She's Got Braaaaiiiins: Monster High Boo-riginal Creeproduction Ghoulia Yelps by Mattel

 The last time I got a Boo-riginal Creeproduction doll with Frankie Stein, it was my first blog review and a momentous acquisiton that reflected the culmination of a personal journey toward re-embracing my doll hobby, reconciling with my teenage years, and sticking with the hobby going forward. This time, with Ghoulia...it was really kind of a whim.

Please read the post linked above before this one if you haven't already; it's a good primer for the Creeproduction line and I'll be less detailed here about observations already covered there previously.

When I reviewed Creepro Frankie, I was pleased with her as a doll, though I was critical of the first wave of Creeproductions not delivering the entire Original Ghouls squad--Ghoulia wasn't in the line, and Cleo wasn't there either. I speculated that the Cleo omission might have been because they'd have to reproduce her whole two-pack with Deuce to accurately reproduce her signature release, but I felt really bad for Ghoulia, the fan-favorite character who has consistently gotten the short end of the stick in terms of releases after the peak of G1. She wasn't in the Haunt Couture first wave based on the Original Ghouls, nor in the Creeproductions or Reel Drama--three collections in one year based on the classics, and she was the only character missing from all of them. Her only points of solace were releasing in an SDCC two-pack with Cleo that was a return to the G1 style and continuity during the G2 era, and being the subject of the first Fang Club exclusive doll...but even that isn't very accessible, seeming to demonstrate that Mattel thought her appeal had limited range and that Mattel was perhaps sending her right to the only people who really wanted her? Ghoulia's character has also changed a lot in the portrayal in G3, and she's no longer as prominent in the cast, and she's a victim of red turning to pink in Mattel's newer dolls--ugh. Read my reflection on G3 Ghoulia's two dolls (as of date of writing) here. 

But the second wave of Creeproductions was announced, and fortunately, it completed the OG squad. Ghoulia's signature doll was here, and Mattel did reproduce the Cleo/Deuce pack! Spectra and Abbey were also included as the next characters to be revived. (I'm guessing the third wave might be Forbitten Love Clawd and Draculaura, Nefera de Nile, Operetta, Venus, and Rochelle? Or maybe Robecca or Jackson or Holt?) Early rumors indicated the Creepro dolls would be the School's Out line, which wasn't what anybody wanted, so I'm glad they were more signature dolls after all. Of the potential Creepro candidates, I'd easily grab both Jackson and Holt because Holt needs his due wrist joints and I can work with Jackson in a more canon-adherent style, and I could probably see myself getting Nefera too. I already have sig Robecca. Operetta would tempt me, but her heavily-gelled hairdo really doesn't agree with me. I can't envision a proper gel-free recreation of that look.

Of this line, I wasn't actually super grabbed by any of them. I'd probably have wanted Abbey the most if she hadn't continued to use that awful gritty glued-on glitter. If they'd only switched her to the shimmer vinyl, I'd have grabbed her instantly, but they were slavishly faithful to one of the least pleasant ideas Mattel ever did in G1 and that gave me a bit of pause, though not enough to completely turn me off. (I ordered her the very day after and she's getting a post after this one.) Spectra's signature doll hasn't ever been super exciting to me, and while I'd love signature Deuce's stock to try on my Deuce using the G2 body, I can easily just order the stock separate, sourced from the original G1 doll...and the Cleo/Deuce two-pack instantly ballooned in price after selling out through the primary sellers!

I've mentioned before that I was never the world's biggest Ghoulia fan, and indeed, this is my very first time purchasing a G1 edition of the character! But as time has passed, I've developed a lot more appreciation for her retro aesthetic, her iconic weird signature look, her geeky personality, and aspects which, intentionally or not (and also, awkwardly or not) have made her resonate with many viewers as a layered, positive portrayal of someone with significant disabilities. Ghoulia's zombie nature makes her slow and clumsy and she's indicated to be unable to speak anything but the moaned Zombie language (which is never translated in audio form), so many fans have embraced her as a coded depiction of motor disabilities and verbal impairments. Her nerdy special interests, oddly formal written grammar, and keen intelligence also resonate with elements of autistic coding. This idea falls apart a little with the fact that zombies in this world are more like a race or culture than individuals from their own disparate groups, and I've mentioned the major optical pitfall to these readings of Ghoulia before in that associating neurological conditions with a zombie can be rightfully taken as outrageously offensive. However, if any of this coding was intended, the saving grace is that through all of this, G1 Ghoulia is also consistently defined as the brains of her friend group who is capable, level-headed, beautiful, and adored by her friends. She struggles with feeling deficient about things she can't control about her body, but it's never stated that Ghoulia is inferior or incapable with the setup she was born into. She's just a ghoul who does things her way. If (and again, that's an if) G1 Ghoulia was made to evoke disability on purpose, then her representation does feel pretty dated, coming from an era where allegory for diversity was more often used instead of upfront depiction, and being framed through a lens that can easily backfire and insult the demographic(s) she's trying to depict. Traits that make her feel neurodivergent could also be seen as stereotypical signifiers. But for G1, which has done tackier, less tactful, and worse in my eyes, I feel okay defending Ghoulia because under this lens, she has clear good intentions and I think she does some good with it.

As mentioned before, her boyfriend and the other G1 zombie character, Slo Mo, fares much worse if viewed as coded for disability because his cartoon depiction was cross-eyed and slack-jawed for more of a goofy cartoon zombie look. His dolls are handsome but the cartoon didn't offer him that grace and I think it's because he was a guy. Slo Mo is depicted in the Love's Not Dead diary as lacking in emotional insight and not reading subtext without being told things outright. He is also a chess whiz, and he writes in the same formal manner as Ghoulia, so he can easily be read as neurodivergent alongside her...but then again, Zombie as a language might have a different grammar and lacks contractions in the G1 lore. And MH indulged in the "guys are dense" stereotype multiple times.
(This is a problem with oblique representation--you can't always be certain it is representation. And the G1 zombies might not be.)

G3 Ghoulia might have some form of disability, since her Skulltimate Secrets locker-door illustration indicates she visits a doctor of some kind regularly, but she speaks clear English and has no motor limitations. I wouldn't be surprised if some of her changes are in response to the disability reading of G1, and how that approach would come across as hurtful and wouldn't fly with Mattel's more forthright diversity in G3.

So anyway, I had a bit more gift money and paying $25 for a Creepro is a good opportunity. It feels like finding the dolls new in-store in 2010! I wanted to take that opportunity while I could. I liked Ghoulia enough to say yes, and what better doll to get my first G1 Ghoulia with than Creepro?
(And good thing I acted when I did, because the next day, guess who else had sold out and was inflated by third-party sellers???)

In keeping with the early MH cast being based on the classic films that defined horror icons, Ghoulia's monster inspiration comes from the formative zombie film by George A. Romero, 1968's Night of the Living Dead. The word "zombie" never features in the film, with the term originally referring to people and corpses enslaved by magic in Haitian legend. This is relevant, because Ghoulia's name deliberately derives from the only term the living dead are addressed by in the film: "ghouls"!

Ghoulia's box is much like Creepro Frankie's--a close replica with the changes of multilingual text and the phrase "Boo-riginal Creeproduction" on one of the popouts. 

Unlike Frankie's box advertising wave 1 with the character illustrations, the other wave 2 dolls are not advertised under the profile section on the back here.

The top of the box has text on the corner with a quote from Ghoulia, translated from Zombie.

I didn't notice this feature at all on Frankie's box, but sure enough:

Ghoulia's backdrop slides out of her box in a similar way, though there were some differences. The top flap of the box didn't have interlocking tabs like Frankie's that were so hard to open without tearing, and the backdrop was taped to the outer box this time just at the top. Here it is removed.

Oh, the days when Mattel would rock a good fierce RED!!!

Unboxing Ghoulia was pretty easy and I didn't damage any of the backdrop this time. I noticed her pet was attached to the pop-out with a single plastic tag, whereas Watzit on Creepro Frankie was attached with elastic bands. 

Here's the unboxing done.

Ghoulia's diary is printed in English, then again in French, likely indicating that I got an international (Canadian?) copy of the doll. Her profile is not included in this edition. My Creepro Frankie's diary was a one-to-one replica of her original US English diary release. In Ghoulia's diary, she writes without contractions, but addresses the fact that zombies write the English equivalent of the words they cannot speak, explaining that zombies simply cannot speak anything but Zombie but are able to write what they mean. This ability to express oneself more universally with the written word can resonate with readings of Ghoulia being verbally disabled, as well as the frequent mentions of zombies' slow speed impeding them adding to this. Ghoulia also writes about buying herself "Zombies are Monsters Too" merchandise to display pride in/stand up for herself, though she isn't confident enough to display it. She frames this discrimination as zombies being less established monsters in the canon (as opposed to werebeasts and vampires and Frankenmonsters), tying into the zombie becoming a horror icon at a later date. Ghoulia also draws a parallel that suggests the zombie species is in some way a joke about teenagers being slow, shuffling, and seemingly devoid of personality when she protests that things people discriminate against her for could apply to any teen. Ghoulia's discrimination also gets framed similarly to bias against foreign language...so she's textually a parody of teenagers and possibly depicts language bias, but a lot else maps up to disabled allegory too. I also noted that she mentions being bad with spontaneity, which could just be introversion, but can also be read as neurodivergent.

Ghoulia's diary doesn't have the awkward quirk of referring to each character by their full name over and over.

My first surprise with the doll was not a splendid one. While Ghoulia's stand and brush are color-coded to her in red like the old doll, the stand is not a reproduction of the original, unlike Frankie's.

I've discussed in the Frankie post that the original MH stand was slightly different, having a T-shaped pole and a fiercer clip. Ghoulia has the plus-shaped pole that most later MH dolls used, and the base is shorter too and a bit less solid, just like the modern stands. It's not at all unstable or bad...but I can't see this as anything but Mattel cheaping out. This isn't the old stand; it's the new one colored red. It's been two years, but they can't have abandoned the molds already. Right? They had to know these dolls were going to go immediately and would always be profitable, so why give up on the original stand molds?

Hmph.

The worst of Ghoulia's packaging wasn't finished. Her glasses were strapped into a plastic bracket with two tags in each end, and her headband was tagged on, too. These were very treacherous to remove without cutting hair, and I did ultimately get some of it. 

Ghoulia starts on top with her headband. It's a very simple untextured curve in a lime green color. If this doll released later in G1, this headband would probably have a more fantastical brain or bone texture.

Green is always the smallest presence in G1 Ghoulia's color palette, and this headband has always stood out to me a lot. I think green is a very classic color for family-friendly cartoon zombies, but I don't think it's much of an asset to her palette. I like the grey, black, red and blue a lot. It feels like it might be a throwback to retro cinema and the colors of 3D glasses given the decade of movies she derives from. Granted, Night of the Living Dead was an independent film, not really typical 3D-movie fare, but that was the association I always leaned toward.

Many Monster High characters gained new recurring colors for their character palette after their first editions, like yellow for Draculaura or purple for Robecca, but Ghoulia's colors never branched out, probably because green was there as the least of her colors from the beginning. It would have made sense, given other dolls, for it to be the color that got added later on, but Ghoulia had her colors locked in from the start.

Ghoulia's signature G1 hair color was a blend of light blue with medium blue streaks, and it has a very slight greenish tone. Her hair is typically straight, and on this doll, it's long and tied in a right part across her forehead while the rest is loose. No gel in the hair.

The hair feels like saran, which is a relief. Most Ghoulias had hair in this tone, while some would have primarily dark blue hair. Red never featured in her hair from what I know, though black did in Sweet Screams (like it did for each doll in that line), and lime green featured in Skultimate Roller Maze (like it did for each doll in that line). I expect the hair to boil out fine, though it won't have the retro big-hair look Ghoulia's cartoon equivalents are depicted with. 

I grew up wearing glasses, so I appreciate Ghoulia's representation as a constant glasses-wearer. She's very consistently paired with spectacles in her doll releases, and these are her most classic, being white cat-eye frames with a couple extra flares on the points. They have real plastic lenses, which looks to be achieved by painting everything but the lens white. These lenses are fully clear like the originals, not cloudy like the G3 sig glasses.

The glasses don't hook over her ears, though. They just hug her head and cross over. The arms of the specs don't look at all matched to her ears.

The Skullettes on the side are nice, but this sculpt isn't very tight or realistic on the sides of her head.

But that face, though...I have always thought G1 Ghoulia has one of the most flat-out stunning, gorgeous MH faces. She's the pinnacle of smoky glam.

Her eyebrows are brown, very thin, and quirked in a way that lends her expression a bit of an amused or challenging tone, like she's looking over you and not too impressed. Her eyes are heavily shadowed in brown that mimics sunken shadows, and her lips are full and dark red. Her face shape is very sharp. I think Ghoulia looks like a classic femme-fatale actress, a starlet known for being gorgeous and mysterious and intimidating. She just needs a wavy shoulder-length bob that falls over one eye. 

Now that I think of it, Ghoulia was robbed: she seriously deserved a Hauntlywood doll in the Frights, Camera, Action! line!

Ghoulia's makeup features glitter in her eyeshadow.

It's most noticeable by touch, but Ghoulia's face sculpt definitely incorporates a zombie theme by having extremely deep sunken eye sockets and sharp cheekbones. Look at the contour of her far eye here:

Her cheekbone forms a clear ridge at the bottom of her eye socket that you can almost pinch between her cheek and her eye, and it's a really neat way to have incorporated the corpse theme subtly.

I love Ghoulia's face. She's so pretty, and I think there are multiple restyle ideas I could execute with her G1 dolls. 

Ghoulia's earrings are hot pink and look like zipper pulls. Because there needed to be at least some pink, huh. Red or silver would have been much better. And the zipper-pull theme is more generically edgy and not very specifically Ghoulia.

Around her neck, Ghoulia has a silver choker with a pink charm. This clips on like normal.

Ghoulia's costume has never been my taste, but I've come to appreciate it more over time. It's really not very much like her later fashion sense, which was more clearly defined as retro and sixties to throw back to Night of the Living Dead. Otherwise, she would wear comfortable casual clothing to suit a relaxed geek. These clothes are not formal, but they do not look especially casual or low-key. It's very put-together, and very "Hot Topic".

Not that there's anything wrong with that. And I do appreciate the vibe of the costume mixed with her personality. I like a little punk with Ghoulia, and this outfit is undeniably iconic to Monster High.

Up top, she has a piece that looks like a bustier or tank over an off-the-shoulder shirt of red, white, and black stripes. The bustier has red straps and a cherry print, which is the most retro part of the outfit and would become a recurring Ghoulia motif. The bustier also has a plastic Skullette charm sewn to the neckline.

However, the bustier and shirt are attached as one layer.

Fused clothing pieces are always frustrating on fashion dolls and I would have loved the option to try this shirt without the tank...because layering tanks over shirts feels quite dated and never really was that attractive in my opinion.

Around her waist, Ghoulia has a vinyl belt with a piano-key design. This motif would never appear on her again after this doll, and after Operetta debuted, it looks outright like Ghoulia stole her clothing because piano keys became firmly Operetta's thing. It's so bizarre to see piano keys on Ghoulia, knowing this would not remotely stick with her and became the icon of another character altogether.

On her forearms, Ghoulia has black net sleeves, which can slide over her fingers for a half-decent fingerless glove look. They come without the fingers in the net. 

You just slide the sleeves down a bit and then pull them back up so the fingers catch in the holes. If you don't like how that went, you have to pop the hand out and slide the sleeve onto the arm before putting the hand back in to try again. The sleeves slide down the hands, but you can't tweak things by sliding them up the hands.

Ghoulia's pants are corduroy-ish and red with black dots as well as ribbon accents across the front. They're sewn with tight cuffs and a baggy shape, and end above her boots. The pants velcro in back and are separate.

Ghoulia's boots are nothing like the fantastical, elaborate designs MH would quickly become famous for. In keeping with the first batch of dolls, the aesthetic is more grounded in real alternative fashion.

Ghoulia's purse has a fabric strap with a functional buckle, and is a large flat rectangle designed to look like a mixtape.

The purse has no opening. The buckle allows the strap to be worn crossbody, but it's not strictly necessary because Ghoulia's so skinny you can slide the strap over her body while it's closed.

Like the piano belt, the mixtape theme of the purse feels completely off-target for Ghoulia. Not once has she ever been written as having a special interest, practice, or passion in musical endeavors. Her main G1 thing is comic books, and that's referenced in her diary! Music has never been a special part of her identity, so this doll design feels out of sync with the character she's best known as today. This feels more like teen fashion of the time, but it's not her.

Ghoulia's pet is Sir Hoots A Lot, of course.

He's made out of a pretty soft plastic and has tiny wings and a caricatured flared head. I like his angular shaping, though his pale colors lend him a monochromatic vibe that almost feels wanting for more contrast or pop. I still vastly prefer this cartoon style to the cynical cutesypoos that are the G3 pets. 

G3 Hoots has his own glasses, which is really cute, but they fall off so easily that I've grown to see them as less of an asset than an annoyance.

I hadn't been aware until recently that G1 Hoots is also designed to clip onto his Ghoulia's arm. I had thought G3 Hoots was innovative. Undue credit there.

However, while G3 Hoots falls off his ghoul's arm easily, at least he doesn't swivel it with his weight. The G3 elbow pegs are more robust and have more friction, while the G1 pegs are skinny and turn easily, leading to scenarios like this:

But the G3 owl would not be able to hang upside-down.

And boy, let's talk about those elbows! Because they're not the removable kind Creepro Frankie had AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGHHHHHH-

Yes, it seems that the G1 body for any G1-style doll now is that version where the elbows don't pop out and the joint can get sticky. I have no idea why Mattel even thought making the joints that way was a good idea, especially if it causes faults, but Ghoulia's joints are fine. And the elbows never really need to come out when the hands can do so...but it seriously bothers me that the change was made at all, that the perfectly robust and functional wave 1 Creepro body has been replaced with a worse alternative for no good reason. The attached-elbow body had no real reason to be made at all, in my mind, and if it actively hampers the doll's articulation, it's a bad body, full stop. Ghoulia's fine, but I think she's just lucky, at least until I see enough dolls continuing to come out fine.

The cover photo uses a CAM Werewolf arm detached as a stand-in for Ghoulia's so the full arm could be posed bursting out of the ground, but if I only needed to use the forearm, I'd still be forced to use the CAM piece. 

So I have to say that two minor factors have changed to leave a major impression on me--Boo-riginal Creeproductions are now being sold with less unique stands and less versatile doll bodies. 

MATTEL.

(Yes, I know this is corporate profit maximization. But I am so so so tired of the whole world agreeing maximum profit is required when simple financial stability ought to be an option.)

But oh, hey, Ghoulia's shirt is actually sewn as a leotard to stay tucked in. That's cool.

I then took her down for some hair care to boil it out and then to boil in a slight wave to the bottom. I couldn't fully boil her hair forward to poof it when it was combed back because her rooting doesn't fully accommodate that technique, but I did try re-combing it to sweep it backward without the parting in back.

Her hair looked slightly damaged by the hot water, and isn't the silkiest, but it can cooperate okay. Ghoulia displays well in her trademark slouch.

While gaming is more emphasized as her G3 hobby, G1 Ghoulia is no stranger to the passion, and she works well with the Neon Frights pieces.

And some portraits. 

I love this ghoul's face. I don't like the bias that vision-impaired people are more attractive without glasses, but Ghoulia really is a supermodel in disguise while she wears them. 

Here's Creepro G1 next to my restyled G3 Neon Frights.

I was very pleased with my restyle achievements and I like my G3 doll, but come on, we all know who the real Ghoulia is here. There's no contest. Especially not facially.

And here's my two Creepros.

Ghoulia's signature design is iconic, but it feels like a character concept that hasn't quite found itself yet. Her look is more modern and punk, while she would later evolve to be more frequently defined by a 1960s-chic style in homage to her cinema heritage. The designers attempted a musical motif in her accessories here, despite music never being defined as one of Ghoulia's hobbies or passions. Her colors and accessories have a significant visual crossover with later character Operetta, which makes Ghoulia look more like an early entry than the other sig dolls, just by virtue of having traits that feel outdated by later dolls. She and Skelita are the two G1 characters I can think of whose visual characterization and fashion changed after their first doll to find a new, stable direction for the character's styling. Skelita went more modest and traditional, likely because modern styling brought forth concerns about her sculpts, and Ghoulia ditched some punk and music theming for more casual clothes, comics, and retro finery. 

Wave 2 Creepro doesn't endear me with its small shifts downward in production value, either. It's disappointing and wholly illogical for these changes to have happened. If the original Creeproductions do get reissued as rumored, then they're most likely going to have the modern stand molds and the permanent elbows, making them a little bit less nice than the original Creepro run. I call that anti-consumer, even if it's minor. I was fine massively overpaying for Frankie, but I can't consent to that with any Creeproductions going further because these steps down just aren't worth paying any more than original price to me. 

I'm glad to have this Ghoulia. I like her aesthetic and her design, but it's more dated than Frankie's to me, and this doll release cuts out some pleasant bonuses that were present in Wave 1. 

Get a brain, Mattel.