Literally, Can I Even?: Investigating L.O.L. O.M.G. Dolls by MGA Entertainment, Part 1

I host a critical space here through my reviews, but I don't aim for a cynical one. But the topic at hand here and in the next post is something I'm not included to look at with an optimistic mind, and my holiday was also quite bitter, so I'm riding that wave a little.

While I was working on this project last week, I noticed myself getting sick and thought it was just pre-cold malaise, but then more symptoms I recognized from booster shots started to hit me like a truck and I checked with a test and found out I'd developed COVID days before Christmas, effectively cancelling or postponing my holiday celebrations. So even if this wasn't what I was working on before, I think a slightly downbeat discussion resonates with my past week. I promise I'll be more celebratory and nice when I talk the gifts I gave myself for Christmas! I did stock up good things for myself to open (not realizing just how much I would value that), including a true gem from Monster High's catalogue. It's just been a weird mood around this season for me, so here's something a bit out-of-character. 

So we come to the simultaneously most magnetic and repellent MGA doll brand in my eyes. 

Compiled MGA stock photos of O.M.G. Series 1. Left to right: Swag, Royal Bee, Neonlicious, and Lady Diva.

L.O.L. O.M.G. is a huge spinoff of the massive blind-packaged L.O.L. Surprise mini-doll line by MGA. The L.O.L. dolls (unnecessarily re-acronymized as "Little Outrageous Littles") are cartoon babies, emphasis on babies, often in fashion they have absolutely no business in, and the articulated figurines have had vinyl Polly Pocket-esque clothing and water features that allow them to suck in water and...excrete when their head was squished, in multiple styles. Through which orifice your baby leaked was randomized as one of the surprises of each doll. The infantile hyper-caricature and the inappropriate fashion are sadly things MGA has a noted history with, and it's not even their first time putting literal infants in fashion that seems really wrong. Bratz Babyz got into some trouble for that too, but MGA seems wholly unrepentant. I seriously don't know what's up with any of that and I'm not going to stop raising my brows there. 

The other thing the L.O.L. franchise stands out to me for is its revoltingly transparent inauthentic bandwagoning onto trendy youth slang, such that none of the packaging copy ever reads without a popular piece of lingo thrown in in a really obnoxious fashion. It's adults using words they probably don't use that often in their daily lives, selling to kids who don't yet realize how embarrassing that is. It's the kind of language that could easily be called "desperate" if the L.O.L. brand was not like, totes a huge freaking cash cow, omg slaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy. Like, yasss, MGA have been so #killingitvibez. (Am I making money now???)

So I'm predisposed to look down upon the L.O.L. enterprise because it's at least a little gross in multiple directions and feels cynical and embarrassing. Oh wait, the material waste, I forgot! Yeah, anyone who knows MGA knows they spite the planet with every doll package they overengineer and construct out of useless plastic and cardboard, and yep, the L.O.L. line, with its "surprise-ball layers to unwrap" feature, committed tons of ecological sins. 

So why am I even talking about this?

Well, L.O.L. didn't end with the mini dolls, and they expanded into full fashion dolls which are not infants. This is the  L.O.L. O.M.G. doll line, featuring 10-inch fashion dolls depicting the older sisters of the babies to adapt their aesthetics into an older direction. L.O.L. O.M.G. features the same giant-eyed flat faces, but they edge out of looking infantile and more into being pure cartoons in the O.M.G. line, which I welcome...and the designs are pretty fabulous. I do like MGA's knack for trendy fashion and a strong pop aesthetic, and when they're not adultifying literal infants, they do a great job. O.M.G. did also expand forward briefly with even more grown takes in the short-lived O.M.G. Fierce line, and L.O.L. also went backward in age from O.M.G. to tween fashion doll characters, so if they do middle age and elders, we could potentially collect an L.O.L. doll in every age bracket! It wouldn't surprise me; this franchise branches more overwhelmingly than a hydra. I'm not sure if there are any characters/families with dolls in the standard L.O.L. line, the O.M.G. line, and the Tweens line all at once. I know the Tweens dolls include counterparts to L.O.L. dolls that haven't been translated into O.M.G. form. The O.M.G. dolls that lean hardest into pop are the most successful to me, given the very cartoony look of the dolls. There still hasn't been that one O.M.G. doll that ticked all the boxes for me and made me buy in, though, because I do have enough reservations about the art style that the doll really has to nail it 100%...but I have had lingering curiosity and finally had reason to buy one when a commenter mentioned that my G3 refresh Draculaura had an even better skirt option on the market than what I had found--L.O.L. O.M.G. Court Cutie's.

Welp.

Court Cutie is from the second pair released in a sports series, and she represents tennis. This doll is still on shelves...at least, she was before Christmas.

The O.M.G. cast coming after their younger siblings hands them a disadvantage in the name department, since Court Cutie sounds less accomplished than her infant sister Court Champ! However, I do respect Court Cutie's name for being less try-hard and cringeworthy than others. All of the characters are named like they're nicknames, but they throw around "Gurl"s and "BB"s in a lot of names, and it's just so weird. Even discounting accusations that some of this language is appropriating AAVE and/or queer slang (a valid concern but also not really something that can be functionally prevented), it's just nauseating to imagine grown adults writing L.O.L. copy and building a brand off of it. MGA have always been open trend-chasers, and their dolls absolutely thrive on it and have become great time capsules, but I want more substance and heart to a brand than this. Or at least more substance and heart in things sold to children. I feel like MGA nakedly participates in reinforcing hollow consumerism and vapid trends for a child audience. 

O.M.G. boxes have gone through several variations and used to obscure the physical doll, but the form today is for them to be visible in a window, which is good for quality-checking. 

Their surprise packages are still obscured by the outer box, within the half on the other side of the diagonal slash. Since the diagonal leaves very little foot space in the doll side, it turns out one of the doll's legs is slotted into the other half of the box through a cutout in the diagonal piece.

I also learned through the box that O.M.G. is acronymized as "Outrageous Millennial Girls" and maybe it's my problem, but I couldn't help it; I cringed immediately. Who do MGA think they're selling these toys to? I have no doubt a large amount of the design team for this brand are millennials, but kids are not likely to see "millennial girls" as an attraction, particularly since millennial culture has become very uncool with growing younger folks. Kids, even if they don't understand any of this generational shift, will probably latch onto treating "millennial" as an insult because of the Gen-Z backlash to the millennial generation and their trends and sense of humor. It's possible "millennial" is not being used to refer to the specific population generation, but rather more broadly as "young people in the new millennium", but that would be really clunky if that was the intent. Regardless, neither L.O.L. or O.M.G. needed new acroynms for these toys.

Court Champ is on the side face of the box closest to the doll. I believe all O.M.G. doll boxes include images of their younger L.O.L. counterparts. 

The back of the box has multilingual copy that's dull and shallow and very annoying to me personally.

"MGA do emotional sincerity" challenge...

Like, Monster High is corny. Overwhelmingly so. But it feels like it's just there to be goofy and silly. There's no pandering financial incentive to the Flintstones-esque lingo of stupid spooky puns and horror word-substitutions Monster High branding indulges in. Monster High slang is a creative choice for brand identity, not something based on trendy dialogue real people see as an opportunity for clout. Nobody has any hope of looking cool by using Monster High's spooky slang, which is why it's endearing that the brand is so earnestly committed to it. What MGA are doing is trying to jump onto real words that people often use to fit in or gain points. 

The box has no special flaps or gimmicks from what I could discern. I just lifted the backdrop out from the top and everything was there.  I guess you can choose how to go at the surprise packages entirely at your own discretion. I couldn't find an indication of any intended sequence.

While like all MGA packaging, this is somewhere from "probably" to "absolutely" overdesigned, I can't help but find the backdrop to look really nice. 

The back of the backdrop isn't super remarkable. It almost looks like you should be able to separate the two halves, but I didn't attempt to do this, nor did I find any need to. 

Here's Court Cutie. She's a tennis player with white, pale green, and pale pink fashion colors. 

Her hairstyle is pretty fancy. Most of her hair is very curly, with brown mostly on top and pink mostly on the lower half. The curls are springy and soft. I don't have experience with a doll with hair quite like this before; the closest has been a couple of editions of Monster High Honey Swamp, a Black-coded gator monster with huge masses of springy curls done the same way on all three of her dolls. Honey, being of a smaller head, had smaller-scaled curls and they felt a little more tight and springy--less soft than Court Cutie's. 

In the front, Court Cutie's hair is pulled into a smooth top bun which also includes braids, and pink elastic secures the bottom to make it look more polished. 

I also said this with the Shadow High deep dive (start reading that series here!), but MGA gives themselves one key advantage by having such giant-headed dolls--it allows them to root more hair and have more surface area with which to create more intricate, properly-executed, and impressive hairstyles than Mattel can with its dolls that have smaller heads.

The O.M.G. dolls, at least in the main line, all have the same head sculpt featuring a tiny nose, rounded full lips that almost form a circle, and gigantic low-set eyes. 

There's definitely still a bit of a baby vibe going on here, but the face is clearly different from the actual baby faces in the brand. While the eye design might be just a bit too much for me and I'd probably like one of more of the proportions to be smaller, there's a bit of a Betty Boop quality in this facial stylization. Doll art YouTuber Maryna (Poppen Atelier) took advantage of this in a great way. 

However, the face design is also a bit like a Funko POP! with more detail, and that's not remotely a flattering comparison to me.

Chibi stuff, man...I really don't understand it.

Court Cutie's makeup features thick lashes, with the innermost two lower lashes on each eye being white for some reason. Her eyeshadow is all overlapping linework rather than solid color. Baby hairs are printed at her forehead and her eyebrows are straight and angled down with a few notes of texture. It seems like O.M.G. eyebrows are this straight line shape as a rule. Court Cutie is clearly meant to be a Black character, though she is not the darkest color displayed in the line. O.M.G. Virtuelle debuted the line's darkest skintone, and I believe Agent Soul is the only other O.M.G. with the same color.

O.M.G. dolls have pretty much no side profile to speak of. This is the absolute flattest doll face sculpt I've ever seen. 

Her eyes nearly stick out more than her nose!!!

Court Cutie's starting outfit consists of a multicolored short-cut bodysuit and that coveted pleated tennis skirt. The bodysuit mixes white and green and pink meshes to create an elaborate cutout effect, and the skirt has simulated pockets at the waist. The skirt has a strap inside to keep it positioned right. 

Below, Court Cutie wears pink mesh socks inside pink boots that either blend the visuals of tennis socks and sandals, or are literally meant to depict a shoe with a thick sock in it. I'm guessing it's the former since she has actual socks under the shoes. 

The shoes say "EXTRA", while her other pieces which we'll see coming up use the phrasing "X-TRA". 

On that note, though, it's not hard to see Mattel's Barbie Extra Minis line as taking serious L.O.L. inspiration, though, what with the chibi aesthetic and outrageous costume themes. Mattel and MGA have been locked in an endless competitive feud ever since MGA proved it was a threat with Bratz, and this feud has been coupled with incessant doll lines transparently based on each other's work. Mattel did My Scene Barbie to try to compete with Bratz. MGA did Novi Stars and Bratzillas to compete with Monster High. And so on and so forth. Competition breeds iteration...maybe not so much creativity! I found the Barbie Extra Minis chibi stylization more appealing, though not for the intended reasons--I was interested by them in the sense that I found them to unintentionally make pretty plausible stylized doll representations of little people because Mattel achieved a chibi look without remotely invoking infants in the face design of the dolls. Read my review of that doll line here. I also need to see if I can repair that doll's neck joint now because I have a technique for that!

Of course, recursively, MGA then created the Dream Ella Extra Iconic Minis line to compete with Barbie Extra Minis, meaning they would have been copying a line that was copying them!

The L.O.L. O.M.G. body is short and curvy with large hips.

The doll's heads can rotate and tip to either side, but not forward and back.

The dolls are sculpted with subtle but noticeable nipple points on their breasts. 

I can't fathom this decision, since they can show through the clothing (generally a fashion faux-pas) and, however unfairly, in our society, the female nipple is overwhelmingly laden with sexual baggage. Dolls also just...don't really do this unless they're realistic adult collector items and artist pieces. Unavoidably, nipples on fashion dolls have to be evaluated as a choice, and MGA doesn't have the best track record for me to view this as innocent or neutral. Even discounting any idea of this being a choice motivated by unsavory impulses,  artistically speaking, the dolls just feel far too cartoonish for this level of detail. Why does a Betty-Boop Funko-POP! pancake-face warrant nipple sculpting? She's way too cartoony for that!

To MGA's dubious credit, the L.O.L. O.M.G. boy dolls also have nipples, so the weirdness is at least equitable. That makes me willing to consider the choice as a really misguided attempt at anatomical realism and design consistency--the L.O.L. boys previously caused a stir by being sculpted as anatomically correct in accordance with the dolls sometimes being rigged to pee. That choice, while still jarring in the art style, doesn't raise my brow, since baby dolls have often been anatomically correct and that can have some educational purpose for kids learning about babies and themselves. MGA might have just felt like they had a standard of body sculpting detail to stick to as a result of that precedent. I don't personally think this was necessary to carry on to the more mature dolls, and the nipple sculpting on the girls unavoidably feels distracting and baffling when paired with thin clothes like Court Cutie's. 

The detail discrepancy is also notable with the hands. They're very well-sculpted, but almost to the point of looking a bit aged, and don't remotely seem to mesh with the round and squat simplicity of the rest.

The hands are not the same sculpts as in Shadow High, though there are several similarities. The hands are also very soft vinyl, not pokey hard vinyl.

The hips are cut deep, so they can easily turn to a perfect front-to-back split with the legs in a 180-degree angle and sit easily with their legs extended. The hips don't hinge outward much and are better-suited to point inward to cross the legs over each other a little.

The knees have internal click joints that bend back to only one position, making a subtle kick backward. No really dynamic knee poses are possible with these, including relaxed chair-sitting, which is typically easy for dolls.

I don't ever like this style of knee articulation. I always worry about the joint breaking internally or the rubbery leg material aging poorly (or differently from the rest of the doll) with time, and poseability potential always feels squandered with this idea. These should have followed the standard of rotating hinge external joints. I truly don't care if the legs look seamless, no matter how cool it is. That's one big thing O.M.G. Fierce had going for it--their knees are external rotating hinges...though I've heard their standard of articulation is still lacking regarding the range of their joints. 

O.M.G. dolls are shorter than most playline dolls. Even G3 Draculaura, in the shortest end of the G3 Monster High height spectrum, is taller than O.M.G. While the two MGA brands have similar hand sculpts and pear-shaped bodies, O.M.G. and Rainbow High are vastly different. 

Left to right-- G3 MH Draculaura (who's only thinking of one thing--that skirt), L.O.L. O.M.G. Court Cutie, and Shadow High Heather Grayson.

Before we look at clothes-swapping, including the swap I got this doll for, we have to look at the rest of Court Cutie's offerings. So calm down, Draculaura. 

The first things I plucked off the "goodies" side of the box was these paper slips. It seems like all of these dolls have these little paper extras, which feel too flimsy and "throwaway" to count as a meaningful surprise for these dolls.

Court Cutie has an athlete's poster, and a folding pamphlet discussing her stats. 

In addition to the tiresome slang, the sentiments expressed feel very hollowly "inspirational" and "motivational", and blind or impersonal positivity tends to strike me as useless or frustrating. Because the O.M.G. cast aren't heavily-written characters, we don't get any insight into how Court Cutie's positive outlook has anything to do with her in particular. Did she ever have any doubts or struggles? It just feels like bragging to me because none of this feels substantial or relatable to a reader. Then again, if the O.M.G. line tried to drop actual inspirational advice, it'd probably be within ten dolls that one of them dropped the term "manifesting" and I'd simply have to throw it out the window. 

It is possible, though, that Court Cutie is meant to homage the insanely accomplished Williams sisters, who are widely acknowledged as actually being the greatest of all time in tennis, so if Venus and Serena inspired her concept and she is their O.M.G. equivalent, then Court Cutie would absolutely be in the position to brag. 

The first proper paper surprise package I picked had multiple smaller tissue-wrapped things inside it. 

The first thing I pulled out of the package was a green fabric scrunchie. 

To be honest, I'm not sure how much this is really going to help pull back her hair, but it's so unusual to see a realistic fabric hair tie on a doll--and this scrunchie could absolutely be used on a person. 

I might keep this by my desk for whenever I need to tie a doll's hair up to show off their body sculpt better.

 This package also contained Court Cutie's tennis racket, her ball, and her earrings, which have loose dangle charms shaped like a tennis ball and racket. 

These are really cute and more detailed and complex than I expected. The ball is flocked, which is a great touch, though its color matching her pale green makes it a little unrealistic. Real tennis balls are more neon. 

The last thing in this package was Court Cutie's tennis visor. This is translucent turquoise and features the "X-TRA" text, as well as green spikes and a cat-ear design which feels like one step too far. What does any of this doll have to do with a cutesy cat look? One of the ears has a silver ring through it.

Here's Court Cutie with all of those pieces. 

The scrunchie does change the shape of her hair a bit, and the visor works well with the shape of her hairdo, like the bun is guiding you with where to clip the piece on. The tennis racket didn't threaten to pull her arm down with its weight, and I had no trouble placing the ball in her hand. 

The next surprise package contained her tennis bag. 

The bag has a pocket for her racket to slide into, and two handles--short ones in vinyl, and a long one made of bungee cord that can go over her shoulder-- a clever choice, making it a stretchy piece so it can fit over her head, but I had to re-tie one end of it.

The bag had tissue inside when unwrapped, but there didn't appear to be anything wrapped up in it. I checked my desk space for any tiny pieces, then the stock photos of the doll to be sure afterward, and I didn't see anything missing. I don't know why they stuffed the bag, then. That's misleading. 

O.M.G. dolls also include extra clothing pieces packaged in paper garment bags with plastic hangers.

The bags have a slit in the back that lets the clothes come out and the bags can be reused, but they can also be torn open and discarded if you don't need them. I think that's a very fair option to offer the owner. Reusable-or-actually-recyclable should be the mode for all toy packaging. 

The piece inside the garment back was a turquoise windbreaker jacket matching the visor, and featuring the "X-TRA" text on the sleeves. 

Under the jacket, the hanger is shaped like a torso and has a plastic torso form over it to fill out the clothes. 

Maybe I should have checked to see if MGA were weird enough to give the cheap clothing torso form nipples, but I think doing that would make me depressed.

Here's Court Cutie in the jacket. It makes for a pretty different look.

Last is the brush and stand.

The O.M.G. brush is basic and round, with a short triangular handle and the brand logo on top.

Then, the stand.

The base is round and studded like the Shadow High design, and the pole is "H"-shaped in the same way as the Rainbow/Shadow High ones. There are multiple differences that make the O.M.G. one favorable to me, though.

For one, the stand properly snap-clicks into the base rather than just pushing into a hollow where it can easily be rocked back out by the weight of the doll. Rainbow High dolls are quite a bit heavier than O.M.G., but still, I can't help but feel the R/SH stands could be better designed to stay together when a doll is in them. 

Secondly, the stand clip is able to slide up and down the pole, unlike the R/SH style where the clip pushes down onto a fixed-height stopper. In truth, neither brand really needs the clip height to be adjustable because of the uniform body shapes, but I appreciate being given the option. 

Lastly, the O.M.G. stand has bumps under the base to push the stand clip onto for storage...and Court Cutie comes with a girl and a Guy stand clip, which can both be stored away in the base. This might be one of the nicest doll stand designs I've seen!

I really don't know why Court Cutie has both of these clips when there are so few O.M.G. Guys, but it's definitely appreciated. More accessible stand design is always better! Any stands are a luxury, though. Oh, Mattel, bring stands back!

The only drawback with this stand design is that other fashion dolls are pretty universally too tall to borrow it. Not even G3 Draculaura, who would really suit the color, is able to connect to the stand pole because her waist is too high.

Okay, now time for clothes swapping--first, the skirt! 

This is indeed the closest I think any doll clothing can come to a G3 Drac-sized replica of the G1 Drac signature skirt. The fit around the waist isn't perfect and I did have to cut out the alignment strap for it to fit on Draculaura, but the piece works and it makes the restyle hit even closer to the classic G1 design. 

G3 Draculaura generally wears O.M.G. clothing pretty well, and G3 Monster High tops fit okay on O.M.G.--they just get stretched a little sideways. Elastic G3 MH pants fit O.M.G. fine but they're too long and pretty wide on the lower legs. Granted, the only pair I had in that category were sewn for Frankie, and they're taller than several of their peers. It's also tricky pulling pants up the rubber O.M.G. legs. O.M.G. clothing should also be good for expanding G3 Abbey Bominable's wardrobe, since she's quite curvy too, though the bottoms will end up quite short on her. The two doll brands swap earrings fairly well, too.

Here's Court Cutie trying some alternate clothes out. 

I was wondering if maybe I could do a gory-pop zombie repaint for her or something using these pieces for her outfit, but it just wasn't sparking enough for me. Her fashion colors were hard to select clothes for and I wasn't finding anything good enough to keep her in.

At the end of the day, I have to say Court Cutie is pretty well-made and has some fun details and play value I hadn't expected from her. However, she simply doesn't do anything for me in terms of her fashion theme and visual ensemble. I tried to play around with the hair and clothes-swapping to turn her into a restyle base or custom doll base, but it just wasn't clicking with the pink and brown hair colors and I decided this particular O.M.G. was a nice guest who I didn't need to hold onto. 
So what about an O.M.G. I wanted for the doll? 

While I've already said the perfect O.M.G. doll doesn't really exist for me, there have been several that caught my eye. Angles has a wonderful modern-art theme based on the De Stijl movement (most famously associated with Piet Mondrian). Moonlight BB is a blue-toned vintage goth girl with lace and ruffles. Starlette has a pop-art art style that Maudie would love, and is part of a movie-magic series with two different looks, going from a black-and-white demure look to a colorful screen-themed idea. Spirit Queen from the same series is O.M.G. tipping their hat to horror (and possibly even MGA's older brand Bratzillaz), as she features a vampire look and a witchy cheerleader look. 
But none of those were easy fast options. 

So what about Lady Gaga?

Okay, the character's name is Fame Queen, but this is O.M.G.'s Lady Gaga character, transparently. Fame Queen comes from a music doll series called "Remix Rock", which misleadingly sounds to me like the characters had previous dolls, but it was their debut. Fame Queen is the older sister to Goo Goo Queen, whose design references Gaga in the "Telephone" music video. 

I'm actually shocked that MGA managed to get away with a Gaga-themed dynasty of L.O.L. characters, because there was a fairly well-known lawsuit her team won back in the day preventing the brand Moshi Monsters from using an infant Gaga parody character called Lady Goo Goo! Somehow MGA manages to do the almost exact same joke with their L.O.L character and gets even more blatant with the O.M.G. doll and they're fine? Did no one tell Gaga? She had a licensed Mattel doll through Monster High, and she lets this unlicensed thing pass after the lawsuit incident? Maybe Gaga/her team decided the Moshi Monsters debacle made them look too litigious or their tone or priorities have just changed. Gaga's not an up-and-comer who has to fight for her brand identity in the same way she used to, her schtick has heavily moved away from the way she performed during her peak hype, meaning references to that era of Gaga aren't really a competitive threat to her, and MGA aren't making music with their Gaga characters in a way that could get audiences to believe there was an official collaboration going on.

The reason this doll appealed to me is that, while I'm not really a Gaga superfan, I still have massive respect for her pop-culture and political impact and I think she's incredibly talented. She was the definition of a superstar icon in the late 2000s and early 2010s, pushing boundaries of expression and loudly making important statements in her work that weren't yet considered mainstream. She was vocally weird and openly queer and pro-queer in the years before gay marriage was finally federally legalized in the U.S., took up the work of being a necessary shock to the system, and took her place in the chain of amazing experimental gender-defiant music artists, following from greats like David Bowie and Prince. Her music from her peak is very nostalgic to me, and while I didn't love her during that time, in hindsight, I recognize that I was growing up as witness to a generational icon and I admire her very much now. I'm always hesitant to let myself admire any celebrity because disappointment and betrayal can come at any moment, but that hasn't happened with Lady Gaga for me so far.

And maybe I'm a little salty about the fact that I missed the official Monster High doll of Gaga. I tried, but while an order was placed, it never came to anything, probably because I waited too long to take the initiative. 

The Remix dolls are obscured by the box design. A cartoon portrait of the doll is on the outside, proclaiming herself to be a fashion doll...possibly because the package doesn't show you the actual product! Fame Queen's instrument is advertised as well--she plays a giant keytar. I had thought this was jarring for a Gaga-themed doll since I've always known her to be a vocalist and a pianist, but no, she has played giant keytars very much like this! 

Goo Goo Queen is depicted on the side of the box. 

On the back is a portrait of the entire series, who form the Super Sonix band. 

There's Bhad Gurl (hurl) on the left, whose design is actually one of the ones I like. Ferocious is next, aping Prince, and last is Metal Chick. I don't think Bhad Gurl or Metal Chick reference specific musicians. 

The box tells you to start by pulling on the yellow tab shaped and printed like a vinyl record. (You have to cut off a plastic band wrapped around the box horizontally first.) Pulling this part reveals a full-body portrait of Fame Queen, and uncovers half of the internal box. 

For a second, I didn't know what the next step was, but then pulling the left half of the box away from the tab allowed the box to fully be uncovered, revealing the doll. 

MGA, always doing the most...to inflate packaging materials.

Fame Queen has a black stand with both doll clip types, just like Court Cutie. Her base only has one slot to store a clip, though. Her keytar, being advertised on the front, is not one of her surprises. 

Here she is unboxed.

The keytar is a translucent assembly held together by screws on the back. The paint and printing is well done, and the strap fits over her head nicely. It can be a little fiddly posing this piece on her well.

On top, Fame Queen wears a stylistic police-esque cap. It looks black, but has an iridescent purple effect in the light, and has a faceted texture. 

The brim is studded and painted in gold and silver, and the front is pierced with a ring and a dangling charm. The hat just sits on her head, but not particularly tightly. Gaga has worn hats like this multiple times, including in an image from the photoshoot for The Fame Monster's album cover. 

Fame Queen's hair is a wide crimped bob haircut. 

This directly references Gaga's hair on the cover of The Fame Monster, but also serves as a broader encapsulation of her look from that era, since many of Gaga's famous looks then featured platinum blonde hair with bangs, and a bob cut was common. Fame Queen's bob is longer proportionally than The Fame Monster Gaga's, and it features more saturated yellow streaks by her face, which I'm not a fan of. The crimped hair texture is done well. It's completely soft and unsnarled, so it combs easily. The bangs are gelled.

Fame Queen's makeup features a lightning bolt under the eye. 

Gaga famously wore this kind of makeup design a few times during her older era, which was itself a reference to David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust look. Fame Queen's bolt is silver. She has glittery turquoise eyeshadow and berry lips. I often associate Gaga with a more avant-garde nude lip, so I would have liked to see that on the doll. Fame Queen has a beauty mark under her left eye which is based on the one under Gaga's right eye.

There's a chasm of differences between the real Gaga's face structure and the O.M.G. face sculpt. A caricaturist wouldn't produce anything like this when asked to draw Lady Gaga. I've seen caricatures of her that narrowed or minimized her eyes and emphasized the bangs, just to give an idea of how difficult it is to see this face design as a representation of her in cartoon form. Sure, this is just what it was going to be, but I wish I saw more of Gaga in this.

Fame Queen is tanner than the real Gaga usually is. This might be one of the details, like the position of the beauty mark, that deliberately toes the line and distinguishes her just enough to make her legally passable.

Fame Queen's first outfit consists of a vac-metalized necklace/shoulder armor combo and a bra-style piece over a frilly, tattered-looking tutu and floral net tights. The tutu is actually more like a belt that fastens around her waist because the tulle is only on her front half--her back isn't covered by it at all. It might actually make more sense if she wore it on her back rather than her front.

The shoulder piece clips around the neck and the tops of the shoulders and creates a structured, armored or futuristic shape. The red heart over the chest references a necklace in Gaga's music video for "Judas". 

Fame Queen's right forearm and hand are sculpted to look like metal or plate armor. It's been described as bionic, but it strikes me more like a medieval armored gauntlet to me since there are no explicit indications of it being robotic.

It's well sculpted and a very cool detail, and may be derived from the silver elbow glove Gaga wore in her breakthrough acting role as the Countess in American Horror Story: Hotel. However, a couple of spots indicate that the parts were not cast in grey or silver, but rather, were sprayed that color and are the same tone as the rest of her skin underneath. Why would they do it that way? If the shiny finish had to be painted, which I don't believe (I've seen what Mattel can do and I will be discussing its lustrous Monster High robots in an upcoming post) then they should have at least let the color underneath be less obvious. This feels lazy. They go to all the effort to sculpt new limb parts but won't finish the job in the way they cast the plastic?

Fame Queen's first outfit is pretty simple the rest of the way down. The bra comes off separately from the skirt, and the tights do too. It seems like only recently that O.M.G. dolls stopped using shoes as surprise items, but Fame Queen is from the time where they did that, so she doesn't have her shoes yet.

Fame Queen has her own vapid paper slip. Bleh. 

Fame Queen is also from the time before O.M.G. switched entirely to paper surprise packages, so she has a couple of little boxes. I know how quickly these could turn into clutter, but having just two is welcome. I think they'd make perfect storage for tiny jewelry parts. The first package I selected was the rectangular plastic box.

The paper-wrapped item inside was the shoes. These are tall heel-less boots with silver platforms. They were kind of tricky to put on the doll, since her rubber feet were a bit bendy. 

I feel like a Gaga doll deserves more spectacular footwear, or at least make these silver or something. 

Next was the circular box which looks like a hatbox but is categorically too small to contain most fashion doll hats.

Inside this was the sunglasses. They're a futuristic bended band broken by a huge chrome silver lightning bolt. They look silly on, but that's kind of the point and it's very Gaga. 

The default way they're inclined to rest makes them a little low so they don't fully cover Fame Queen's eyes, but you can fiddle with them and get them sitting higher. 

The garment bag contains Fame Queen's jacket, and absolutely not. 

This piece is caked stiff with shedding silver glitter particles and I could barely parse how the piece was sewn because it felt so out-of-shape. I'm having nightmares of Casta Fierce again--but her horrible dress at least wasn't shedding! I tried for like three seconds to put this piece on the doll before giving up and putting it in a plastic bag for glitter quarantine. Bad. No doll clothing should be manufactured like this. 

At this point, I started wondering what had happened to the metallic bodysuit that served as a second outfit option for this doll, and I found it in one of the older packages, along with the earrings. 

The bodysuit is shaped like a sci-fi leotard and is made of two pieces of vac-metalized plastic that clip around the doll's torso. The stand clip works with the shape. The earrings are chrome dangles that look like crystals. 
Here's Fame Queen without the skirt on, showing how her top and tights look.

And here she is with the metal suit and sunglasses. 

The suit rattles around her and gaps around her breasts more when the tights are off, though I feel like they don't fully work visually with it, and the fabric gets in the way of the attachment point under her crotch, so it's not a perfect result when the tights are there to support the suit. When Lady Gaga wore bodysuits like this, it was often in a less covered and more striking look, and the shiny bodysuit in the video for "Paparazzi" that this idea seems to be most closely referencing was not paired with tights or socks. 

(My personal favorite Lady Gaga look was the Mickey Mouse-themed yellow number in "Paparazzi". The small black lips, the four-lensed sunglasses with the Mickey circle motif, and the yellow dress were just perfect.)

Oh, and here's me taking a quick moment realizing that my two queerest dolls are also both characters with metallic limbs.

At this point, I wanted to try and work with this doll more to see if I could improve her. I cut her hair (which shed like a nightmare in the process) to make her bob more accurate to the style it's imitating, and repainted her a little to add black to the edges of her eye makeup and give her a nude lip color. 
Here's Fame Queen reworked, without the shades or tights. I think this creates a very simple, clean look that feels like Gaga to me...but it might make the O.M.G. face even more distracting and creepy to me.

And here's a re-creation of the Fame Monster album cover. I cut the sleeve off a disused Ken jacket, put on her backward, to replicate the artsy face-covering coat Gaga wore there.

The neckpiece pairs well with the metallic bodysuit to create a more built-out version of the same look. The pieces were clearly designed to mesh this way. 

Lastly, I tried Court Cutie's jacket on her. It matched her eye makeup and reminded me of her blue "Poker Face" costume, so I thought it would be good. I think it worked really well with the hat, bodysuit, and tights all together, and even the keytar came in nicely. 

...but this just isn't my art style, man. I worked and I tried with this doll, but I have to admit defeat--this is never going to be the Gaga doll of my dreams because this face just doesn't suit her and I don't love the L.O.L. body construction. I think the L.O.L. clothing has potential and the head sculpt could be great for hyper-cartooned ideas--I'd love to find one to repaint into a 1930s cartoon character if I could also find a good body to swap the head onto. 

Maybe a Tweens doll might be best for that idea, though. From photos, I much prefer the Tween dolls' proportions and faces and find them way less grotesque, and even (gasp!) fairly cute. I think the L.O.L. art style is not genuinely cute for baby characters and looks a bit ugly or disturbing for adult ones, but the Tweens just hit the perfect sweet-spot for me where they feel like harmless and appealing cartoon caricatures, probably helped by how comparatively little clashing of age signifiers goes on in their designs, and they feel like the right doll base for a character based on a cartoon. I don't know what clothing I'd give one for the concept since the Tweens clothing isn't where I'm thinking, but that's my best route. No concrete plans on that right now (I have so much lined up for myself already), but I'd be willing to give that idea a try and I'm more optimistic toward what my verdict on a Tween would be.

I just don't think the O.M.G. dolls are right for me. But there's a second part of this investigation--a look at an O.M.G. Guys doll who I think will be an excellent clothes pack, and a customization from a parts-order doll that made me actually like an O.M.G.! Tune into that soon.