The Hostess With the Leastess: Living Dead Dolls Series 23 Betsy by Mezco Toyz

The Living Dead Dolls tea party continues with the second monthly addition--the awful little host, Betsy.  She was always going to be early in this project, and because she wasn't the first, she had to be the second.

Go here to read the first post of this extended blogging project, where Agatha introduces us to Series 23. It already feels like it's been ages since her post...and simultaneously, like I did it yesterday!

Within Series 23's tea party concept, Betsy occupies the role of the hostess. If Agatha is the most thematically connected to tea itself, Betsy feels like the most archetypal "tea party dolly" for playtime, representing a girl in fancy dress-up clothes. Under the lens of real dolls being set together to play a toy teatime, Betsy would be the avatar of the little girl playing with everything, while within the fiction of the tea-party play itself, I see Betsy as the very young heir to her mansion and servant Agatha (perhaps done by killing her own parents--wouldn't put it past her). Agatha is old, bitter, and traditional and would deeply resent being shackled to an underage upstart as her mistress, so that's exactly what I think the scenario is. I also see Betsy as all the snips and snails and puppy dog tails that little girls aren't supposed to be made of. I think she's a demanding absolute brat who sees her party guests as her playthings and wants everything exactly as she says. I think you'll understand where I'm coming from. 

Here's her coffin. She came mint, but I unwrapped the box after the cover photo. Betsy has a fancy hat which, as positioned in the box, covers her eyes.

Her chipboard uses the same group photo as Agatha's did, but it's panned further over to the left. Agatha is in the portion that's cut off on Betsy's chipboard, while Betsy was on the portion cut off on Agatha's. (You see why I'm framing them as bitter rivals?)

Betsy's chipboard poem reads as follows:

She's the host of a most murderous party

Where every guest must fall

She asks that you come early, don't be tardy

Laugh, drink, die! Have a ball!

Here's my very loose rewrite.

She's the host and has the most 

If "the most" is "malice"

Don't be tardy to the party

--It's madder than in "Alice".

Betsy wanting death at her party indicates the very juicy idea that she and Agatha are running competing agendas at this gathering. Agatha hates how she has been rejected and outdated and wants revenge, so she's tampered with some tea...but Betsy might just be pure evil and has enacted her own murder plots. Whatever will happen when she discovers her plans have been hijacked???

Manners stories like Jane Austen's work have a reputation for being dry, but they were so popular because there's a lot of intrigue and drama in polite society. And I think there's a lot you can read into this tea party cast in a similar vein.

Betsy's hat introduced me to a new variant of packaging in LDD. Dolls with big hats like these have different cardboard trays that are cut off at the top third, and the space for the head and hat is filled by a plastic tray to cradle it.

As such, the tissue is split, too. The tissue under the plastic tray is a separate piece stuck to the bottom surface of the coffin, while the rest of the tissue is attached to the cardboard tray that's elevating the doll. It was a little sticky and ruffled when pulling things out, but the doll tray came out, and the hat flew out of the tray, not being affixed to anything.

The underside of the doll tray has a folded-over flap to cushion the back and prop it up, and it encloses the twist-tie on the neck. This piece was stuck by an adhesive strip that's lost its stick, so it easily folded up to give access to the tie.

The coffin repacked pretty easily.

Now I'm prepared for the unboxing process with Jennocide (horrible name), who also has a fancy hat in this series and will have the same setup.

Here's Betsy's certificate. 

She died on January 8, 1988. None of the other dolls in the series died this day, indicating their first deaths were all irrespective of attending the party, and that they died again (somehow) during the event. Betsy's deathdate doesn't appear to have any thematic significance, but it does work with her visual aesthetic. She doesn't feel like a very traditional old-fashioned fancy dolly, and an eighties time period makes complete sense for her. Only her name feels older. I'd expect a doll named "Betsy" (which is a perfect name for a fancy doll) to look more like a toy from the 1950s.

Her certificate poem says:

After all her guests lie quite dead

Little Betsy was feeling so fine

Until one by one they arose

On a feast of her flesh they did dine.

This poem is very messy to me, including a mix of tenses between the first two lines. Here's a rewrite.

After her guests were all dead in the ground

Betsy was glad as could be.

But then the graves all started to turn

And the guests had themselves a "die" tea.

This definitely paints a clear picture for the end of this story--and I do plan to map it all out in photos when everyone's here.

Alright, time for Betsy's tea serving. Since Betsy is fairly generic in basic concept, I landed on her bloodlust as the driving theme.

For the second photo, the ripples are real, but the two droplets above were added in post just to get the visual across clearer, even though it wasn't realistic.

I liked this for Betsy because the blood imagery was spooky, and the excess of jam allowed me to make the serving a little nasty on an aesthetic level. I also think Agatha would very much bristle at the suggestion that fruity drinks can be considered "tea", making it a perfect choice. The cookies (strawberry) do have jam centers as purchased, but the color was paler and more orange, so I covered them with cherry jam from a jar at home. That was the point of the gag, anyway, so it worked out. If I'd seen any around, I might have also given her a jelly donut. That'd be fairly classless and tacky to suit Betsy as the spoiled child who knows little of tradition, and that'd be something capable of oozing its jelly. Ah, well. I work with what I have around me.

Betsy came with two elastic bands wrapped around her to hold down her hair and boa.

And here she is fully unpackaged.

Betsy's look clearly evokes that of a child playing dress-up to be a grand lady, with a hat that looks oversized and a feather boa that looks like it came from a costume chest. The feathers themselves strike the perfect tone of something a kid would find fabulously glamorous and mature, and which an adult tea party group would find horribly gauche. I'm slightly reminded of Pippi Longstocking's failed attempt to participate in a grown-up tea party.

Betsy starts with her hat, which just rests loose on top of her head. The brim is low and when the doll's head is fully inside the cavity of the hat, it falls over her eyes. A string of feathers has been glued around the edge, and a small satin rosette designates the front side.

The color of the feathers is that frustrating tone I've also observed in Monster High Operetta's skintone, where you could get away with calling it either pink or purple. It's a very weak purple if that's how you see it, though. I've chosen to color-code Betsy as pink with her menu, teacup, and the staging of her review table. The color of the name on her chipboard agrees with me.

LDD hats like these are made of a thin plastic that's been lightly flocked on the outside.

The hat isn't so thin that the material wobbles, but I've been forewarned that these hats are very delicate and prone to cracking. I'll handle this with care.

Betsy's hair is ginger orange, and entirely uniquely among LDD, it's crimped!

This is a big reason the eighties timeframe makes total sense.

No other Living Dead Doll has hair crimping, and while Betsy's could certainly be more thorough and puffy, I appreciate the effect. Her hair has some waves, and I don't think it's just from being pressed under an elastic--the shape is intentional. 

Her rooting isn't fabulous, but the hair lays well to cover any bald spots when combed.

It's a little messy, but I'm not going to risk ruining the crimping by washing it.

Betsy's vinyl color is white, which I think is a fascinating choice set against her colorful hair and feathers. It's a very cool look. I also find her face surprisingly striking.

She's got very classic LDD facial design going on with her eye shape and her harsh brows, and she has nearly-colorless eyes that are heterochromic--green on her right, grey on her left! It's so easy to overlook because her eyes look white from a distance, and it's such a distinctive trait to throw in. Betsy also has pink-colored freckles that complement her red hair, but I don't think any other LDD has had them. Maybe Toy Box Philosopher Emily should have chosen this doll when she looked at LDD way back when, because redheaded freckled Betsy is sporting Emily's favorite look!

So that's crimping and freckles that set her apart entirely, and heterochromia done for non-Frankenstein reasons. Betsy's design is way more interesting than it needed to be for this role, and I love that she has these funky little features going on to set her apart. 

Betsy's eyes feature grotesquely beautiful blended red and purple smudging to sink them in, and she has undereye creases like Lottie's to suggest something has taken its toll on her...maybe one of the tampered teas. Betsy's lips are thin and very dark red. While I think she's very cute and LDD-classic, Betsy is not a sweet little girl with this face. This is a bossy, evil kid. 

Around her neck, Betsy has a long feather boa that matches the string of feathers on her hat. Both can shed little pieces of feather fluff. The other LDD with a boa piece like this is Series 5's Hollywood.

Betsy's dress underneath is two fully-attached layers--white cotton under floral black lace sewn to the edges. The neck is wide and the dress is sleeveless, and a fully-attached pink ribbon belt with another rosette trims her waist. The style is technically timeless, but I can see this as an eighties fancy dress under the lens of Betsy's deathdate.

The back of the dress is very tight and the velcro doesn't fully fasten because of it.

Betsy wears the LDD sandals in black.

There were two problems with Betsy's legs. The first was most serious: moving her left leg up revealed that the motion was not the leg on the ball joint, but rather the ball joint peg rotating and tearing out of its socket. I was eventually able to twist the piece out entirely, and I put superglue in the socket and pressed the leg back in. After that set, I was able to move the leg on the ball joint correctly. I wonder why that happened--was it age or was it manufacturing issues? I think the leg was probably a bit too tight on the ball joint, which meant the energy when I tried posing it transferred to the joint peg itself rotating and tearing the adhesive in the socket. 

I noticed Agatha had a loose right hip, and I worried the same thing had happened to her, but I was able to spin her leg in a circle multiple times without it falling off, indicating that it's simply just a less tight ball joint. I'm slightly perturbed to have found my first truly broken LDD in Betsy, but it was an easy, easy repair, so no harm done.

The other issue is that Betsy's shoes and feet are both not quite flat, so at a normal pose, she's on tiptoe and wants to pitch forward at any opportunity. A lot of fiddling needed to be done to get her balanced without doing an entirely ridiculous hip thrust. I don't know if part of this issue came from repairing her leg, because she seemed okay out of box.

I've mentioned before that Betsy is the doll in the tea party with the pot, and if you thought the teacups were cool, you ain't seen nothing yet!

The teapot is shaped like an upright complete skull with a handle coming out of the side and a spout on the other side shaped like a bent spinal column! The end has a small indent to indicate a hole. 

Betsy has a gripping hand to hold this, and she's my first classic LDD with one. I believe this sculpt only featured for the right arm, and it features a loose fist shape that bar-shaped objects can clip into. This sculpt debuted with Series 12's killer clown Cuddles, and allowed her to hold a machete. None of the dolls on the pre-S9 swivel body had gripping hands, since Cuddles, being from S12, was a ball-joint doll.

The grip is a little wobbly because the thumb on one side is much less than the fingers on the other, so Betsy holds the pot more tightly when it's pointed forward and her fingers can wedge inside the loop of the handle. She can still hold it sideways so the skull faces the viewer, though.

And if the wicked teapot sculpt wasn't cool enough, the lid comes off, Betsy can hold it in her other hand, and inside the bloody mess, an eyeball has been sculpted bobbing on the surface!

Joshua Lee opined in his video reviews that this might be the best Living Dead Dolls accessory, and it's hard to disagree with that assessment. The display in her hand and secret sculpting under the lid are already incredible, but what truly seals it for me is that Betsy can hold onto the lid separately. That's just great.

Here's Betsy with Agatha, who has one of the teacups. You can see their skin colors are not the same, so my dreams of swapping arms to give the servant the pot won't pan out. 

Furthermore, the gripping hand cannot hold the teacup, and the flat hand cannot hold the teapot. Betsy can hold both accessories, but Agatha can only hold the cup.

I can see it making sense for Betsy to have the pot, though, as the domineering brat in charge of the party. I doubt she would really let her servant do the parts she thinks are fun.

Despite her G1 LDD gripping hand, Betsy doesn't hold the Series 1 Sadie knife much better than G2 Return Sadie does. It's still precarious and the handle still feels too short.

I wonder if S35 mystery doll Sadie has the same knife sculpt, because she has a gripping hand and a knife paired together.

Betsy can hold onto Lottie's umbrella with the gripping hand, and it works pretty well and is secure--she just can't hold it above her head due to the short pole, and it gets in the way of her head even when it's held to the side for the same reason.

But Betsy's other hand can hold it the same way Lottie does, and this works fine. It also matches her dress well.

Here's Betsy being a selfish pig with the teapot.

And I started playing with the tea accessories and her hat's brim.

I discovered when lighting her from below that she becomes absolutely terrifying--I'd thought of her design as pretty modern, but you can't tell me this isn't a quintessential haunted doll when photographed this way.

It's her pale eyes--they look like they're glowing under this setup!

Here's Betsy throwing a fit.

Other viable titles for this post would have been "Tea is for Tantrum", "Putting the Tea in Tyrant", and "Tea Pain"! 

And here's the tearoom with its second attendant added. Betsy does not come with a table leg, so the table remains in the state we left it in last. The other three dolls will add the remaining three legs. I think it makes sense for the hostess not to have a table leg, and it fits the idea of her being a horrid little tyrant, like she's forcing everyone else to build the table for her!

I'd since consumed Betsy's tea serving, and I think it was pretty successful. I was kind of improvising with the tea blend. I mixed Earl Grey and raspberry tea, and then added some Celestial Seasonings "Red Zinger" for color, but the taste was pretty nice, being fruity with enough of a black-tea bite. The cookies with jam were also tasty.

The Series 23 posts are raised in "production value" by the staging I've chosen to do with the tea-table setups I'm photographing in, and it's a chaotic, lengthy process to set up and take down alike as I run through my home scooping up tablecloths, tableware, and other props to put things together. It's hectic and complicated, and I'm so glad I'm doing it because I've loved the effect of giving each of these reviews its own custom character-coded backdrop. Being from a tea family and an expert entertainer of a mother, there's no shortage of cups and cloths and treat stands to use, so I'm lucky to be able to pursue such variety to really go all-out for these dolls!

I was surprised by just how much I ended up loving Betsy. I'd pegged her as the likely least favorite on the basis of her less antique aesthetic, but I really love her colors and vibe in person, and she fully illustrates the concept of a mean little kid strong-arming a tea party to her every whim. I also love that the designers chose to give Betsy so many unusual and unique traits to set her apart in the doll line, when that really wasn't called for. She's much richer for it. While I thought Betsy would have been in my collection mostly for obligation, I now feel like I'm going to end up genuinely loving every S23 doll because I'm very fond of her now. She's every nightmare little girl you've ever encountered.

The month of May will bring our next guest to the perilous party. To be continued then.