The DEADvent Calendar, Day 9

Time for Day 9!

The DEADvent Calendar: Day 8

Sadie had quite a spectacular time with Nohell, so she was wondering what could possibly follow.

Unwrapping the Antichristmas: Living Dead Dolls Variant Nohell by Mezco Toyz

LDD has its selection of wintry dolls and a few which are specifically Christmas releases, but this character is LDD's most directly Christmasy character design-- Nohell, a creepy little girl in a Santa hat. 

The DEADvent Calendar: Day 7

It's Day 7, and...what is going on here?

The DEADvent Calendar: Day 666

 Onto the third drawer!

The DEADvent Calendar: Day 5

Time for Day 5! What could it be?

The DEADvent Calendar: Day 4

 Time for the second drawer!

The DEADvent Calendar: Day 3

It's Day 3, but first...

The DEADvent Calendar: Day 2

Time to open the chest!

The DEADvent Calendar: Day 1

Happy DEADvent! On this auspicious Friday the 13th, thirteen days of terror can commence!

Introducing Sadie's 13-Day DEADvent Calendar

I wanted to celebrate Christmas properly and get the blog festive this year to make up for the blah December I had last year.  

Cracking the Old Red Case: Investigating a Vintage Doll Trunk!

I guess I know where I got it from, because my mom kept her old toys, too. 

Yes, It's Really LEGO: The Belville Witch

The concept of "LEGO for girls" has always been fraught and I think that can be a big blinder obstructing some really interesting toy design. So what if I told you a girl LEGO happened to be one of the best-articulated tiny figure designs I've encountered?

The Rotten Little Eggy: Living Dead Dolls Eggzorcist, Re-Deviled

Let's just say existing in my country right now is incredibly demoralizing and frightening, so November has become significantly grimmer. But I don't want that to shut me down, and my hobbies and creative passions are all the more vital to me in the face of this huge concerning uncertainty. Content will proceed as planned. Be safe and stay strong. 

Now to the doll intro proper.

The vibes are strange with this one. At time of writing and publication, it's that liminal empty period after Halloween and before Thanksgiving, I'm entirely ready to just get into Christmas, and here I am, playing at Easter! Blame Mezco's release schedule! I was not waiting until this doll was in season!

Trick Or Treat, Dig Six Feet: Living Dead Dolloween 2024 Finale

Phew. That was a lot!

Leftover Candy: A Living Dead Dolloween Encore

Halloween never ends that quickly or easily for me, and I have to let myself savor. I'm ready to keep on with the year's events and festivities, but it's always hard to let go and cut off the spooky season right on the last day.

But what am I doing here? I've already combed through the Halloween history, and you already know these characters in the cover image. But not quite. These dolls you're seeing are their variants!  

Happy Halloween!

Final posts wrapping up this project are coming soon! For today, enjoy the celebration! 

A Living Dead Dolloween, Part 7: A Vintage Halloween Custom!

The Living Dead Dolloween is almost over, but I had to throw in one last short new entry before the finale.

A few months ago, when reviewing Grace of the Grave, I discussed how her bumpy, pitted, mouth-cut head sculpt was a total one-off, and speculated on potential other use cases it could have been applied to were it chosen to be repurposed. While the head sculpt had no time to be reused before the switch to ball-joint bodies shut the door on several unique sculpts in the very next series, I still thought maybe some creativity could have given it more life, and the holes and bumps made me think of a character themed around the Moon. This idea came back to me closer to Halloween as I realized I could customize a Grace into a vintage Halloween moon fit to add to the Series 32 cast. 

A Living Dead Dolloween, Part 6: Honorary Halloween Living Dead Dolls Roundup (Roundup #8)

Now that the series and exclusive history of LDD Halloween has been looked over...who says we have to stop there? Why not look at other offerings fit for the holiday?

A Living Dead Dolloween, Part 5: A New Exclusive Era

The same year Series 32 was released, Living Dead Dolls debuted a new format of Halloween exclusive dolls, starting with Jack O Lantern. These dolls were all themed heavily on the holiday, and have the same deathdate as that year's Halloween, like the first Halloween exclusives Hemlock and Honey. Each of these dolls was a solo release, though, and had three regional color variants available in different parts of the world. I imagine this string of Halloween exclusives could have continued for more than three annual dolls if the classic era of the brand had not collapsed to this very day, but with such a small selection of this phase of LDD Halloween, my choices were more narrow and easy. I have some appreciation for the first doll, Jack O Lantern. I like that he's based on the legend of Stingy Jack, who is the very namesake of the carved veg, and his orange/black UK variant looks really good. I was also briefly obsessed with the black-and-white variant of Vesper, a girl in a bat-winged hoodie. She has a very classic old-LDD 1960s-dolly faceup with a lot of classic-horror camp about her, but I felt like she might be a doll better suited by a classic dolly dress outfit in the same colors, and I was iffy enough about the effect of the painted fangs in her face paint that I let her be. To look at this collection of Halloween LDD, one little ghoul was the answer.

A Living Dead Dolloween, Part 4: A Vintage Halloween Viewing

Time to look at the last LDD Halloween series!

A Living Dead Dolloween, Part 3: A Series 18 Selection

 Onward to the next spooky series!

A Living Dead Dolloween, Part 2: A Series 16 Showcase

Now for our first Halloween series examination! 

A Living Dead Dolloween, Part 1: An Exclusive Entry

This Halloween season, we're going all in! I completely skipped out on any blog activity last October because other projects were occupying my holiday (and I decorated my room so thoroughly I deprived myself of studio space!), but I can't let that stand for a second year. Halloween is my most activated time and the holiday fuels my spirit like little else. I had to bring that energy here and spread the celebration.

And what better way to celebrate than with an overview of Living Dead Dolls' Halloween-themed history?

A Truly Orphean Can-Can: Living Dead Dolls Series 33 Ella Von Terra by Mezco Toyz

Like Angus Litilrott, this doll isn't really getting a solo post because I wanted to set her aside as a special topic, but more for the fact that the next standard roundup she could qualify for is probably a ways off. My October plans are entirely seasonal, stacked with a Living Dead Dolls Halloween extravaganza series, so there won't be an assorted roundup, but Ella grabbed me enough to get her in September while working on Roundup 7 and I needed to talk about her shortly after it.

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?: Living Dead Dolls Scary Tales Little Red Riding Hood by Mezco Toyz

I've committed to documenting every Living Dead Doll I acquire, but I had low hopes for this doll. I honestly bought her for parts so I could swap her gripping arm and accessory onto an upcoming doll who wanted for them to feel complete. I was thinking this doll would be a footnote overviewed within that doll's review, but...well darn it, she's actually really cool. She earned herself a review of her own, because, regardless of the fact that swapping her arm made her unfair to resell, I genuinely liked her in person. Meet Red.

BONUS PHOTOSHOOT: Living Dead Dolls Bloody Mary

This will be a quick one, but Mary gave me another burst of photos when I found a new prop and I thought I'd make an update to show it off.

MARATHON/MEGAPOST RECUT COMPILATION: Living Dead Dolls Series 6

This, like Series 5, was not an isolated review series, so this is another re-cut to put my Series 6 reviews in a self-contained context with each other. As with other compilation LDD series posts, edits will be made where information is outdated by current knowledge (either seamlessly or as an editor's note in brackets) and extraneous discussion that made sense in the original roundups will be cut to contain the reviews to this post.

6 and 6 for 6: Living Dead Dolls Series 6 Complete

After all these months, Series 6 is complete!

Living Dead Dolls Roundup 7

Welcome to the last standard LDD Roundup for a little bit. LDD content is not slowing down a bit on the blog, but this review format will be on pause in October, replaced by a Living Dead Dolloween extravaganza instead, where I will examine pieces of the Halloween-themed releases in the brand across the original era--smaller roundups per post, but a great number of dolls in total! The next time you'd be seeing an assorted roundup of three again will be November, and no plans at all for who would be included. I also have a couple of solo reviews besides. But enough about those--let's look at now and the September trio of cadavers that entered my morgue.

Kinder Surprise, Part 2: Fantasy

(Continued from part 1 here.)

Even though I had reobtained all of my childhood Monster Hotel Kinder toys (and then some), I realized quickly when looking at the sets on eBay that one monster figure I had always lumped in with my sparse collection was absent. Clearly, I had put it in the Monster Hotel group erroneously--or at least, it wasn't ever part of the two series I had pieces from. Thus, I had to dive into the rabbit hole to figure out just where that little guy had come from. He was so distinct and I had the figure for long enough in my life that there was no chance of mismemory or fabrication--it was real just as I knew it...but whence did it originate? 

Is G3 Already Ending?: A Hypothetical Autopsy

So, news broke that the narrative media for Monster High G3 (the alternate continuities of the live-action films and the TV cartoon the dolls are matched to) will not be proceeding. This has obviously raised alarm bells about the prospects for G3 as a whole, and yeah, it is alarming.

Woe is She: Monster High x "Wednesday" Wednesday Addams Doll and Paint it Black Fashion Pack by Mattel Creations

It hasn't passed my attention that Netflix's Wednesday has abruptly (and relatively belatedly) gotten a huge marketing and merchandising push, possibly because they realized the show's popularity was juxtaposed against a relatively untapped market, and also they have a second season to hype up. The first season is even on physical media now, which Netflix almost never allows for their originals. Toys and clothing and other branded products are popping up everywhere, and now we have proper Wednesday fashion dolls in lieu of the cheap Chinese no-brand dolls that have been floating around online. And who else would be giving us these dolls than Monster High? It's an ideal match. Both are about spooky schools! Let's see how the doll collaboration turned out.

Completing my Childhood: Kinder Surprise Monster Hotel

Before Hotel Transylvania, there was Monster Hotel. This might be one of the simultaneously most niche and personal toy memories I discuss here. 

Living Dead Dolls Roundup 6

For a moment, due to the gritty, ugly first doll in this group, I was considering throwing together a dedicated "scary roundup" for a theme, but I found the concept a little too nebulous and my collecting budget for the month was pushed heavily toward building my Halloween pool of LDD posts in October (where I made great progress!) so I decided to just go for another assorted pool. I did, however, end up with two significant wishlist dolls!

Al is In Wonderland: Ever After High Alistair Wonderland by Mattel

Lewis Carroll's Alice is an icon, and her having a son in the Ever After High-verse was intriguing. But while there were things I liked...I just didn't see much of the famous character translated over. Still, I like boy dolls and I was motivated to make a masc-Alice restyle of my own. I thought I could do better service to the origin character with the right pieces. 

"DIRECTOR'S CUT" COMPILATION RE-EDIT: Living Dead Dolls Series 5 Assembled

While all of the reviews of these dolls came from separate roundups rather than a broad-scope concept with standalone posts like with Series 23, I thought these could be cut together into a marathon feature with some edits in just the same way to make the reviews all self-contained. Consider this your one-stop shop for my Series 5 thoughts.

Warnings for gory imagery and discussions of true-crime misogynist brutality and suicide, as well as graphic suicide imagery on one of the dolls.

Death In the City of Devils--My Living Dead Dolls Series 5 Collection Overview

This will not be the most proper "completed series" LDD overview because I did not complete this series in the most standard way. I got both editions of one doll, and I got all five characters, but my complete set as I like it consists of three mains and two variants, so it's not a fully representative set of Series 5 either way. As such, I can't be as objective about the ranking because I did select dolls to serve my appeal.

An Uncomfortable Living Dead Dolls Discussion, Part 1

This blog project is going to be tricky. I will attempt to navigate the social issues as best I can. 

Content warning for scary horror imagery, and discussions and imagery relating to fatphobia, suicide, and true-crime misogynist brutality.

Not everything decays equally well.

Embalmed for the Gods: Monster High G3 Refresh Cleo de Nile by Mattel

There were things I liked about signature G3 Cleo, but if you asked me which of the now-two basic dolls of hers feels like Monster High, there's just no contest. 

Back from the Spirit Realm: Monster High G3 Signature Spectra Vondergeist by Mattel

Let's talk about Spectra! Is she a triumph-haunt return or does she deserve to be boooooed?

Living Dead Dolls Roundup 5

LDD Roundup 3 was unthemed but had the commonality factor of all of its dolls being boys. Here, LDD Roundup 5 has the commonality factor of everybody being a fair-haired scare! All three of these dolls have a blonde or light hair color!

Consider this my July LDD roundup, since this was mostly done and all purchased during July. August should have its own dedicated roundup as well.

Rattle Me Bones: Living Dead Dolls Exclusive Captain Bonney by Mezco Toyz

Summertime is pirate season on the blog, evidently! Last year, I reviewed and made over Monster High pirate character Dayna Treasura Jones, and this year, I've been increasingly captivated by Living Dead Dolls' pirate. All this despite pirate stories being of minimal special appeal to me. Go figure.

The Living Dead Doll in question was a Hot Topic exclusive from outside the numbered series: Captain Bonney. Based upon the real historical pirate Anne Bonny, LDD Bonney (different spelling) stands out to me for two reasons--for one, she has a unique divergent sculpt to her name that no other doll featured, and secondly, she's set apart by being old LDD's attempt at a high-end doll!

BONUS PHOTOSHOOT: Living Dead Dolls Faith

This one hadn't quite gotten her due in the photo department. But how could she have, in March where I live?

Superstition Superstar: Monster High G3 Signature Catty Noir by Mattel

Catty Noir was fairly low on the list of G1 characters I expected to come back. 

MARATHON/MEGA-ROUNDUP Recut Compilation: The Living Dead Dolls Series 23 Project

This is just my previous seven S23 posts all edited together into one long saga with tweaks in prose for flow, and some changes influenced by hindsight coming in. This cut of the project, as a linear marathon, will not be the journey through months of discoveries that the original posts were, so part of this is written with a retrospective lens, as if I had written these reviews and published them all in one go rather than doing them gradually first. If you're curious, take a look at how that's shifted things, because I found it interesting to edit myself. But that's really all there is to this one, so feel no obligation to read again in this form. Just wanted to have the work available in one.

A Twisted "Teatime" Teatime: Living Dead Dolls Series 23 Complete

Thus marks the first completion of a Living Dead Dolls series in my collection! Let's reflect!

The Living Dead Dolls Series 23 Tea Party: Photo Story

Here's the story I envision for the LDD tea party.

Go here to read the first post in this series (Agatha's review),  here for the second (Betsy's review), here for the third (Teddy's review), here for the fourth (Jennocide's review), and here for the fifth (Quack's review).

Duck, Duck, Her Goose Is Cooked: Living Dead Dolls Series 23 Quack by Mezco Toyz

The final doll of Series 23 has arrived: Quack, a loopy-looking doll in a fuzzy sailor duck costume whose tea was implicitly drugged.

I liked Quack's oddball charm and detail, and she was planned as the finale of the collection for a while. I expected to like her a lot, my ideas for her worked as a cap to the doll reviews, and it made sense with her being the most pricey in the aftermarket.

An Electric Concert Atmosphere: Monster High Monster Fest Frankie Stein by Mattel

 This is kind of a shorter topic this time. I just really liked the doll!