Online Now! “Vintage Barbie - The Thomas Romanotto Collection” at Auction March 12-13, 2022. Over 500 dolls, costumes, accessories, gift sets, and ephemera including cars, planes, boats, dollhouses, furnishings, and Japanese and European market exclusives.
( today I have learned how often I refill my water bottle because I have not had running water since noon)
It is water this morning, the boys have cleared out and left a patch on the pavement. Thanks guys, the thought experiment of living without running water was very informative but I’m happy to return back to the land of indoor plumbing.
It’s My Little Monday! With…The Beddy Bye Eye Ponies! Now here’s a…controversial group of babies. The BBE babies were Hasbro’s attempt to make blink eye dolls out of ponies. When you lay them down, the eyes go shut, as is the usual with this type of toy. However, somewhere between the design and the execution they…..didn’t go so well. So then why did the Twinkle Eye ponies succeed so well? Because the TEs didn’t have anything else about them changed, other than the eye being a gemstone. If you look at these you’ll see oddly long/stretched out necks, sparse hairlines, pinched looking faces, shabby sculpting for the pegasus wings, and the fact that the eyes are tiny with obvious rimmed sockets. (They are given makeup despite them being babies to soften the look of the upper ‘lid’ for the eye) So it isn’t that they have blink eyes, it’s everything else that went along with it that reduced their appeal and made them an unpopular gimmick set back in the day. It’s also what drives the prices of the “NBBE” (NON-beddy) versions of the characters up so high. The last photo shows nbbe Heart Throb next to her BBE version, and it’s easy to see why people will spend 100 or more to get her. Sadly, Baby Sundance and Baby Ribbon (like Baby Frosting) never got a regular version in the US or EU. The eyes are the traditional doll-blink eye which means a hard plastic blue chip in a white metal setting. They had no other eye color than blue–and of course, the metal would rust when kids washed them too much making the whole eye bleary, reddish brown or fused open/shut. They do have eyelashes, but they are always black. There are pony-community services like ‘de-bbbe’ where you can hire someone to sculpt over the face, or eye-de-rusting for damaged ones. “Creepy Dolls are Cool” Lots of critics say they’re creepy, (that is an opinion) but instead of creepy I just get kind of…poorly executed sad looking product from seeing these. I DO approve of freaky-fabulous dolls, creeperiffic Monster Highs, haunt-coture customs done with whatever dolls/ponies & etc., but those are works of art done by designers who care and want to make something spooky cool while the BBE is just ‘wow whoops’.
This is a really good analysis.
“If you look at these you’ll see oddly long/stretched out necks, sparse hairlines, pinched looking faces, shabby sculpting for the pegasus wings, and the fact that the eyes are tiny with obvious rimmed sockets.”
Yeah, even putting aside the eyes, the sculpts are disproportionate and weird. The unicorn baby is the worst! Her chest isn’t sculpted, so her neck starts at the upper part of her legs. She looks like a dang giraffe!
Also. Something is Up with the BBE baby unicorns. Like, their hair.
Yeah, it doesn’t want to lay nicely, instead it does a forward swoop or just sticks straight up. The pegasus and earth ponies don’t do this …
