Sunday Surprise: L.O.L. Glitter Series and Pets!

MGA Entertainment is coming out with new L.O.L. Surprise dolls at a furious rate.  Just as the Lil Sisters began to show up reliably in stores, two new groupings--the Glitter Series and Series 3 Pets--were released.  I have yet to see these newcomers in stores, but, as always, eBay and Amazon vendors are happy to part with their stash for exorbitant prices.

I can't say I'm the biggest fan of these little balled-up surprise dolls, but, judging by the traffic to the other two reviews I've written (Series 1 and Lil Sisters), they are favorites for many of you.  I definitely understand the appeal.  Not only do I love surprise-themed toys in general, but the play potential of the articulated L.O.L girls and their accessories is higher than most blind bag options.

So, today I will share two of each of the new types of L.O.L. Surprise ball with you, and we'll see if MGA has another instant hit on their hands!

Unopened L.O.L. Surprise Pets (left) and Glitter Series (right) balls.

I think that the normal retail for these new balls is $9.99, but I had to pay about twice this to buy mine online.  I'm always a little nervous when I do this with blind bag toys, because in some collections it's possible to see which variation you're getting before you even open the package--usually by reading a code hidden somewhere in the wrapping.  Hannah pointed this out to me with the Spirit Riding Free blind box horses...before I bought six more copies of Boomerang.  I'm very grateful.

Anyway, given all of this, I have to wonder what's keeping vendors from deciphering the codes and selling all of the least popular or most common toys while skimming off the rare items?  In this case, though, since I don't have any Glitter or Pet toys yet, I wasn't too worried.  They're all rare to me!

The packaging on the Glitter Series balls follows the same basic design as the previous waves. The outer layer of wrapping has a large cartoon of the ultra-rare doll in the series, Queen Bee (which I assume is a play on Beyoncé's pet moniker, Queen Bey):

The Glitter Series is a subset of Series 2, Let's Be Friends:

Each Glitter Series ball comes with the same 7 surprises that were in the other large L.O.L. toys (a secret message, stickers, a bottle, a pair of shoes, an outfit, an accessory, the doll, and an additional water surprise):

Of these, I feel like only the secret message, the character, the water feature...and maybe some accessories are actual surprises.  The stickers are always the same and the outfits (and others of the accessories) are specific to each character.

Each layer of plastic has a clever perforated zipper:

Underneath the outer layer, I found a mostly-white layer:

The decoration on this wrap is very simple.  It's just a pattern of pale pink hearts:

Under that layer, there's a more colorful wrap...

With a huge pink-haired girl!

This layer also hides the sheet of stickers:

My sticker sheet was crumpled and bent:

As a few of you have pointed out, the stickers are so that you can mark which variation of a doll you got on the collector's sheet.  This is a fun idea, but I usually don't do anything with the stickers.  I'm mostly irritated that they're not actually a surprise and yet they get advertised as such.

As I pulled back the next zipper, I was able to see one of the plastic goody bags!

This wrapper is highly decorated, with a large brown-haired girl on one side...

...and a silver-haired character on the opposite side!

I unzipped this wrapping...

...and uncovered the last narrow band of plastic:

At this point, I realized that I'd missed the secret message.  It tends to get stuck to the static-prone plastic wraps.  I searched through my garbage pile and found it.

These are not very fun when you unwrap them in person (the answers are too obvious) but, as usual, I've covered up the answer so that you (and my family members) can guess:

If you happen to play Trove (a video game) then this might be seem like it's obviously "infinity diamond," but it's actually a James Bond film:

Pretty straightforward compared to some of the other ones I've gotten.

The underlying plastic ball here is a nice metallic copper color:

This ball is designed just like previous balls, with a small cap that can be removed to reveal yet another plastic bag:

The bags can actually be pulled out one-by-one as the ball is unwrapped, but I tend to just wait and open them all together.

All in all, the ball was hiding five plastic bags and a collector's checklist:

The checklist has a picture of six Glitter girls on one side:

The opposite side has all of the possible dolls in this wave:

On closer inspection, these all look like glittery versions of dolls we've seen in previous waves:

On this one section of the catalog from Series 1, you can see Fancy, Fresh, Rocker, Diva, M.C. Swag and Center Stage have all been re-used in the glitter lineup:

The top of the sheet showcases Queen Bee (ultra-rare) and Cosmic Queen:

These are both glittery repeats from Series 1 as well.

I was hoping to get glittery Center Stage or Hoops MVP, since I have the regular versions of those two:

I also have regular Fancy, but my doll looks a little different from the one in this new catalog.  Here's my Fancy posing with Lil Miss Baby from the Lil Sisters collection:

Sadly, the design of the plastic ball "room" has not changed at all since Series 1, and so I'm still unable to get it to work as a table and tray for the dolls.

Not only do the dolls have a hard time sitting with their clothing on, but the tray does not fit into the slots as it describes in the directions.  Has anyone ever gotten this to work?  I have a hard time believing that the design is this bad...and that nobody has bothered to fix it.

I shudder to think of all the plastic balls from this line that are thrown away every day.  It's such a waste.

Anyway--let's get to the fun part!  All of the mystery items in little pink plastic bags:

I started with the bag that I think has the accessory (it's not shoes or an outfit).  This seemed like the least likely to give away which character I got:

It's a very thin bag with a flash of pink inside...

It's a bow headband!

But I think it gives away which doll I got!  Bummer.  

Any guesses?

I think it must be Diva or Fancy.  These are the only two dolls in the catalog with pink bow headbands:

And Diva's headband is darker and looks glittery, so I suspect it's Fancy.

Let's see what other clues we can find!

This next bag clearly has the bottle inside:

The bottle doesn't always give away the character, which is awesome.  Do I see a flash of pink?

Oh, yeah!  That's a very glittery and very bright flash of pink!

It's a pink bottle in the style of an insulated coffee cup.  I like this design a lot, probably because I like coffee a lot:

The glittery lid is almost blindingly pink, and there's a little molded diaper pin on one side:

The cup is crooked, though, and can't stand up perfectly straight:

This pink bottle matches most of the dolls in the series, and would fit nicely with either Fancy or Diva.

Let's see what's next!

This package has a large indentation on one side, which makes me think it's a dress:

Already I see a lot of pink glitter:

Whoa!  Glitter everywhere:

It's a cute pink (very glittery) dress:

The glitter sheds easily, too.  By the time I got this dress out of the bag, there was glitter all over my hands and all over the table.

It's definitely Fancy's dress:

At this point, I knew what the shoes were going to look like, but there was still a little bit of suspense in wondering how much glitter will be covering them!

Oh--wow.   No glitter at all, apparently:

These are cute little shoes with wedge heels and molded pink socks:

That just leaves opening the doll herself...

I peeked in and saw a lot of glitter...

Oooh!  It's a really pretty color of glitter!  It gives a wonderful copper shine to Fancy's brown hair:

It gives a bit of coppery shine to some of her face, too, with all of the bits of loose glitter:

I could not get Fancy to stand up, though.  I don't remember it being this hard to balance L.O.L. dolls.  Even when Fancy was wearing her shoes, she toppled over backwards every time I tried to pose her:

In the end, removing her head was the best way to get a steady shot of her face:

She has huge light blue eyes with little holes inside the enormous pupils:

I think she's an eye squirter crier.  Fancy can be either a crier or a spitter.

I wish MGA had positioned the eye holes towards the bottom of the eye.  It would make the crying action more realistic.  Nobody spews tears directly out of the middle of their eyes.  Nobody I know, anyway.

I had a hard time getting the specks of glitter off of Fancy's face.  They're so small that their surface tension adheres them firmly to the vinyl.

In contrast, the clumps of glitter on Fancy's hair are more than happy to fall off...leaving behind some less-sparkly patches:

For the most part, the glitter coverage in Fancy's hair is good, though.

For some reason when I put Fancy's dress on, her balance improved considerably.  

Here she is with all of her accessories:

L.O.L. Glitter Series Fancy.

The bow headband looks good and fits snugly into grooves behind Fancy's ears.

The back of the outfit doesn't look great, although it's quite a bit better than Hoops MVP's jumpsuit.

Fancy's bottom does peek out, though.  Maybe they could have given her some diapers or underpants?

The dress doesn't allow Fancy to sit down very well...

...and the gaps in the back get even worse when she's trying to sit:

Overall, she's a cute figure.  Visually, I like the addition of the copious glitter (especially the coppery color on the hair!):

I'm not as happy about the constant shedding of the glitter and the mess is makes on Fancy's face and around my house.  I especially don't like it when the glitter gets in my eyes, and that's happened twice at this point.

Here's Glitter Fancy with my regular Series 1 Fancy:

Glitter Series Fancy and original Fancy.

The two have different dresses, which is interesting.  They also have different shoes and different headbands.  Note: the shoes on Series 1 Fancy, above, are not her original shoes.  Those blue shoes came with Lil Miss Baby.  Her original shoes are shown in the earlier photo.

I bought both of my L.O.L. Glitter balls from the same Amazon vendor, so right after I opened Fancy, I got this gloomy feeling that maybe the vendor was off-loading multiple versions of the same doll.  Pretty paranoid, right?  I have repeataphobia.

Anyway, I searched through the wrapper garbage to see if I could find any kind of code on Fancy's packaging.  I found two codes (a bar code and a printed code just above it), and both of these codes match my second L.O.L. ball exactly:

The codes on my two Glitter Series balls.

Irritated, I rushed through the unwrapping of the second ball, assuming I'd find another copy of Fancy.

I figured that the secret message was probably random, so I paused to look at that:

I'll let you guys guess this one for a second.

It should be "light, camera, dance" based on the use of the dancing picture in Sis Swing's message:

Sis Swing's secret message.

But of course it's "lights, camera, action:"

I figured that this would be the only surprise I could offer, but when I got down to the five sealed bags...

...one of them had a shape that did not come with Fancy!

I couldn't tell exactly what the shape was, so I opened the bag...

It's a pair of glasses!

I love the L.O.L. dolls with glasses!

And so this doll is definitely not a duplicate!  Hurrah!  I guess those particular codes don't mean anything.  Whew!

After that discovery, I slowed down and took my time uncovering the other surprises.

The next bag was clearly the bottle:

Out came an orange section (with lots of loose glitter):

And a bright purple top!

This bottle has a basic shape with a few molded measuring lines on one side:

Here's the back:

With both the bottle and the accessory unveiled, I felt like it should be possible to identify the character:

Teacher's Pet is the only doll with glasses, so I guess it must be her...although her glasses are clearly black:

And she doesn't have any orange in her outfit.

I'm glad that the accessories don't always reveal who the doll is!

Next, I opened the shoe bag:

I couldn't see much of these shoes at first...

But then they came tumbling out all at once! They're orange, with criss-crossed laces in front:

At first, all of the orange made me think I must have gotten M.C. Swag:

Her shoes are the same color orange and have crossed laces in front.  Getting her would be fun since I have Lil M.C. Swag, too.

I saved the outfit bag for last, since this will confirm which doll I got:

All I saw at first was a band of gold glitter...on what looks like a dress:

So...it's not M.C. Swag!  Wow.  This one really threw me off.

Let's see what the full dress looks like:

Cute!  I had to search the catalog again.

I got Super B.B.!

She can pee or cry.

That picture is really cute, so I was excited to open the last bag!

There's the glittery purple hair...

I have to say, the heavily-glittered hair makes a great first impression.

Here's B.B. in her birthday suit:

She doesn't balance reliably in her shoes, either, it's just that I caught her in a good moment.

I like the combination of painted neon pink socks and orange shoes!

This poor girl has glitter stuck all over her face:

I like her pale lavender eyes, though, and the way her bottle-ready mouth is molded to look like she's speaking or smiling.  It's a better mold than Fancy's simple open mouth:

Here's B.B. with her dress:

Of all the L.O.L. clothing I've seen, this dress does the best job of covering up in back:

No bum-looking.

Here's B.B. with all of her accessories:

L.O.L. Glitter Series Super B.B.

The glitter on her dress and hair is out of control, but I still think she's a cutie:

Here are glittery Fancy and Super B.B. together:

L.O.L. Glitter Series Fancy and Super B.B.

Fancy's hair is a great color, but I like Super B.B. more for some reason.  I think it's the combination of colors in her hair and outfit.  I just wish these dolls didn't shed so much glitter!

L.O.L. Glitter Series Fancy and Super B.B.

As fun as glitter can be, I was most excited to see what the new L.O.L. Pets would look like.  As with the Lil Sisters, this wave is attempting something different, and that always adds to the surprise.

The Pet balls are the same size as the original L.O.L. balls, but they're much heavier.

The wrapping is mostly yellow, with large cartoons and bold lettering:

This is Series 3 of the L.O.L. brand:

As with the earlier dolls, the outer layer of packaging enumerates the surprises that will be inside:

A lot of these look disappointingly familiar.  There's a secret message:

Game cube?

(I think the actual answer is "play it cool")  

A sticker sheet:

Is that the same old sticker sheet?  Bo-ring.

A bottle:

Some shoes (two pair this time, though):

A scooper:

Like a pooper scooper?  Facepalm.

An accessory:

And the pet itself.  There's an additional water surprise as well.

That rabbit is terrifying.

The rabbit has four identical straight legs that make it look like a rabbit-horse hybrid.  With human hair.

The packaging opens in the same way as the other L.O.L packaging, with a perforated zipper down one side of each layer:

I like the bone-shaped bar code!

The first layer of plastic was hiding what looks like the secret message:

This one is pretty straight-forward, as long as your mind doesn't wander off to Marilyn Monroe-type updraft scenarios.

Here's the answer:

The second layer of plastic has floating pet heads interspersed with white paw prints and question marks:

Based on the packaging, I'd say it's possible to get a dog, a cat, or a rabbit.  I like the little winking brown dog best.

This layer unzips to reveal...

A pink inner wrap and the sticker sheet:

It's the exact same sticker sheet that comes with every other set:

I like the innermost wrap, though!  Look at the cute black and white kitten:

I like how the cat's hair and shoes match her coat color.

There's also a large cartoon of the sassy brown puppy who I like:

The rest of this wrapper is covered with pictures of the various accessories:

Scoopers and shoes.

The inner plastic ball is what I like to call eyesore yellow:

I actually like this bright yellow color a lot, but it doesn't photograph well in my studio.

The plastic ball is solid--there are no compartments for plastic bags.

I'm glad there are air holes for the pet, though.

I opened the ball and a heavy pink disc fell out.  This is the source of extra weight in the Pet series balls:

In addition to the heavy disc, there are four plastic bags and a collector's sheet:

I wanted to look at the disc first.  I had no idea what it was.  It came wrapped in its own layer of clear plastic.

The lid is decorated with paw prints, a heart...and what looks for all the world like a pile of poop:

Really, MGA?

In fact, are the L.O.L. letters poop-shaped as well?  Maybe I'm just being paranoid.  That would be disgusting.  

Next thing you know, kids all over the country are going to start spelling out words in their cat's litter boxes.  

In any case, the shape in the very middle of the disc looks all-too-familiar:

As the owner of three dogs, I deal with poop way too much in my ordinary life to have any desire for it on my toys.

Inside the disc, I found a neon pink patty of sticky (smelly) sand:

It really is a litter box.

I didn't want to disturb this messy-looking substance while I was in my studio, so I turned to the instructions for a possible explanation.

The instructions show how to open the disc (which wasn't hard):

But what to do with the sand is less clear:

Put it in the bottom of the large ball and dig around with the scooper looking for...shoes?  That's really weird.  Did the pet eat the shoes and we're waiting for them to come out the other end?  The whole concept definitely seems intended to mimic a litter box--complete with excrement.  This reminds me of similarly-themed MGA products.

I decided to set the sand aside and sift through it in my kitchen at the end of the review.

The rest of the instructions show how the pets' water features work--they're basically the same as the dolls' water features:

Crying, spitting, or peeing.

But, if you're really lucky, you'll get this hamster who--like the Lil Sisters--has a color changing feature instead:

That looks like fun.

I hope I get a hamster!  They look really cool.  

Let's find out what I got.

Here's everything (besides the litter box) that was in the ball:

The collector's sheet has a picture of seven different pets on one side:

This strange-looking cat seems to be communicating something:

What 'surprise' will you scoop out of my litter box??

I guess I'm supposed to use the scoop to dig out a mystery item (but isn't it the pair of shoes?).  I guess we'll find out.

But look at this.  This is the best thing ever:

A pimped out hamster!

Now I definitely want a hamster!

The other side of the collector's sheet has a list of all the pets in the first wave:

There's a glittery pair that includes a flocked white horse-bunny and a little mermaid cat:

Oh--and there's my little hamster!  OMG.  Look at what his name is:

It's Hammy time!

I've made this joke before, I'm sure, but you absolutely can't touch this.  It's the best thing to come out of the L.O.L. line.  Who cares about Ruff Rocker?  I need M.C. Hammy.  Need him.

There's an orange tabby cat called Neon Kitty and a little black bat-dog called Midnight Pup:

I'm enjoying the creative animals here more than the plain cats and dogs.

Here's that winking brown dachshund, Fancy Haute Dog, and the back and white cat, Fresh Feline:

They're both cute.

Oh, I get it!  Haute dog...like hot dog.  That's pretty good, but most of these names feel a little uninspired.  That, or I'm just not getting the jokes.

Here are Su-Purr Kitty and Bunny Wishes...who looks like a genie bunny?

And two more bunnies, Cottontail Q.T. and Hops Kit-Tea:

Why is there a tea reference?  I'm confused.

Oh, Hops is a cat dressed as a bunny--my bad.

I started to lose interest with Royal Kitty-Cat and Miss Puppy...

...but the next panel got my attention again.  Look at Roller Kit-10:

It's wearing an Elizabethan collar!  And roller skates!  And the name is clever.  Awesome.  My kids also tell me that Hoops D.O.G.G. might be related to Snoop Dogg--because of the two Gs.  Might be.

And in the last panel, there's another hamster...with hysterically enormous glasses!

Is B.B. Pup related to BB-8?

Each of the Pets is designated as Popular, Fancy, Rare, Ultra-Rare or On My Way:

Of course both of the hamsters are Ultra-Rare.  Darn it.

Now that we know what all of the current options are, let's see which one I got!

I started with the three accessory bags:

This one felt like it had a bottle inside:

Looks like a pink bottle...

Oh!  It's the coffee cup design again!

I guess the same bottle molds that were used in the first two series will be used for the pets, too!

This is the same style of bottle as the one that came with Fancy:

The next bag had something thin and small inside...

That must be a scooper!

And what's the design?

A cat!

It's actually a decent interpretation of a kitty litter scooper, with the eyes acting as the sifting holes that will release the litter while trapping the poop.  Lovely.

I wonder if that means that my pet will be a cat?

The third bag should be the random accessory, which I think is the most exciting to open:

I peeked inside...

It's glasses!

The color palette is very consistent here, making me think I should be able to guess which pet I got:

What do you guys think?

It'd be fun to get the glittery cat mermaid:

But the absence of glitter on the accessories makes me skeptical.

The turquoise doesn't really fit, but Neon Kitty has pink and blue and is wearing glasses, so she's a contender:

Time to find out!

It's definitely some sort of tabby cat...

With an orange ponytail, maybe?

Yep!

It's Neon Kitty:

L.O.L. Neon Kitty.

This cat has really large, dark eyes.  There's practically no visible iris, which is not even remotely cat-like:

Here's a real cat eye for comparison:

She also has a very humanoid ponytail, with neon pink bangs in the front:

And, it's clear that she at least has the potential to be a pee-er

She has five points of articulation (legs and head), but when I tried to pose her in a walking position, she immediately toppled over:

Her head is so big that there aren't many leg positions that allow her to balance on her own.  This was the best I could do:

Another slightly frustrating thing is that the glasses don't slot onto her head the same way they do on the other dolls:

There are little pegs that are supposed to fit into slots, but Kitty's head doesn't have any slots.

The glasses just don't fit very well at all:

The catalog picture shows Kitty wearing the glasses, but it really seems like they were made to go with one of the dolls.  They look good on Fancy:

L.O.L. Glitter Series Fancy and Neon Kitty.

I wondered if the pets would be able to swap heads with the dolls, so I experimented a little.  

It will only work if both figures have the same water feature, and this is because the peeing characters have tubes that connect their heads to their bottoms:

Fancy is not a pee-er, but Super B.B. is:

L.O.L. doll and pet swapping heads.

That's too weird.  It's like a circus sideshow gone wrong.  Kitty's head on B.B.'s body actually works in some ways, mostly because the colors match really well and I'm accustomed to seeing animal heads on human bodies (Calico Critters, Li'l Woodzeez, Pinkie Cooper), but B.B.'s head on the cat body is not right.

The heads don't interchange very well, either.  The dolls have smaller neck holes than the pets, so while Kitty's head fits over B.B.'s neck, the opposite is not true:

I unwrapped the second pet really quickly, eager to see if I'd gotten a hamster this time. 

Here's the secret message:

This is a tough one.  I knew the answer already, so I couldn't guess, but I polled my family.  Here's what they said:

Husband: reverse the curse?

Son #1: magic reverses back luck!

Son #2: the light from stars is from a long time ago (that tells you a lot about him).

Nobody even came close to the real message, which is...

Is that even a thing?  I know all about Throwback Thursday, that's cool, but Flash Back Friday?  Really?  Will the whole week be reserved for nostalgia soon?

Moving on.

Here are the three accessory bags:

As is becoming my habit, I'll start with the bottle:

Oh--this one looks different from the others I've gotten!  Yay!

Lots of blue...

It's a like a blue sno-cone bottle!

What will be next?

More blue!

That's the handle of a pooper scooper:

Oh!  Ad a bone this time, so I guess it's a dog scooper:

Never mind that the dog scooper looks like a kitty litter box scooper:

A dog pooper scooper should not have any holes in it.  That defeats the purpose.

Let's see what's in this last bag:

Not something blue!

It's a little headband:

I like the mix of colors in these accessories.  The blue and red look great together!

I think it's pretty clear which pet I got, but I'll give you a second to guess...

It's gotta be B.B. Pup:

I guess I'll have to settle for getting the hamster's next door neighbor.

Here's the moment of truth...

That definitely looks like a dog...

...and there's the blue hair to prove it!

It's B.B. Pup:

The blue hair looks really strange on this puppy, though.  There's too much of it, for one, and it's molded into a pretty boring high ponytail hairstyle that reminds me of a granny-bun.

At least this dog has some visible iris crescents, though:

The headband fits better than Kitty's glasses...

L.O.L. B.B. Pup.

...but there are still no slots in the head to accommodate the headband's pegs:

The headband fits Super B.B. much better:

Super B.B. wearing B.B. Pup's headband.

The only thing I had left to do at this point was dig into the litter box sand and find the shoes.  Since I was going to get a little messy anyway, I decided to open one of the small L.O.L. charm fizz balls at the same time.  These are about a quarter the size of a traditional L.O.L. ball, cost much less, and are very easy to find in stores:

In the safety of my kitchen, I unwrapped the charm fizz...

...put it into a plastic cup:

And added hot water.  The little ball immediately began to fizz and emit a vaguely floral smell:

The fizzing action was actually quite impressive and long-lasting...

...I wonder if it would seem equally impressive inside a large bathtub?

While the fizz ball was dissolving, I put the litter box sand inside the bottom of the larger plastic ball:

And then I broke up the cake of sand with a fork.

The sand is really squishy and gross.  It has a weird smell, too.  As I pulled it apart, little strings of goo would stretch out between the grains of sand.  Eeew.

I quickly picked out the shoes and threw the sand away.  This is not my kind of thing, and--spoilsport that I am--not something I ever would have given to my kids.

What a terrible idea.

Here are the shoes from both litter boxes:

By the time I'd fished out the shoes, the fizz ball had fully dissolved:

I got out a toothpick and did my best to clean the sand out of the shoes, then I carried everything back into my studio--with the protection of a few paper towels.

The charm I got is a little pink bottle with a pearl handle:

It comes with a pink plastic clip so that it can be attached to a zipper or a backpack.

A sticker came with the charm:

And I did a poor job of putting the sticker on the charm:

I guess it's a perfume bottle.

There was another little paper item inside the fizz ball's wrapping:

I think that's a ring-shaped temporary tattoo, which is a cool idea.  I love temporary tattoos.

Here's the little catalog that shows all of the possible charms:

There are various perfume bottles and balls, and a cute baby bottle:

Most of these look pretty uninteresting to me.

I do like the smartphone and the croissant, though:

When I was a teenager, it was very popular to collect plastic charms and hang them on necklaces, bracelets or backpacks.  I kept a lot of charms on my keyring, mostly to entertain the kids I babysat.  I loved those charms because many of them had amazing moving parts.  I remember a notebook with actual paper and a working mini pencil, a nesting doll with several layers, and a little lunchbox that opened to reveal a Thermos!  These L.O.L. charms are nothing in comparison.  I like charms, but I certainly won't be buying any more of these.

The shoes didn't photograph very well against a paper towel background, but here are the red shoes that came with B.B. Pup:

You can still see some sand oozing out of the toe of the shoe on the left:

And here are the shoes that came with Neon Kitty:

Again--with sand and pink staining still inside of them:

I probably should have rinsed the shoes with water to remove the extra sand, but I didn't want any sand getting into my garbage disposal.

So, the shoes are exactly what I'd expect from looking at the catalog--not really a surprise at all, unless they're the first thing you open.  

I thought that this picture meant "use the scooper to find a mystery present:"

But now I don't really know what it means.  Is the scooper itself the mystery present?

I didn't even put the shoes on the pets.  Pets don't need shoes and these toys didn't inspire me to be silly or creative.  They kind-of bummed me out, actually.

It's probably clear by now, but I don't really like these new L.O.L. Pets or their poop-themed sand gimmick.  It's all so overdone and garish.  Why can't the pets just be simple and cute without the neon-colored human hair and freaky eyes?

Furthermore, there's no consistency to the concept.  The collection is full of sophisticated talking animal characters with blatantly human characteristics (hair, clothing, shoes), but we're meant to imagine these same animals pooping out shoes into buckets of sand and then cleaning up after them.  That makes no sense.  Or maybe I'm missing the point of the sand?  Is it meant to be more like a playground sandbox?  Shrug.

At this point in the review I needed a break from the overstimulating, nonsensical L.O.L. balls.  I found myself nostalgic for something simpler, which was fortunate because my mother-in-law recently gave me this old-fashioned crepe paper surprise ball!

She knows me well.

These ball are handmade by the Tops Malibu company.  It's fun to visit their website.  You can read a short history of surprise balls (they have Native American roots and first became popular in the 1950s!) and browse many tempting surprise ball options.

The first layer was all blue and pretty long:

It was concealing a secret fortune and a smaller purple ball:

I hope so!

The purple wrapping was super-long:

Still going...

And going!

There was nothing concealed in this wrapper except the next ball:

A little sticker or some tiny reward would have been nice.

The next ball was red:

And right away I saw something hidden in the very top layer:

Here's a better look:

I think it's a piece of candy:

Yep!  A fruit and berry medley:

From Italy.  Wow.

I set the candy aside and opened the final layer, which was a sheet of red tissue paper concealing two things...

It's an alien in a spaceship (awesome!) and a squished purple thing:

The purple thing looks like a deformed cow (?) pencil topper:

Ot maybe it's a giraffe?

In any case, the alien spaceship is the star of the show.

The spaceship has a plastic parachute attached to the bottom.  I love parachute toys:

The alien can't come out of the spaceship (he probably can't handle our atmosphere) but he doesn't look too upset about that fact:

Happy alien.

Opening this paper ball was fun, and really easy to clean up.  The wrappings crushed down to practically nothing and were all recycleable.  Best of all, each layer revealed a true surprise.  I had no way of knowing anything about what items (or even what type of items) I was going to get!  The treats might not be spectacular, but they're not bad, either.  Parachute toys always seem to have a very high degree of fun for their relative cost.

I can't wait to send the little spaceship on its first flight!

Watch for more of these crepe paper surprise balls as the holidays approach.

For now, I should get back to the L.O.L. balls.  Overall, the Glitter and Pet lines are my least favorite members of the rapidly-growing L.O.L. collection.  

Bottom line?  I'd find the Pets more appealing if it weren't for their human hair, empty eyes, and poor balance.  I also wish that the accessories were more distinct from the accessories that come with the humanoid L.O.L. dolls.  I'd rather have pet toys, collars, leashes, tags, beds, and maybe little coats for my Kitty and Pup than the shoes and ill-fitting headgear that I got.  

To me, the messy, day-glo, clumped-sand litter boxes are a complete fail. The sand feels strange, smells bad, gets stuck inside the shoes, and leaves me with the sense that I've been contaminated.  Conceptually, its a poor match for the human-like animal characters.  I'd venture to say that it isn't even worth cracking the seal on the sand disc to get the shoes out.  

With all of the negative things I've said, I still want M.C. Hammy and the other hamster Pet, darn it. They're super cute.

The Glitter Series dolls are better than the Pets, but they still don't add much to the L.O.L. lineup.  All of the characters are repeated from Series 1.

Of the two characters I got, I like Super B.B. the best:

She's sparkly and has a fun mix of colors in her outfit and hair.

Her glasses fit well and look adorable on her:

My only complaint is that the glitter is massively over-applied and so it falls off and gets stuck on the dolls' faces, on my face (in my eye!), on my hands, on my table, on my dogs, on my silverware, on my kids...everywhere.  The glitter is the only new thing this wave offers, and I'd say that the lovely sparkling colors aren't worth the hassle of having glitter all over the place.

I'm sure that these new L.O.L. balls will be popular, hard-to-find, and overpriced for a little while.  If you want to spend the extra money, I'd highly advise choosing a Glitter Series doll over a Pet.  If you really want to try your luck with a Pet (there are some pretty cute characters in the mix...) don't waste your time with the icky sand litter boxes.

My best advice, though, is to skip these waves completely and either grab one of the Let's Be Friends balls (which are now getting easy to find) or head over to Tops Malibu and choose one of their handmade, old-fashioned surprise balls.  You know that's exactly what I'm going to do the moment I stop typing.

L.O.L. Glitter Series and Pet dolls, from left: B.B. Pup, Super B.B., Fancy, and Neon Kitty.