Charles's Pages about Doll Stuff - www.dollstuff.net

Skipper® and Stacie® are back!
(Picture courtesy of ASM - click to see it bigger)

Sorry for the dramatic pause - the cold I mentioned in the previous entry turned out to be closer to typhoid fever after all.

Okay... Finally, we get to the big big news... The new Skipper® and Stacie® dolls.

Actually, Stacie looks about the same as she did before she turned into this. She has the original Stacie head sculpt and the same arms (which originally belonged to Lady Lovelylocks, by the way). I don't know about the rest of the body, though - I don't remember her legs ever being that "shapely" before, and she looks taller.

Skipper (as I mentioned previously) most likely has has the 2000 Mary Kate & Ashley body (which is a resculpt of Skipper's own 1987 "teen" body), so she'll fit right in with all those High School Musical dolls (as well as Hannah Montana and Camp Rock if you happen to live outside North America - or are very wealthy and can afford to buy Mattel's foreign-market Disney dolls at Disneyland or Disney World for 30 times what they're supposed to cost ). Luckily, she also has her own 1995 Teen Skipper head sculpt, not the Lara® head like I was afraid she might. (I love the Teen Skipper head. )

BTW, although I'm glad Kelly® has gone back to using her original head sculpt (and the doll in those pictures is so pretty I literally can't stand it... ), I think it's kind of unfortunate she still has the gangly 2006 "tall" Kelly body style. I always wanted Kelly dolls to have standard articulation like this - I just wish it didn't mean she had to look like an orangutan from the neck down. (For the record, I don't mind the orangutang look - it just doesnt fit with the other Barbie-family dolls very well.)

Incidentally, in case you were wondering - yes, the remarkably well-equipped motorhome dealie in the pictures is apparently a "new" Country Camper. And now I have the song from that dang commercial stuck in my head again. Thanks a lot. (It gets stuck in my head at least once a month. I don't know why.)

(Further incidentally, did you notice that Barbie, Skipper, and Ken are the characters in the commercial, and they also just so happen to be included in this Country Camper-themed line of dolls? )

Does Barbie's face look a bit weird to you? (This isn't one of ASM's picture)

Here's a picture on Flickr that shows Ken® and Barbie a bit better. Did you notice that all four girls have side-glancing eyes? (And, did you notice that Carol Brady's season one hair-do apparently traveled forward through time and became attached to Ken's head? )

(Also, is it just me, or does Barbie's head look kind of...weird? Maybe it's a new sculpt?)

(Yes, I use too many parentheses.)

Speaking of those Flickr pictures, a couple of them show things that aren't included in ASM's gallery. The top shelf in this picture holds a bunch of what look like closed-face boxes with pictures of dolls with last year's new bendy-wrist arms on them (including a redhead who definitely doesn't look the way Summer® does now - could that possibly be the 1998 "Goddess" head?). I have no clue what they are or if they have something to do with new dolls - maybe they're boxes for the Styled by Me dolls, or even for some non-doll licensed product. However, as you can see in this picture, they're definitely the right size to hold dolls... (I was daydreaming about special "keepsake" playline Barbie dolls packaged in closed boxes for a while...)

There's also something else in that second picture. Look at the rightmost shelving unit, on the third shelf from the top and all the way to the right. I don't recognize that doll, or the three miniature dolls next to it. It looks like a Ballerina, but it's not Twinkle Toes™ Barbie, and it isn't Pirouette Princess™ Barbie either. It's on the same shelf as fairies and mermaids, though, and it kind of looks like a fairy. Maybe it's something to do with an upcoming fairy movie?

One last thing. I was surprised Totally Hair® Barbie wasn't included in the My Favorite Barbie line of reproduction Barbie dolls, since she's just as "quintessential" a Barbie doll as the ones that were included - and has the added benefit of extremely long hair that would appeal to kids today as much as it did when she was originally sold. (That hair made her the best-selling Barbie doll of all time, after all.) However, this picture shows that she didn't go unnoticed. (Of course, we all know she came out in 1993, not 1996. ) Maybe she was going to be reproduced at one point?

Oh my gosh - that's it for the Barbie playline, but there's so much more stuff to talk about! I feel like Scheherazade (except without the beheaded wives and the part where the never-ending stories are actually necessary for some reason). If you're still reading this, check back soon for more!