The Horrible Wizard of Oz: More Living Dead Dolls

We've still got a ways to go before we look at what Living Dead Dolls promises to be in a new era...and I went on-theme a little further than I'd expected to because I got two more Oz dolls. 

General content warnings for LDD apply from my first post, but these dolls are fairly tame--nothing more extreme than the spooks you would see during a Halloween season.

The first doll is Dr. Dedwin as the Wizard of Oz. He was only sold in a variant set of the Lost in Oz collection which depicted the cast arrived at the Emerald City in green costumes and green lenses to wear. This is all based on the Wizard's greatest con in the book--the book characters are made to think the city is all green because everyone inside is locked into eyeglasses that put a green tinge over everything, but in reality, it's no greener than any other city. As such, the Emerald City dolls use green pieces as a way to indicate that the characters are seeing green through their glasses. The Scarecrow has green button eyes instead of glasses for the same idea of "seeing green".

The Wizard is not the only Living Dead Doll with the paradoxical release format of being exclusive to a variant set of dolls. Claret Winter was exclusive to the red, black, and white variant set of vampire-themed Series 19, Patience Xero was exclusive to the red, black, and white variant set of zombie Series 22, and Wurm was exclusive to the red-and-black-themed variant set of carnival freak-show Series 30. 

Another paradoxical release was Fairy Fay, the severely gory new character debuted in Resurrection series IX. The Resurrection series brought back dolls based on historical murder stories, and Fairy Fay was introduced as a victim. Fairy Fay is likely an apocryphal figure, but she's cited as a victim of Jack the Ripper, and Jack was one of the Resurrected killers in that series. I think Res IX had a gimmick of messages to piece together the mystery of which murderer did Fay in, but I'm betting the answer was just "the person said to have done it in history who is in the series right alongside her". 

And last little note-- the Lost In Oz line, in addition to the two variant sets, also had a glow-in-the-dark version of the main set (the Witch doll was unchanged because her doll already glowed) and two sets of mini dolls built on the existing Living Dead Dolls Minis sculpts--a three-pack of ravenous Munchkins, and a three-pack of Flying Monkeys for the Witch. If I ever get the Witch, I'd look into the monkeys too, because I like the look of them. The colors are awesome, and the yellow is accurate to the books, where it's the color of the Western country of Oz and its people, the Winkies. (East and the Munchkins are blue, South and the Quadlings are red, and the central Emerald City is green. Later books would reveal the North favors purple and is inhabited by the Gillikins.)

Official LDD photo of the Flying Monkey mini dolls.

Dedwin took a long time to arrive because he was internationally shipped, but he came new in box. 

While LDD mainline dolls come in coffins, their licensed dolls and the two lines adapting popular public-domain stories (this one and their Alice in Wonderland line) are in rectangular window boxes that are more typical for toys. This box is slightly wider than the coffin, but wouldn't disrupt a shelf display too badly. The logo puts the "O" in "OZ" as the window, which is also shaped like a gemstone. The front has a simple nameplate design spelling out the original character and the Oz role they're playing. 

The side of the box has a photo portrait of the Wizard.

And the back has that group poster-photo I showed in the last post.

The doll has a cardboard backdrop behind a plastic tray which easily pull out together. This design is less appealing than the tissue of the LDD coffins, but it's practical and won't get damaged. LDD switched to plastic trays in the classic coffin with the last main series, Series 35. 

The cardboard backdrop isn't attached to the plastic tray, and it's a dismal greyscale rendition of the Land of Oz, showing the yellow brick road to the Emerald City. This is just stylistic, though, since the photo on the back of the box indicates that LDD's Land of Oz is still full-color. 

The twist ties are accessed from the back and are easily undone, but they were wound or folded in two directions, making it so you had to switch how to unwind them partway through. 

Dedwin had a tie around his waist. Mainline LDDs (at least, going by the example I saw with Faith) do not.

Here's the doll fully unboxed. 

The original Dr. Dedwin was a medical surgeon in scrubs and was released in an exclusive two-pack outside the numbered series with a female counterpart, Nurse Necro. 

There were no icky surprises under the mask--just unpainted lips.

This Dr. Dedwin instead imagines him as a fantasy sci-fi mad scientist, and he's shockingly LDD's first proper classic mad scientist. It's a pretty solid horror way to interpret the Wizard of Oz...even though the reality is that he's a conman in the story. 

This is Dedwin's second and so-far final doll. Nurse Necro hasn't been seen since her debut. Her only other release was in the Living Dead Dolls Minis alongside Dedwin.

Dedwin's mad-science look starts with his hair. It's a muted ginger tone closer to yellow than red, and is styled and cut vertically, with high temples and a flat hairline on the back making it look undercut. 

It's actually very much like Beaker the Muppet's hair!

The hair has slight gel in it, but I don't think it's doing too much of the work. I didn't get bothered enough by it to rinse it out. 

I really love the color choice of the hair. It works beautifully with his green and brown tones, and I like that the Wizard doll isn't forced into the all-green theme of his own variant set. This feels like he's designed for his own look, and put into the Emerald City variants because that's where he factors into the story. 

One thing that does match him to his variant series is the green lenses he's wearing, which are in some steampunk mad-science goggles!

The goggles are huge and feature a faux-leather edge, inset plastic grommets, and thick green lenses over an opaque backing to block out his eyes. The cut of the goggles is sharper above his nose than between his eyes.  The strap of the goggles is vinyl fabric, but there's an elasticated join just at the back to let the strap stretch a little. 

I was able to pull these up over his head just fine, but I didn't think it was a good idea to put the goggles back on by going over the hairstyle. When I eventually got the piece back on him, I undressed him enough that I could pop his arms out and pulled the goggles up over his body until they were around his neck. These are not easy to put back on after fully removing them, so it's best he keeps them on near his face.

Underneath, Dedwin has the most classic-looking "quintessential LDD" LDD face I've been able to show you. He's got very simple cartoony oval eyes, and harsh, harsh brows (steeper than his original doll!), mixed in with some of LDD's airbrushing and more painterly work to add texture to his nose and eye sockets and mouth, done in purple.

Dedwin's skin color has changed here to be a Frankie Stein-esque mint green whereas he was a stark white color in his debut doll. It might be intended as a direct palette reversal from his first doll, since the skin looks a bit like his older scrubs color and his coat is the same as the older skin color! Greenish skin also makes sense for the Emerald City variant set...though none of the variant characters' skintones change from their main-set counterparts, so the Wizard might just really be green. Out of the Oz dolls, Teddy (Cowardly Lion) is the only character whose skintone has not been changed from their debut doll. I think this green color is perfect with the whole design. Dedwin's eyes are yellow, which is derived from the original doll.

The Wizard's outfit starts with a white lab coat that's been splattered with blood. This Wizard is a scientist putting real organs into the companions of "Dorothy", so this makes sense. I'm a bit surprised his hands are spotless, though. The coat looks nice, and the blood being so unrealistically colored lends the doll a goofier, campier aesthetic that's perfect for the mad-science theme.

The coat has no button detail and does not close in front. The sleeves pull up his arms when he raises them, which is probably the only thing about this doll that feels medically safe!

Underneath, the Wizard, like the Scarecrow, has full sleeves. He's in a vintage gentleman's outfit that includes a dress shirt with a bowtie, a waistcoat, woolen trousers, and argyle socks. 

The bowtie is brown tweed and sewn to the front of the shirt, and the waistcoat is darker brown with fake silver buttons and a small golden chain sewn to the side to simulate a watch chain.

The waistcoat is a removable layer that closes in the front like the real thing, using velcro (not like the real thing).

The pants are a dark brown wool material, and they're unsurprisingly sewn to the shirt. Formal outfits for dolls typically get made one piece for a cleaner look. However, for how seamless they looked, I was pleasantly shocked to see the socks were separate. They're a great green argyle. 

The shoes are a fancy sculpt I'm not familiar with for LDD, being made to look like pierced leather. They're medium brown and the sculpts don't look directional to me. These go on and off very smoothly.

Here's the Wizard's outfit laid out. I didn't undress him fully because there was nothing to see. He doesn't have painted underwear.

Then, of course, the main reason I got the Wizard--he includes the boons Dorothy's friends have been journeying for. First of them is the brain for the Scarecrow/Purdy...which is an actual human brain!

The brain is a hollow vinyl piece that's fairly stiff and not too compressible. The only things I can think of comparing it to off the top of my head are a really hard aged rubber duck or a thick blow-mold. It doesn't feel like the same kind of vinyl the dolls are made of. I had mistakenly gotten the impression from the Joshua Lee reviews that Purdy's brains were made of a stiff foam, like a firm squeeze stress ball, but this is plastic. That's probably the best for making it hold up to time.

The brain is molded in red and painted over in thin white to give it a really nasty look. 

And that sucker is in! It's not too difficult to pop into the head, or to take out. It feels secure.

This is such an awesome doll gimmick, and it feels so bizarrely satisfying to plop an organ into a doll who's missing one! Purdy and the Scarecrow are complete now, and the doll can be wrapped back up in the burlap mask, now knowing there are some good brains inside that head!

The next piece Dedwin includes is the human heart for the Tin Man. The Tin Man is played by Series 3-debuting character the Bride of Valentine. She's a Frankenmonster built without a heart and she debuted this very heart accessory, so she was a natural choice for that role, just like Purdy and the brain made her a lock for the Scarecrow.

The heart has a peg on the back to push into a palm. Dedwin only has his right palm pierced with a hole, so that's the hand this heart goes into. 

LDD made one other organ as a doll's disembodied accessory--a kidney with the Unwilling Donor from the urban-legends-themed Series 17. Not a very metaphorical organ or one the Oz folk felt in need of, so she and her kidney weren't involved here.

The brain for the Scarecrow is the literal LDD human brain piece, and the heart is the LDD human heart, but what did they do for courage for the Cowardly Lion? In the book, the Wizard gives the Lion a strong substance to drink, implying it was alcohol and "liquid courage", but LDD goes for an alternative joke. For the Lion, the Wizard has a blue velvet drawstring pouch. Huh?

The strings are tied in a knot, and undoing them and opening the pouch reveals...two brass balls!

It's crude and it's not my typical kind of humor...but I can't ignore that it is really funny. I mean, even the pouch itself is part of the innuendo, and it's so wild I have to just laugh. I don't have Teddy as the Cowardly Lion, and I'd be fine never having him, so this can be the Wizard's own accessory.

The Wizard doll has a great visual design. Everything feels perfect for a vintage Oz mad scientist in color and texture and detail, and he's also a great spooky toy for campy Halloween science-horror displays. He's a very cool doll on his own merits, and definitely worth it for collectors of this LDD set.

And I improvised with my graphics program and ended up with this collage-style poster.

...okay, so I couldn't hold off and I got the Tin Man Bride of Valentine. She missed the Valentine season this year, but I just loved the look of the doll and I knew I could complete her with the Wizard.

While Dedwin was significantly changed in his costume, this Oz character is the least recognizable as her original LDD identity--this was what the original Bride of Valentine looked like.

Official LDD photo of the Bride of Valentine.

The Bride of Valentine was also one of the original "handmade" characters before LDD entered production, though she had the second-longest wait of the group to be produced, being released in Series 3. As mentioned in the last post, the character Candy Rotten beats that time by a mile by taking over twenty more series to get her market release.

The handmade proto-Bride of Valentine. (Photo from the LDD site archive.)

As expected, her Tin Man doll is almost entirely shades of metallic silver, with splashes of red and rusty/oily brown. She looks basically nothing like her other dolls. I did still find myself defaulting to referring to this doll as female more than male, though, despite the role she's playing and her gender-neutral look. I don't know why, but I just rolled with it.

Rust hazards and oil loss are big concerns for the original character, so the invocation for more horrific visuals is conceptually sound. With this doll, I'm reminded so strongly of Madame Alexander renditions of the character which are quite similar, and that's a big part of this doll's appeal for me because it feels like a direct parody. 

Google images of Madame Alexander Tin Men.

I also just always loved the Tin Man as a concept and visual. 

Actually, it strikes me just now how Ever After High never adapted the Oz characters...and how awesome it would have been had Ever After High adapted the Oz characters! If they'd done a Tin Man's child as a doll, that could have immediately become one of the best in the line.

While the LDD toys are legally not based on the MGM film, this Living Dead Doll is the other doll in the line with a distinct influence from the film--his proper character name being the "Tin Man" is the fault of the movie. In the books, the character is described as "a tin man", but is officially titled by his occupation and is properly called the Tin Woodman when referred to with capitalization.

The Tin Woodman's book story is also surprisingly dark and a perfect fit for LDD--he was a man named Nick Chopper who loved a Munchkin girl. The woman overseeing the girl asked the Wicked Witch of the East to prevent the two from marrying, so the Witch cursed Chopper's axe to cut him apart again and again. He replaced each lost part with a tin copy from a local tinsmith, until the last strike split his body down the middle and he was fully rebuilt out of tin, but now lacking a heart and any motivation to go after the girl he used to love.

Like with the Scarecrow, I got the Tin Man loose.

The Tin Man is most commonly depicted with a funnel for a hat as an iconic element of his design, which dates to the original book illustrations, so it's admittedly unusual to not see that replicated with the LDD doll. This version of him has a pointed cap with an elastic chin strap, made of a shiny gunmetal grey vinyl fabric. The material is pretty thick and smooth. It doesn't look like the type that will crack and peel.

This piece works pretty well within a similar silhouette and it does give the design a bit of a retro-futurist sci-fi robot edge that the rest appears to lean toward, possibly to pair best with the mad-scientist take on the Wizard. I believe the Tin Man could have been his creation! 

The cap goes on and off very easily and the hair won't be messed up. 

The point was a little crooked, so I later stuffed some tiny scraps of paper towel into it to fill the shape out better.

The hair is a whitish silver color that's the brightest tone on the doll, and is styled in a boyish or gender-neutral short cut, with bangs in front and choppy layers that come to a point in the back. The hair might have been more stiffly gelled at a time, but I can't really confirm if it's gelled today. It's definitely less gelled-feeling than Dedwin's.

I think the Living Dead Doll with the most similar hairstyle would be the wicked fairy Absynth from Series 21.  

The Tin Man's face is the most striking, because he's the only Oz doll who has a physical feature completely unique among LDD--real Phillips-head screws have been twisted into the head to replace the eyes, which I'm honestly shocked hasn't been done before.

It's a great way to include a mechanical gore design feature and there's a Coraline-esque tone to it, like this is what would happen to the characters if the monster's motif was woodworking rather than sewing. The eyes look so absent and strange, and it really puts a more horrific spin on the book backstory of a man being replaced by metal, piece by piece. LDD has pierced a few doll's faces for edgy jewelry, and rings and screws in the dolls remind me of the modifications I've used to create several Left Out Dolls. I probably took inspiration from dolls like this Tin Man! The eyes are airbrushed around with a darker grey shading, and paint depicts oil or rust scars dripping from the eye sockets under the screws, suggesting tears have been flowing from the sockets...or the Tin Man's oil blood!

Also on the face is a long crack design composed of a line of red and black each that intersects with the left eye. It's possible this represents a split in the tin from an errant axe swing or else that the metal split a little from the pressure of the screw being twisted in! I do like the disturbing implication that the Tin Man is more biomechanical due to the blood-red line in the crack.

I think the Tin Man is also LDD's only metallic doll--the body parts are all faintly metallic silver.

The last thing is that the Tin Man has very classic-looking vintage-dolly lip painting in bright red to look extra sweet and childlike, and this really harkens to Madame Alexander dolls and their visual style if the overall look of the two brands' takes on the Tin Man already didn't. The sweet retro lip paint is definitely ironic in style, but the lips do lend the doll a genuinely darling feel all the same. It's quite endearing.

The Tin Man's outfit is two pieces. Over top, he has a metallic coat that matches the fabric of the hood. Rust paint has been added in spots to dirty the look. The coat is long-sleeved with a flared skirt-like hem, the sleeves hang just past the wrists, and the coat has a shirt-style collar. The front is a long flap that alludes to the barrel-body and riveted seams often associated with the Tin Man's torso design. The front and collar are also stamped in with a filigree button texture that's quite ornate! 

The coat elbows are made of a ribbed elastic metallic fabric to look like robot-style flex joints!

The coat velcros far to the side, and overlaps a lot of fabric when that's done. The torso is covered by a lot of the coat left of the velcro attachment!

Underneath, the Tin Man has a sleeveless turtleneck bodysuit that covers the legs but not the feet. The fabric is the same ribbed metallic stretch fabric used for the coat elbows to create the robot-limb effect. This piece has rust paint on it as well.

The boots are the same typical LDD sculpt as the Scarecrow used, but in silver with rust coloring.

Pulling these off revealed elastic straps at the bottom of the bodysuit legs to keep them pulled down around the ankles.

While the heart is the Wizard accessory intended for the Tin Man, he has one in the solo release, too-naturally, he's got his axe, and naturally, it sure doesn't look like it's been chopping trees. 

The blood could be a reference to the blade chopping the Tin Man himself apart piece by piece, though surely it would have oxidized and darkened. Maybe this Tin Man is just an unrestrained murderer. And he did chop apart beasts beset upon the group in the book.  This axe sculpt debuted with the first doll of Lizzie Borden (a historical suspect accused and acquitted of a lurid axe murder before being forever damned by the court of public opinion), and it has a peg that goes into the right hand. (Lizzie was also in the aforementioned Resurrection IX series.) I'm a little disappointed the Tin Man's left hand isn't pierced, though, because the blade would face properly forward there with the peg placed how it is. In the right hand, it's more awkward. The piece is also fairly heavy and the peg isn't too long, so the security of the attachment isn't the best when the doll is moved around.

Unlike Purdy, the Bride of Valentine Tin Man doesn't have a chest cavity or opening torso with which to place her heart into her body, and her coat doesn't open over a bare chest, so it wouldn't be easy to play with that if she did. The Bride of Valentine never had a function to implant a heart before, so I can understand why they didn't start here, but I think it would have put this doll closer to the Scarecrow and increased the value. 

I think the Tin Man doll is really wonderful. She somehow manages to combine gothic grunge, biomechanical gore, retro sci-fi, vintage dolly charm, and a beloved literary character into one design that's simple and striking. She might be the best Lost in Oz doll just for being so unusual and unmistakably Oz while doing it. She also does what the others don't and brings not one, but two innovations to Living Dead Doll design--screws for eyes and a metallic spray body color. I just really wish her axe was assigned to the other hand (or that she could hold both of her assigned accessories), and the lack of an organ-implantation feature feels really unbalanced next to Purdy. 

So. Look.

I know I swore not to touch these dolls, and that should still hold true for every conceivable future acquisition...but the idea was just too good. I'm not likely to let go of this doll, and even though any modification invariably functions as critique, I do love this doll design as she is. I just had to indulge that urge to make her more interactive and I hope some part of this can come across as tribute to the morbid hands-on custom work that started LDD to begin with.

I decided to cut a panel in the torso, and realized ahead of time that I could make it a hinged door by using a hinge from a tiny craft-store wooden box, which I ordered. I cut the edge the hinge would go onto and screwed the hinge in before I finished cutting the whole "door" so things could get attached properly. I then fiddled a little and trimmed some vinyl from the flap to make sure it closed reliably. Around the edge, I painted red and black just like her face crack to blend the detail in and make the door look more uncomfortably like it was cut out of her rather than being built in (which is literally the case!) and then added some rust paint of my own. I painted some red inside the door too. The most subtractive change I made was to cut the top portion of the bodysuit off. It wasn't visible under the coat and would get in the way of this feature. I sealed the edge of the new pants with glue and paint, and the waist took on a good torn-metal shape from the cuts. I also bored a hole in her left hand. It's not much better than the fit on the other hand, but it's a good option. I screwed a screw into the belly button as well--it was just meant to be a stylistic touch, but I realized it also provided a bar inside the torso that stopped the heart from falling into her belly out of the frame of the door. I wanted the heart to be right there in sight within the rectangle of the door when the torso was opened, and the screw made that happen! The door is too low for this to be a realistic heart placement, but this is a sketchy-ass mad doctor and the Tin Man doesn't know any better.

As you can see, the inside of the doll is a linoleum yellow which looks like a "default" vinyl color that was well-sprayed on the outside to create the metallic silver.

When I shoved her boots back on, the elastics pulling the legs down slipped off. I think if I kept it a full bodysuit, the piece would have stayed taut.

The creepy glee I feel opening her up and popping her heart in made me feel okay about doing this. It feels so correct, and so easy. I caught myself idly repeating and reversing the process several times just to fiddle with the fun of it. She's like a nightmare fidget toy now!

I remember being enchanted by a wind-up tin toy of Futurama's Bender when I was a kid, and that had a door on the torso that could open (it probably wasn't supposed to) to show the mechanics inside. I've always loved the gag of cartoon robots having compartments on their torso to toss things into, and making that happen here, with the bonus surgical-horror concept and the Wizard of Oz iconography? This is like a twisted bespoke dream.

Did I objectively devalue this doll and commit collector heresy? Absolutely, and I am sorry. Subjectively, though? Just the opposite. I'm delighted with the result.

If I had a redo, I would cut the door higher, but I erred on the side of caution since I didn't want to accidentally get in the way of her arm and neck joint construction. I probably could have shifted it a bit further up and put screws or pins down her middle to prop the heart up without having to use the belly button, but that lined up well with how it went. I'm perfectly happy with what I have. She's just fun. Possibly my favorite classic LDD so far. She's all the cartoonish pop, vintage style, cute charm, and fun ghoulishness I like from the brand. 

I used some trees with low branches to take photos of how this Tin Man might have been discovered in the forest.

I also had to take some belated Valentine photos of her offering her heart.

Then, I had to take some pictures of the gang.

___________________________________________________________________________________

[continuing from some unwritten chapter-]

...The Petitioners were skeptical of the Wizard by now, and suddenly noticed a strange curtain in the corner.

"Pay no mind to the curtain; that's not your concern-!
"Shall I look?"
"Yes. I don't like this."

Behind the curtain, behind the Wizard, was nothing but a mad doctor. The Scarecrow and Tin Man were shocked and none too amused to find a lowly physician had been the Wizard all along. They were nearly ready to devour him, but he struck them a hearty deal: to just give them what they wanted. He scrambled to his medicine to appease them. He was glad their demands could be quite literally fulfilled by his trade! First, the Wizard took the Scarecrow to the slab, stuffing a brain into the hollow head.

"Why-I have a brain!"
"Yes, yes...you might consider a helmet, as well."

Then, he brought in the Tin Man. He sawed open the metal torso and spilled buckets of oil before getting the heart ready.

"What will the Lion's courage look like?"
"Shhhhh now, don't ask questions you don't want the answer to!"

Dorothy's friends had finally gotten what they most wanted.

Then they ate the Wizard anyway.

An edible Wiz, he was. (There's no taste like bones.)

________________________________________________________________________________

I then tried to take a photo with the China Girl, remembering she's a resident of the Land of Oz too (though not created by L. Frank Baum). I didn't get very far with this idea and she did not like her company.

"EEEEK!!!!"

Oh, dear. 

The Living Dead Dolls got the China Girl to "cooperate", so I guiltily snapped a photo of all of my Oz stuff, then quickly freed her. 

If the China Girl was in the book, LDD Frozen Charlotte could have easily played her in this line!

Well, I'm very happy with these Living Dead Dolls. The Wizard is really finely designed and will work great for Halloween while being a great Oz design, and his accessories are a gimmick, but not one that overpowers the worth of the doll. (That gimmick is also genuinely rewarding to complete the dolls with--Purdy most of all for the factory designs.) And that "courage", man. That's a standout gag for LDD. 

The Tin Man is very haunting and cool with the mechanical creep factor and the darling sweetness contrasting against it in parodic form. I think I made the doll much more meaningful and charming to myself by breaking the law and modifying her, but she's pretty striking as-produced, and, as produced, does things no LDD had done or has done since. I'm glad to have gotten her even if I maybe should have waited. 

I don't know how much more of the Oz line I'll end up with, because I'm not attached enough to Oz or all of the dolls to get them all, and other Oz characters are not on my shortlist of wanted LDD acquisitions. It might just be the Witch I end up getting sometime. Still, The Lost in Oz is a very strong LDD line and offers wide appeal. These dolls have also given me a wider sample size and proved to me that classic LDD has a lot of charm and that I should pursue the characters I like from the backlog because they'll be worth it.

Next up, Sadie, and the astonishing heights that the brand has reached for--and achieved.