re-published or reproduced without written permission.