Monster High was an unusual franchise to enter my life. I learned about it through reading the Bogleech horror blog, which highlighted the toy brand as exceptional in the girl’s toy market for having genuinely freaky and creatively spooky dolls, including the gnarly Inner Monster line that had brains under their wigs serving as eye-change buttons, and translucent bodies with skeletons inside that could be customized with different organ-style mood charms. I was interested in this toy, a toy so wicked that it could have easily been a 1980s parody of a girl’s toy, a toy that was earnestly being sold to girls. Through this doll, I discovered the Toy Box Philosopher blog, which has remained an informative, thoughtful, and funny source of doll reviews, and my primary inspiration for writing my own toy reviews (Hi, Emily--love your work!) Then I started looking up the Monster High catalogue. Then things turned into a doll collection.
Monster High appealed to me as a forever fan of monsters and I won’t lie and say I didn’t get invested. I knew all the characters, gathered an encyclopedic knowledge of the dolls, and watched the webisodes…and a few of the specials uploaded illegally on YouTube (don't tell anyone).
My first time buying Monster High, I found myself getting three dolls on one day, from two stores. At Toys "R" Us, I was stunned by the dark and extravagant Amanita Nightshade in her box, so she was my first purchase and the first deboxed.
Photo of my bygone original Gloom and Bloom Amanita. |
I also got Frights, Camera, Action! Operetta and Kala Mer'ri that day at Walmart, who became my second and third dolls.
From there, I snapped up dolls left and right, often without a lot of discretion since I was enjoying the hobby and collecting characters by how I could find them in stores. I was coming in at the tail end of G1 (that's "Generation 1" for those who aren't familiar with toy franchise reboots--G1 was the first incarnation of the franchise), right when Freak du Chic and Boo York, Boo York were the latest big new MH doll lines, Great Scarrier Reef was new, and Walgreens locations had old budget dolls that had warmed shelves for cold, cold eons.
Pro tip: Walgreens and Walmart are where toys go to die, and the back catalog of toys you can find there that have elsewhere become rare via discontinuation is always a fun opportunity.Toys "R" Us (RIP), Walmart, Target, and Walgreens became my haunts (pun intended?) and it feels like I got dolls all across the state. Simultaneously, MH helped me explore untraditional interests as a teenage boy. This was something I knew was very unusual and yet being interested saw me pushing myself against the pressures I perceived upon me to reject my curiosity. I think I took some healthy steps into asserting my interests because they were mine.
MH was also instrumental to my growth as a visual artist. I've always been creative and made characters when I was younger, but I never took art skill seriously and my art level was embarrassing for my age in high school. I was never interested in reality and drawing real people...so I taught myself to draw better by copying the fantastical and freaky MH dolls and noticing areas where I failed the likeness, style, and detail. Then I tried again. Making iterative drawings for the first time saw me refining my work and making strides that turned me into a proper artist and character designer with a command of style, detail, and personality. I owe these dolls quite a huge and personal debt for them motivating me that way.
Here's the first MH drawing I ever made, of the Feisty/Love Inner Monster doll. Feel free to judge; it was the drawing that convinced me I needed to work harder.
The 2016 drawing. I feel like it would be generous to guess that a ten-year-old drew it. |
2022- flawed, but much much improved. |
I have a lot already written about this ghoul, but the photo-taking requirements to make a review of all she has going on will be intense. |
Eventually, I dropped Monster High from my life to the point of purging almost my entire collection. I regret that brutality today. Valentina up there is the only full doll I kept.
There were legitimate creative differences I had with the brand as well, like the implausibly pretty faces of the cast regardless of archetype, and their oversized heads, and these helped me convince myself it was good to put it behind me. I also used our move of house as an excuse to dump the dolls as part of the downsizing process. I think my exploration and personal changes were simply too fragile at the time, so I chose to run back to a simpler version of myself after being challenged.
But you can only take the boy out of Monster High. Not vice-versa. And I think I kind of always knew the next version of the brand would bring me back.
It was inevitable, really. MH was a goofy thing that turned into a huge influence on my identity. It helped me find my art practice and develop higher creative aspirations and taught me things about following your harmless weird little interests and damn the rest. How could I say the hobby was a failure when Monster High made me, as a person, more successful? This silly creepy doll brand changed me positively and I treated myself poorly for it due to my insecurity creeping back against the progress it brought. Now I regret the loss of many of the dolls I had. Oh well. Perhaps I'll trawl eBay…and there was a future for me.
Creeproduction Frankie
And then I got a job at my longtime favorite independent toy store and saw some familiar trapper-keeper boxes in the storage room. And one of them was a Creeproduction Frankie and I sold my heart back to MH, buying her the following week.
It’s funny. I wouldn’t have identified myself to like the character that much, but even before I dumped my collection and then later saw Creepro and bought her, G1 Frankie Stein had been the most highly-represented character in my collection. She was the only character I had purchased three separate doll releases of-- her Gloom Beach rerelease, her Original Favorites budget reproduction, and her Freak du Chic doll. My collection was aimed more at the breadth of the cast and collecting what I saw as the best dolls of as many characters as I thought were nice, and I didn’t buy specialized releases of characters or multiple iterations unless I thought the dolls were really appealing or fascinating.
(In retrospect, this breadth approach strikes me as really misguided. The dolls I bought primarily to fill a character gap in my collection, rather than because their designs specifically appealed to me, happened to be the dolls I most often regretted buying. If I still had all of my old collection to evaluate with today's eyes, those dolls would still end up culled--just on their own demerits.)
Miss Stein happened to be the one character who broke through the margin to hold the record of having three available dolls that had that appeal in my old collection. Young Stein of G3 looks like they might be shaping up similarly, as I want two of their first-wave dolls versus just one doll of their compatriots.
Maybe I do really like Frankie.
In the moment at work, the reason Creeproduction Frankie called to me wasn’t because I loved Frankie especially as a character/doll. But I really like G1 signature Frankie’s design, and in doll form, I’ve grown to appreciate it even more since owning the already-nice Original Favorites edition. G1 signature Frankie was designed to stand for the entire franchise conceptually and aesthetically, and succeeds with flying colors. Getting a nicer, more accurate reproduction of her original doll seemed like the perfect symbol of me re-embracing the franchise. Plus, I wanted to compare her to her G3 counterpart, and having the character I had the most of again is a nice bit of resonance. The Creeproduction dolls were overpriced by scarcity and I resent paying for nostalgia, but there is sentimental and personal value to me that can excuse it. Call it healing.
First up is Frankie's box.
My Folkmanis sea nymph puppet says hi on the right :) |
This packaging closely recreates the shape, construction, and graphic style of the oldest G1 MH boxes (though the basic style endured for a good amount of waves) with a matte cardboard box in a vague wedge-shaped Trapper-Keeper design with a wide coffin-silhouetted window. The box seems to be a really successful copy of the originals, and I was able to see this successful imitation effect firsthand. The Monster High dolls in the storage room were all placed in a bag so I only saw the tops and sides of them. First off, I couldn't tell the Creeproductions weren't the old Ghoul's Alive dolls that the store had once sold the year before. Secondly, after I discovered they were Creeproductions, I pulled up the last box in the row--and it was an original Dot Dead Gorgeous Lagoona (a doll which hasn't been remade), who was very close boxwise to the new dolls, with the only difference at first being the top face lacking decoration.
The interior of the box is largely the same as Frankie's signature release, with maybe just millimeters of skewed placements inside. It's very much the same, down to Frankie's pose and the placement of the diary and the stand inside. The popout text bubble that said the filler tag phrase "stitched together with style!" is now used to designate her as a Boo-riginal Creeproduction and features a slightly different background graphic, and the text elsewhere on the box features the same information but with more languages.
The last notable difference is the coffin-shaped window, which wraps around to the right face of the box. The original box had the window enclosed entirely on the front.
The opposite face of the box is narrower. |
I see two fewer Original Ghouls than I should... |
The other characters advertised on the back have stark absences confirming that the Boo-riginal Creeproduction line does not include Cleo de Nile and Ghoulia Yelps-- it's just Frankie Stein, Clawdeen Wolf, Draculaura, and Lagoona Blue. Four out of the six G1 main characters. This is shocking to me, especially given that Cleo is a powerhouse in the cast and Ghoulia has always been one of the most popular and well-collected of the Original Ghouls within the fanbase. Then again, Cleo was first released in a duo set with Deuce Gorgon, so a solo release of her wouldn't be authentic. Ghoulia was also previously demoted in the Original Favorites line, where she was only available in a five-pack set, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised by her loss, either. I can only hope the final two characters will be forthcoming (maybe just reproduce the original Cleo/Deuce set for Cleo?), but I'm not super optimistic.
Now, my boss seemed concerned by the prospect of me taking Frankie out of her box, and I reflexively told her I wouldn't to reassure her, but it was a white lie. (I feel silly about it now, since I really don't think she would have actually withheld the doll if I said I wanted to open her.) I definitely intended to keep the box with a twist tie or two to re-package her for storage, but I firmly disagree with the idea of toys or other collectibles as an investment to resell. Toys are meant to be enjoyed--especially if buying multiple copies isn't feasible. A doll in a box may be a lucrative investment (and a nice display if it's G1 MH); but personally to me, it's not anywhere near worth the price sealed up. The only thing a sealed box adds for me is that the knowledge that the doll is complete...but for a buyer like me who's gonna end up with the doll out-of-box anyway, a complete doll found loose is just as good. Whichever's cheaper, at that point. Complete is complete.
Easy access for complex fasteners. |
The nymph is really going through something right now... |
Frankie comes with the classic waste-of-plastic brush, shaped like the brand's Skullette icon.
Three pieces- the base has the text logo and texture patterns on it. |
Side view of Frankie clipped into her stand. |
Frankie's full profile from the back of the diary. |
The rest of her hair, like before, falls loose down the sides of her head and her back in wider streaks of black and white than the top section’s thin stripes.
I could maybe watch these people on TV-and that's a maybe- but I would never meet them. |
Frankie is a pale minty green and has stitches on her right cheek as well as heterochromic eyes implying her parents couldn’t find (or chose not to give her) a matching set. Maybe it's a compromise-- Mom wanted one color and Dad wanted the other, so they split the difference! Her head is subtly squared to reflect her dad, which her signature hairstyle brilliantly highlights by having her hair fall in a direct outline of a squared forehead. Frankie’s eyes are a bright blue and green, and she wears purple eyeshadow with grey undereye shadow as a stylish imitation of dad’s sunken eye sockets. Her lips are a dark red shade and her eyebrows are brown. I’ll never understand doll designers’ frequent refusal to make eyebrows match their dolls’ hair color, particularly for fantastical characters, but Frankie’s brown brows are fairly excusable for an artificial cobbled-together person.
Frankie Stein: 15 days old for over 14 years strong! |
Not that I expected anything different, but it's so cool to see this piece has existed for so long. It's also a neat artifact that exposes some of the brand's development history--even by the point the head sculpts were figured out and finalized, the dolls were still two years out from release!
Mattel stock photo of Alivia Stein's solo release from the Monster Family doll assortment. I'd like to have this doll. |
Mattel stock photo of G3 signature Frankie Stein. |
Close-up on Original Favorites Frankie's solid flat earrings. (stock photo by Mattel) |
Nothing of note under the tie, and it's only affixed at the top. |
Not a relic! |
Lots of makeup, nots of modesty. (Mattel stock photo of the Original Favorites rerelease five-pack.) |
Wave 2 School's Out Clawdeen-- still cutting-edge chic with calmer clothing cuts. (Mattel stock photo.) |
The standard Monster High body shape (plus bolts and painted scars). |
In several ways, the Monster High body was a stroke of brilliance. Paired with the head, it created a stylized, spooky, unreal creepy figure that allowed for clothes to be smaller and thus more detailed and intricate--a standard doll-clothes budget paired with a body that requires less fabric to cover it means more detail can be included. The body also featured a truly exceptional standard of articulation for play dolls at the time of MH’s debut. MH was not the first to develop articulation like this, and did not feature the most articulated play doll on the market at the time. I believe the Liv doll brand which featured everything MH had, plus double-jointed knees, held that honor. However, MH's massive success set its level of articulation as a high standard that many doll lines may find themselves compared to as a baseline. Up until Mattel's own Made to Move Barbie designs one-upped it, the MH standard was a handy, recognizable posing paragon when evaluating other dolls, and is still the standard most well-articulated dolls fall in line with. That articulation, paired with the brand's stylish face paint, stylized bodies, and detailed clothing made them feel rather like art dolls moreso than trite playthings. Monster High has endured as a popular doll brand for hobbyist customizing and artist repaints due to their stylized look evoking more niche art dolls and their display value being so high from their joints.
The shape of the body is stylized and quite slender, with smallish breasts and a thin waist, and is sculpted in a somewhat-uncomfortable looking swooshy profile contour that sees the belly sticking out in front of the hips and neck.
You could prop a crowbar between her upper back and butt. |
As for that articulation? There's a lot of it.
This is...a pose, for sure. |
As I've known it, the head is mounted on a long peg which pops in with a disc at the base that squeezes through the neck hole of the head, as well as having anchoring prongs that taper down and flare outward, as they're designed to make the head hard to pull off. The whole peg ends on a small ball that slips onto a tiny bar inside the neck to keep it extra secure. The peg can tip back and forth and wobble in a circle by sliding up and down on the bar. I've pulled a whole neck peg out with the head before, breaking the small bar inside the torso, but the bottom of the peg snaps into the neck like a ball joint even without the bar holding it in. The peg secures the head while allowing it to rotate 360 degrees and tilt side to side and a bit up and down.
Diagrams of the neck peg inside the head and how it attaches inside the neck... based on how I saw them from G1 dolls. |
Frankie's head moves great! |
Frankie's separable parts. |
(This is just Frankie's everyday life.) |
Ta-da! (Mattel stock photo of Freak du Chic Frankie in-box.) |
Not all poseable toys with rotating shoulder hinges can do this, and it's a shame. |
Up high... |
Down low... |
And wrists too. |
This is as far apart as they go. |
See how tall a chair would need to be for this long 90-degree leg bend? |
Technically kneeling. As if the bend of the body wasn't already extreme... |
Yeah, I think we've found the weak points in these dolls' elegance factor. |
The feet of the Monster High girls (and in G3, the femme-bodied nonbinary Frankie) are molded in a high arch with no jointing, as they're shaped for wearing heeled shoes. This makes it impossible for them to stand freely on their bare feet. Male MH dolls have flat feet with rotating hinges at the ankles.
This is the standard articulation for the G1 female body, but some dolls in the brand have had more. A few dolls in G1 with irregular body shapes have torso joints, as do the femme signature dolls in G3, and the Gooliope Jellington doll and the other, non-mainline 17-inch dolls had torso joints as well as double joints in their knees and elbows to allow each to bend further in more realistic ways.
For as artful and playable as the G1 body is, it unsurprisingly faced criticism. Dolls are always subject to cultural debates about body image and beauty standards, and for a brand to be composed of such spindly skinny characters (that happen to play into the aughts-era fashion zeitgeist) really rubbed some people the wrong way. I understand that. I don’t think this was negative intent, and the idea was likely to evoke Tim Burtony gothic spindliness more than toxic beauty standards, but complaints and concerns are fair to have. These were not, at the end of the day, art dolls; these were mainstream toys sold as the headliner of a children's franchise. This issue has been addressed since in G2 and G3, with the dolls being less drastically skinny and adopting a more mainstream cartoon body shape and, in G3, no longer being in uniform shapes. The skinny, spookier G1 body is currently reserved for use in Monster High dolls aimed at adult collectors (which I count the nostalgic Creepro dolls in). For collector releases, the body can be more clearly received as an stylized artistic choice and doesn't send the wrong message.
All of the G1 signature Original Ghouls had a purse of some kind and a pet, save for Draculaura, who swapped a purse out for a static plastic parasol sculpted in a closed shape. G3’s signature dolls follow a formula, too, with G3 having a phone, a backpack, a pet, and snacks and other extras for each signature character.
Frankie’s purse feels, like the rest of her pieces, less overtly themed than the brand would later become. It was so much less overt, in fact, that the bag sculpt made a reappearance paired with another character-- Scarah Screams' first mass-market release in the I Love Fashion line. The bag looks fairly realistic and maybe a bit luxury but in kind of that clunky ugly-luxury way.
An angry granny could probably kill with this thing. |
Frankie's pet is Watzit, a Frankensteined dog monster with various animal parts and a pet license ten pages long.
Meow! |
Not gonna ask which animal's poop Frankie has to pick up from this guy. |
Aww. |
So this turned out to be a very nice doll. My only real complaints are that her hair fiber isn't as silky and pleasant as it was on her Original Favorites rerelease and that my copy of this doll has pretty loose lower leg rotation.
I promise you this was a good photo before Blogger crunched it up! Just click it if you want a better view! |
Nice to see another in depth toy blogger, they're some of my favourite wind down reads. Thank you for sharing your journey of getting reacquainted with Frankie, it's interesting to see what is new, and what's been redone with these new additions!
ReplyDeleteThank you! It's my main motivation for a lot of things I do--making more of the kinds of things I want to see more of (and in this case, detailed toy reviews).
DeleteI was directed here from the Creepro Ghoulia review, hello! ^v^
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to say it's great to get to learn a bit more about the blogger yourself and your history! Lovely review of Frankie, too!
Oh, thank you for showing up! I'm glad you enjoyed.
Delete