Just a few more to look at--curiosity pieces and clothes donors I needed to have.
First is the O.M.G. Movie Magic two-pack of Pink Chick and Tough Dude, an archetypal good-girl/bad-boy rebel couple representing the musical romance genre a la Grease or West Side Story. Unlike the solo Movie Magic dolls, the two-pack characters don't have two distinct looks each, or transforming outfit pieces, and each is the older sibling of only one distinct L.O.L. character as such. While they still stand in for a movie genre, they also seem to represent classic movie patrons more than actors, as their set is themed on 1950s drive-in theater culture.
I'm planning a project I'm really excited for, and to execute it, it was essential that I get all of Tough Dude's clothing pieces. There were no complete Tough Dudes going for cheaper than the full set at the moment, so I went for the whole thing. More pieces to work with!
Here's the box. It's quite wide and has a carry handle on the top. The individual character names are on the thin sides closest to the front art. Unlike the solo Movie Magic dolls, the character art here is fully 2D in the more typical L.O.L. style, not linework placed over photography. The box had a sticker from its previous source.
The number of advertised surprises (25+!) has not changed from the solo dolls, so you can already guess that the individual dolls have a bit less going on for themselves.
This box is wrapped by a sleeve that goes around the four sides of the box, and taking that off is the first step. This reveals the unboxing sheet taped the inner box, telling you to remove the sleeve as the first step...which you have to have already done to access the unboxing sheet.
Here's what the inner box looks like. The design is split between the two characters' aesthetics, and the VHS spines of the doll boxes are on the ends.
Popping up the display works like the solo Movie Magic boxes, but with two halves that fold up for a two-sided setup. It's much easier to do here because there's only one end you can possibly pop up to fold the display. The two panels slot into the sides and attach to each other. There is no "Cine-Matic" pop-up for the film slide gimmick here, and no red/blue character graphics on the "screens" because these characters don't have drastically different looks. The two sides depict different moments at a drive-in movie, with Pink Chick's side showing the couple on-screen performing a musical number or numbers with printed boastful lyrics.
The doll boxes slide out from the ends.
The ambiguous text on Pink Chick's label says "BOX OFFICE B.B." and "HEARTBREAKER", and Tough Dude's says "TICKET TAKER" and "LEADING MAN".
The back graphics have the same warning label as Gamma Babe's, so maybe there wasn't any play on the character theme with that.
Since Tough Dude and Pink Chick only adapt one L.O.L. character to O.M.G. each, the "also starring" credits on the spines just list the one sibling twice, but in two different typefaces to reveal with the 3D glasses. Tough Dude's younger sibling is Tough Guy, and Pink Chick's is Pink Baby. These are some of the most direct name translations I've seen for O.M.G. older siblings.
Let's start with Pink Chick, since I consider her the B-doll of this set.
 |
| The pink cardboard platform she's above is a hollow piece and not storing anything. |
Her backdrop shows a fifties diner scene with portraits of Pink Baby and Tough Guy.
Here's the unboxed doll.
Pink Chick is the palest L.O.L. doll I've acquired. Her hair is styled in a loose front swoop to the side, while the back is tied in a ponytail and two ringlets frame her face. The underside of her hair is rooted in pink, while the rest is blonde. Pink Chick falls into the same pink-and-blonde aesthetic as icons like Barbie and Elle Woods.
Her face has large silver wing eyeshadow and purple under the eye. Her eyes are brown and her lips are pink.
To show she's a good girl who fell in love with a bad boy and joined that crowd, she's wearing a varsity-style pink jacket with checkered black sleeves and striped pink cuffs. The zipper isn't real.
The back has a neon broken heart graphic under the phrase "Cry B.B.". This heart image is shared by Tough Dude's pieces.
Pink Chick's dress is an ultra-feminine pink piece with ruffles and a waist bow. The piece fastens like a tank top that opens all the way down the back rather than something that pulls up her body, so, while fabric folds over, it doesn't cover her butt the best.
Pink Chick has some tall pink socks with white dots, and leather-textured high-top boots with black toes.
Let's start unboxing surprises with the round box. This contained two packages.
The first I opened contained Pink Chick's accessories--silver hoop earrings (not the same as Spirit Queen's), a silver chain necklace, and heart-shaped white 3D glasses. I love that someone in the Movie Magic line got their 3D own glasses to wear.
The lenses technically work like the human-sized ones in the line, but they're less translucent, and the red lens is more opaque than the blue.
Here's Pink Chick with those pieces on.
The other package in the round box was Tough Dude's equivalent accessories, so his box might not have a plastic container of surprises. His 3D glasses are black and don't have fun lens shapes.
I think these glasses work pretty well on Spirit Queen.
Next, Pink Chick has a paper packet with tear edges, something I saw with Court Cutie and King Bee, but not in any of the other Movie Magic dolls.
The two movie titles in the ambiguous text are "My Fierce Lady", taking off on romantic musical My Fair Lady, which is an altogether different setting from fifties rebel stories, and "Honey, I Shrunk The B.B.s", alluding to non-romantic non-musical comedy Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
Inside was one tissue-wrapped bundle.
This contained two movie-food accessories--a red drink cup and a popcorn bucket! These are great pieces, and you can nicely designate one for each doll. I've always had a special love for popcorn, so the bucket is especially welcome.
The pieces are also wonderfully generic--I don't know how MGA stopped themselves from putting obnoxious text and branding on these, but I'm glad they did!
Last is a very long garment bag, decorated with theater marquees.
This contains a second outfit for Pink Chick--a cropped top and black leggings.
The leggings would probably swap out well for the socks to make Pink Chick a little more decent with the way that dress is constructed, but I'm not inspired by the doll much, so I just tried the second look with the jacket.
Pink Chick's stand was the last thing to unbox, with two narrow clips and one wide.
Now, Tough Dude--the main attraction.
The first thing I unboxed here was the film slide, since he's got that part. It's only one panel as opposed to the other dolls' two, and viewing the image is just done with a cardboard square to slide under the clear piece.
This might be the only film slide to depict O.M.G. dolls--it shows a different rebel couple, Punk Grrrl and Rocker Boi, who comprised another two-pack. Rocker Boi was the first O.M.G. boy doll.
Then I unboxed the doll.
Tough Dude has elements of Elvis and James Dean in his greaser/rockabilly look, and he has a modernized take on a greaser pompadour with his gelled curly mohawk hairdo. There are pink streaks among the brown, and the hair is stiff and solid--pretty authentic to the classic hairstyle! From the front, it just looks like a tuft of hair, so a side angle really communicates the silhouette he's homaging better. The "shaved" parts of his hair are flocked, and this includes some pretty big sideburns for the tough look.
Tough Dude's face isn't all that tough, going with the simplicity and childlike look of the O.M.G. Guys face, but he does have painted eyebrow piercings on his right, as well as a heart taken out of his left eyebrow. I have no idea how he would achieve that (a micro-shaver? Plucking?), but it's cool.
Tough Dude's outfit is very cool, and I want to see if you can guess who I want to give all of these clothes to based on my writeup here!
It starts with his leather jacket. The lapels have silver studs and print saying "X-TRA" in white and "OMG!" in red.
The jacket has a fake zipper but a real belt, which can pull through the buckle to close the coat a little.
The back of the jacket has a graphic of a split heart, half of which looks like a speedometer, and text saying "RACING HEART".
For the future wearer, I will need to paint out the text on the lapels and back with matching colors, but that shouldn't be an issue.
Underneath, Tough Dude has a black-and-white striped vest, owing to Elvis. The vest has a V-neck and shoulders cut to look torn off, features a red broken-heart graphic on the left breast, and the fabric is pretty thick. The vest also comes down to cover his waist.
 |
| I feel like I could use multiple copies of this piece. |
Tough Dude's pants are jeans with red-checked elastic suspenders attached which can be worn up or off, and there's a printed bandanna handkerchief stuffed into his pocket!
The bandanna is held in with a plastic tag, but I broke it to have it be an optional piece. You can't really do anything else with it besides stuff it in his hand, but I love this detail being there.
The knees of the pants are distressed, and the back pockets are embroidered with broken hearts.
The suspenders don't feel quite as taut on his shoulders as I think they ought to.
Tough Dude is wearing red sneakers and awesome black-and-white checkered socks. I think one of these will replace the striped sock I gave to Neonlicious, because this pattern directly matches her. The striped sock will pair better with the vest for the character I'm working on.
Here's Tough Dude with his accessories. I gave him the popcorn, but his hand sculpt is really suited only for the drink cup because his hand doesn't fit into the popcorn handle the correct way.
Next is the paper pamphlet. It has images of both dolls, and repeats the text of the song lyrics seen on the movie screen display.
When I unboxed Tough Dude's stand, I realized I had the perfect opportunity to compare clips, and it turns out the boy clip is subtly wider than the wide clip offered to girls.
Next, I grabbed his garment bag, which has a ticket-stub design. Inside is his color-blocked black-and-white dress shirt.
This feels like such a versatile piece to me, and on Tough Dude, it creates a more formal "good boy" effect on him when paired with the suspenders.
The vest can layer over the shirt for a more complex version of the same tones. You can keep the suspenders on the shoulders under the vest, or take them down. The vest hangs too long for the suspenders to be worn over it, but that wouldn't make visual sense even if they could.
And here he is wearing everything except the glasses. The shirt makes a subtle difference here but it looks good.
Tough Dude's outfit is just incredible. The pants with suspenders and a pocket bandanna, the vest, the shirt, the jacket with the working belt, and the patterned socks and shoes...it's next-level. Mattel could never, and it's really not common for me to be so impressed by a boy doll's costume. These pieces were already stylistically perfect for the character I wanted them for, and the options offered by the outfit will make it all the better. Suspenders on or off, shirt or vest or both, jacket and shirt, jacket and vest, jacket and both--I love it.
Can you guess who I want these for?
While the doll these clothes are going to isn't ready yet, I did have one person who was able to steal from him immediately--that die earring simply had to go to fellow fifties rebel Operetta. I pierced her right ear and gave it to her. She's always had her own dice motif, so it was the perfect little touch to make her even better.
And while I don't intend to keep these dolls, at least not as they are, I made a movie-poster photo of their "canon" states for their romantic musical.
I also wanted to take a look at the only Tweens boy doll so far, Max Wonder--and very possibly the only one there will ever be.
He comes from a line called Masquerade Party, where every character is inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Jacki Hops is rabbit-themed and references the White Rabbit, Kat Mischief is cat-themed and stands in for the Cheshire Cat, Regina Harrt is clearly aping the Queen of Hearts, and Max Wonder stands in for Alice. The younger siblings of these characters, upon whom the Tweens are based, corresponded to the same Alice characters in their own ways.
Here's the backdrop out. The compartment for the stand tore in the process.
The stand is small, with thin clips. The stand comes with two clips, and the single storage mount in the base can fit both clips stacked on top on the same peg.
Here's Max out.
His hair is light blonde and very curly, and made to look shaved on the sides with flocking that has a yellow ombre effect.
His hair shed all over from the curls getting cut at the factory.
Max's face doesn't feel as different from an older O.M.G. than the girls' do, since he doesn't have a tooth strip painted on his mouth. He has freckles and heavy cheek blush to make him rosier, but his lip color feels quite ashy and dead to me.
Max is wearing a necklace with playing card charms on it.
Max is wearing all of his fabric pieces, so his outfit is made complex with a jacket and kilt as an optional costume layer. These are in Alice-esque blue tones with subtly mismatched plaid fabrics that have red accents.
 |
| I like the real chain sewn to the kilt! |
There was only one doll I could think of looking at Max's jacket and kilt--these are ideal G3 Frankie pieces. Blue, black, white, and silver Fearidescent Frankie was the ideal model of the Frankies, so I decided to get a nude second copy of them. My first copy had their outfit sorted, and I had the feeling a haircut would also be called for with the Max costume. More on that in a minute.
Underneath, Max has a white tee with a cartoon of a white rabbit on it, and long black pants with ribbons saying "WONDER" attached to add texture.
Max has striped Alice short socks, with one having playing-card hearts.
His shoes say "Curiouser" on each toe, making up the classic quote "Curiouser and curiouser".
This outfit isn't what I might gravitate toward when interpreting Alice's costume for a boy, but it looks good...and it's a heck of a lot more imaginative and personable than Ever After High's Alistair Wonderland managed.
Now, the surprises. Most of them aren't, really, but there is one perforated compartment hiding a blind item.
The compartment had the manual, and one paper packet holding a tissue-wrapped bundle alluding to the chessboard structure of Looking-Glass Land!
Inside was his mask and an earring. Both of Max's ears are pierced, but he only has the one earring.
The mask attaches like Gamma Babe's visor, with an elastic strap that buckles to allow you not to have to pull it over his head. Here are those pieces on.
With his kilt, black nail paint, and mask, Max feels very experimental in his gender presentation in a way I enjoy.
Then, his pamphlet. It's ambiguous, but it might suggest that the masquerade is a birthday event for Max himself. Makes sense. In a cast of Wonderland characters, of course the Alice analogue would be the protagonist, and he's the new Tween boy, so that makes him an attraction, too.
Max has a bunny shoulder bag matching his shirt graphic. It's open at the top, but good luck using it.
The strap has a pin closure to let it open and cross over his body easier, but when trying to open this closure, I pulled out the very end of the strap from one side of the bag on its own pin! That was easier to do than using the strap as intended!
Then, two rounds of accessories. First is a black nail polish bottle matching what Max is wearing, an outdated aughties CD player which opens and has a removable disc(!) and a hair gel tube with a handle on the back.
I'm entirely in the age demographic to feel some strong 2000s nostalgia for the CD player, and the functionality of it is fantastic. I love it.
Max's next accessories are a corsage that can wrap around his hand, and what seems to be a hairspray can. The cap doesn't come off. I don't get the emphasis on hair shaping products when Max's hair doesn't look like it's using any. There's also an alternate pair of shoes, something I haven't encountered on any other L.O.L. doll, and a doll comb for the owner, differing from O.M.G. dolls using brushes.
Max's body is a less mature equivalent of the O.M.G. Guys body and has no articulation surprises. It's a Tweens-sized and more youthful equivalent to the Guy. This body is taller than the Tween girls.
I'll keep Max around in case an idea for him comes that I can achieve with what I have, but right now, he's going to be out of use. I appreciate what he does, but don't need him for what he is.
The Fearidescent Frankie I ordered a spare of came nude and, wait, they had bangs that looked like they were supposed to?!?!
 |
| It's a miracle! |
I had yet to see any evidence that any Fearidescent Frankies were manufactured correctly hair-wise, and I don't remember their picture in the listing looking this good! For comparison, this is the hair situation I saw on my first copy, echoed by in-hand photos elsewhere.
 |
| Fresh out of box. |
 |
| Boiled. |
I wish the second copy's was the hair I'd gotten before! I'm not swapping the doll out, though. I'm lazy, I already swapped bodies on my first copy, and v1 looks good enough as they are.
I was realizing that maybe Max's kilt would be way to small for Frankie, but fortunately, they fit in both the jacket and kilt pretty nicely. The kilt is shorter than G3 fare goes, but not proportionally shorter than G1 clothing. And the style of these pieces was begging to be modeled on this doll! The clothes land directly in their fashion sense! I threw in sig G3 Draculaura's shades because I thought they'd need fairly opaque sunglasses in this look, and I also added Pink Chick's silver necklace. I took the Fearidescent boots back from the improvisational Day Out Frankie restyle.
Then, I gave them a haircut to try a bob style on them, and the hair fortunately fell just how I wanted it--no boiling required. I then added Max's earring on their left ear, and gave them three bracelets on their right--a red sandwiched by two silvers. They can come together and look like one piece. I really like this ensemble. It's a little metropolitan and celebrity, but still punk and defiant. I think the gender experimentation of Max carries over well onto Frankie as a nonbinary character--nuances like the skirt being a masculine kilt strike a nice resonance with them stepping out of those boundaries. Frankie doesn't present fully androgynous, nor should they have to, but they do have a palpable queer sensibility to their femme lean, and this works with that.
And since I decided I loved the CD player so much, it became their accessory.
I already have a Frankie collecting problem, so I'm not making things any better for myself by also seeking out spare Frankies to make custom restyle editions...but I love Frankie so much that it's entirely worth it to me.
Lastly, I remembered that I actually had a copy of L.O.L. Glamstronaut from the L.O.L. side of the Movie Magic line--she's one of Gamma Babe's little sisters!
This was thrown into an order as a freebie I didn't particularly want, but I never got rid of her.
The L.O.L. dolls are small figurines with soft vinyl heads that squeeze to suck in water. Different dolls have different holes from which the water will flow when the head is squeezed out. Some cry through holes in their eyes, others spit back out the mouth, and the last category pees through a channel in their body. Glamstronaut has no holes in her body or eyes, so she would be a spitter.
L.O.L. clothing is flexible vinyl, Polly Pocket-style. Glamstronaut has a removable jacket, cage skirt, and diaper, though I only realized the first two came off in these photos.
As you can see, the heads just pop onto a neck ball joint. The arms and legs only rotate, leaving the doll with five points of articulation.
Here's a spectrum of L.O.L. dolls--Fierce, O.M.G. Guys, O.M.G., Surprise Tweens, and L.O.L. Surprise.
I took this photo before Max arrived, but he'd slot between O.M.G. and Surprise Tweens on the height scale.
Since my restyles with Gamma Babe left the character's original robot side unexplored, I decided to try repainting Glamstronaut as a robot. This was purely as a brief experimental whim, so I didn't worry about the paint job being hardy or sustainable. I don't plan to keep her after this review, but thought I might try out another look for fun.
So that's it for L.O.L.--again! I've definitely seen a lot more of the positives in the brand in this round of reviews, and have found plenty to mourn in the short-lived ideas and the impending total demise of the brand. L.O.L.'s aesthetic and identity unadulterated still don't work for me, but I've found ways to bend it to places I enjoy, and found some real wonder and fun with their products. MGA had some good going on, and while it's uncomfortable to admit, their best stuff has coincided with their most objectionable optics. MGA going soft loses the stuff I revile, but also the things I love. I wish we could just have MGA being awesome without being concerning, but we might have to wait a while to potentially see a phase like that now that they've likely served Mattel the win on a platter for the next year or two with their cheaper, duller, sweeter rebrands. L.O.L. was shallow and grotesque. But it was also poppy and cute and fun, with great clothing pieces that have been godsends for my Monster High collection. I'm glad for the good I was able to find.
That CD player, no to make a pun, but Oh My God! That's one of the best accessories I think I've seen.
ReplyDelete