Big Big Blizzard: Monster High Boo-riginal Creeproduction Abbey Bominable by Mattel

I hate glitter-encrusted skin. But I really love Abbey Bominable and liked her signature design more and more as time has gone by. So I decided to try. 

Read my first Creeproduction review here, my second one here, and my first review of an Abbey doll here.

Abbey Bominable was one of my favorite characters in G1. While I acknowledge that she was totally culturally off-base by being portrayed as Slavic when her textual background of the Himalayas is South Asian (something corrected by G3), I thought she was a very endearing Slavic character and she resonated with my own background as a very young adoptee from the region. Abbey is a yeti, the mythical snow-beast hominid, and she struggles to fit in at Monster High due to her cultural differences. Not only is her English not at full command, displaying quirks common to Slavic native speakers, but her culture of living in thin air and using few words to save oxygen has resulted in her verbiage being seen as more terse and cold that she intends for it to be. In the webisodes, during her first days at MH, Frankie Stein is her assigned buddy to show her around, and Toralei tries to start a fight between them because she's awful. Abbey is heartbroken to think Frankie doesn't like her, and only when the two ghouls realize they've been messed with do things get better. Abbey, as a yeti, is also a very physically tough ghoul, and she plays no games and is more upfront and earnest in an endearing way, like when she disregards her friends' advice to let Cleo win a board game because she thinks it's ridiculous...and Cleo is delighted to finally have a worthy challenge! While the Abominable Snowman is more typically viewed as cryptid folklore moreso than direct horror, I think Abbey's G1 design was very strong and she was some nice wintry rep in a brand that didn't really celebrate the winter holidays.

Here's Abbey's box. Her theme color is light blue, and like with Ghoulia, this extends to her stand and brush. Frankie's box was dark blue but her extras were laboratory-silver, and Clawdeen's box was purple but her extras were salmon like her top. 

I noticed from first photos of the wave 2 boxes that Abbey's uniquely lacked a name label and trademark next to her pet Shiver. 

Everyone else in Wave 2 had the name and trademark of the pets on the little popout bubbles, just like the wave 1 Creepro dolls and the originals, so I was wondering if perhaps Mattel had lost a trademark in the time since G1. G3 Abbey has basically the same pet, but that one is renamed to Tundra, further supporting the idea that Mattel lost the right to use the original name...though Mattel was still able to use Watzit's name on Creepro Frankie's box despite changing the G3 character's dog's name to Watzie. I wondered if the name would appear in the diary.

Nothing divergent from formula on the sides and back.

I like the proportions of the doll and her clothes much more than this art.

Here's Abbey's quote on the top.

She's talking about Heath. I personally only see the "annoying" in his G1 character myself.

Here's everything unboxed.

Like with Creepro Ghoulia, the stand is the newer shaping, though I don't actually know if this is inaccurate for Abbey. She was a later release than Ghoulia, who was Wave 1, so it's possible the stand molds had changed by then while the color-coding remained. That could explain why Creepro Ghoulia (and presumably, Creepro Cleo and Deuce) have the wrong stand sculpts--Mattel just decided to produce the newer mold for all of them rather than deal with two different stand types in one wave of dolls.

Abbey's diary is written in the same broken English she speaks with, and there's a moment where she corrects herself after scratching out an error after more help with the language, which was a nice touch. She discusses staying with Headmistress Bloodgood and getting lessons in English and slowly integrating with the student body. She bonds with Lagoona about language differences in a new community, and with Frankie about being in a new environment, as well as finding herself intrigued (ghoul, I do not know why) by Heath Burns and his cheesy pick-up lines. She mentions being unfamiliar with the lines, but recognizes the tone from yeti boys in her home who do the same. Abbey's diary is also international and reprinted in French in the back half, leaving no profile section, but Shiver is still referred to by her name within the pages. Mysterious. So maybe the trademark was lost, or else, somehow, nobody managed to catch that Abbey's box had a graphic design error. 

Because this is a reproduction rather than a remake, Abbey has two big things I wish she didn't--physical glitter applied over her body, and the standard teen-ghoul sculpt. 

On the former, the glitter does a great job at making her look like a snowy, icy creature...but it's rough and gritty and hard to pull clothes over, and I've heard the adhesive can age and yellow over time. I'm not sure there's a reliable way to remove this glitter, either, especially not from the face (where any removal would likely take the faceup off at the same time).  Oh, well.

The other thing is that throughout G1 and G2, Abbey was the same height as the other ghouls, despite being established as very tall in the animated canon from day one. Abbey's peruvian Bigfoot cousin Marisol was also released on the big-sister sculpt with additional height from her foot sculpt and shoes, so Abbey felt even more incorrectly short. This has been retained for Creepro Abbey, unfortunately, though her shoes do give her a bit of a boost. The only changes these dolls are really getting for modern standards are poly hair replacing the bygone kanekalon, and wrist joints being added to the sig boys who didn't have them in their original dolls (Deuce).

Abbey starts on top with a furry headband that keeps her hair behind her and definitely gives her a Slavic look. I'm thinking the whole inaccurate cultural element stemmed from the use of fur clothing to emphasize a yeti theme, and the connotations took the designers further up the continent than they should have been.

This headband is diabolically tagged to Abbey's head in multiple spots, and putting it back on, it never looked as nice as it did right out the box. The strap goes behind her neck and ears, not in front of the neck over her face.

Abbey's right earring is a translucent blue icicle. 

Abbey's hair is a slight off-white tone shot through with holographic green tinsel and has streaks of pink, blue, and lavender underneath, all contributing to a snowy look with an aurora borealis theme.

I like the choice of white hair more than G3 Abbey's lavender/blue blend, as the white base looks more like yeti fur. The hair feels exactly like one other doll I've handled before--Ever After High Thronecoming Blondie Lockes (when her hair was taken down). There's a simultaneous thickness and airiness to the hair that (I can't describe it any other way) feels a little like you're holding a bundle of spaghetti when you encircle it with your hand. It forms that kind of a tube shape. I recall Blondie's hair being very silky and nice, but Abbey's hair tinsel prevents me from knowing. I washed it with less-than-boiling water, and the tinsel still got snarled and unruly and snagged and tore on the comb. It's one of the worst hair-tinsel experiences I've dealt with. I think she could have stood to be rooted with a lot less of it, because I suspect the proportion of tinsel is a big reason for it being so disagreeable.

Abbey's face has always been really endearing to me. She has wide pink eyes, thick dark brows, and a square jaw, with big lips and upward-pointing yeti-tusk fangs. 

Abbey's face perfectly mixes an open friendliness and a tough, strong look that perfectly captures a sweet ghoul who gets misjudged by her speech and size. This is the first look at the glitter. It looks nice, but feels unpleasant. 

Upward fangs are rare for MH. I think the only other doll character with teeth that only pointed up was Lorna McNessie. Venus McFlytrap and Honey Swamp have meshed teeth that point both up and down.

Abbey's ears are very very slightly pointed--nothing like the G3 ears. 

Her left earring is a translucent magenta snowflake. Her Music Festival doll, the only Abbey I owned in my first collection, reused the sig earrings exactly. 

Abbey's neck features a translucent blue crystal choker, but it's mostly hidden by her furry off-the-shoulder dress neckline.

Abbey's outfit continues the white fur accents, and the dress is made to look pretty winter-sporty. The pattern is a crystalline mix of white, blue, black, pink, and lavender, and features ribbed sweater-knit accents and crisscrossing strings that might evoke winter jackets or mountain-climbing gear.

The strings on the dress are only on the front, and are sewn down on the sides. The fur neckline is part of the dress.

The strings terminate on a bow with long tails on Abbey's left hip. The knot appears to have been melted solid, which I greatly appreciate. MGA doesn't seal the tiny bow knots on its clothing pieces.

These bow tails were strapped to Abbey's left leg with an elastic for packaging.

Abbey doesn't have a purse, but she does have a pouch that hooks over the strings of her dress, and has an attached key piece on its own hook.

A later-G1 doll would not have had such delicate or easy-to-lose parts. I imagine a lot of original Abbey owners lost the key piece, if not the pouch itself. I think the hook loop for the key could have been a little tighter.

Here's how they were strapped to her out of the box.

Abbey's arms feature more white fur to serve as separate arm warmers.

While I understand it would be too tight to have the seams of these pieces on the inside, especially since sliding the arm through is tricky enough with its rough texture, I think the exposed seams look unsightly.

Abbey's hands are a large clawed mold separate from the sculpt used by Clawdeen and Rochelle and Jane, and are not the same as the G3 doll's. The photo doesn't show it well, but the G3 hands are larger.

Abbey's elbows do not rotate smoothly. We don't need to rehash this; I hate it; this stupid body should have never replaced what the Wave 1 Creepros had.

Abbey also has fur leg warmers which double as boot covers. These do not have ugly obvious seams. The shoes themselves are soft vinyl that slides over her stockinged feet easily, and are shaped like pretty typical winter boots.

Abbey also has pink sheer tights on that play well with her blue sparkly legs for an aurora effect, but I refused to take them off because mesh and glitter-encrusted legs sounded like an absolute nightmare redressing scenario.

Abbey's pet mammoth Shiver may or may not be trademarked anymore, and she's not my favorite of the G1 pets. She feels more straightforwardly cute than most of them and I don't like the plushie-style pose she's sculpted in.

While I don't love the cutesier proportions of the G3 pets, Tundra actually works much better for me, having more attitude than Shiver, a better pose, and the fun monstrous touch of bat-wing ears.

Abbey is always a hard character to photograph for me, because she really demands a snowy setting and I never seem to get her when that's available to use. I did find she looked really good with lighting under her face--this sells her perfectly as a horror icon.

And I put her together with my LEGO yeti. He's yellowed with age, since he's a pretty old figure now.

Here's Abbey with the G3 doll. G3 is much taller and totally different in her tone, as well as cultural background. I think the G1 doll is much more iconic, but G3 has many strengths and I can't wait to investigate her second doll and whatever crazy gimmicks that mystery unboxing is throwing in.

Coat added by me.

And my three Creepros.

Creeproduction Abbey isn't super impressive manufacturing-wise. Her tinsel hair is really snarly and unpleasant, her glitter skin should have been ditched, reproduction or not, and her stupid stupid doll body is faulty. However, the character is beautiful, charming, and looks fantastic, and she'll be great to have for next winter...or next snow, because you never know which comes first anymore. She's definitely nice to have around. I just wish Mattel cared more.