I already wrote an in-depth review of the new Monster High dolls, but I know there's a lot of interest in the individual characters, so I decided to do a short(er) follow-up with the fabulously freaky Frankie Stein!
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| G3 Frankie Stein from Monster High, $24.99. |
Happy Halloween! I know I posted a review very recently, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to do a little something on this spooky day...
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| Creepy Baby Doll from Spirit Halloween, $26.99. |
I always try to avoid writing reviews that take three days to read. I really do. I have mixed success with this, though (the Monster High review coulda been shorter...), but thankfully the Encanto Mirabel dolls that I want to compare happen to fit nicely into separate reviews. So this entry is basically the second part of my previous review, which focused on Mirabel dolls from Jakks Pacific. Today I'll look at the Disney Store's 11-inch Mirabel and see how she compares.
I've reviewed a lot of Disney Store dolls over the years, and I've loved many of them, but the dolls started to suffer a decline in quality around six years ago. At that point I tried to stop myself from making any more Disney Store purchases, for fear of being hugely disappointed. I caved to temptation a few times after 2016, and I had mixed results. For example, among the live action Beauty and the Beast dolls, Belle was hugely disappointing. But with the Tangled: The Series dolls, Rapunzel was an amazing surprise! That Rapunzel left me feeling hopeful, so last year when I re-booted the blog, one of the first things I did was buy a Disney Store Elsa doll. And guess what? I was hugely disappointed. I couldn't even finish her review. Why can't I learn?
But Mirabel looked promising. And she looked different enough from the Elsa doll that, against my better judgement, I decided to buy her. I justified the purchase by telling myself that this was the Disney Store's first attempt at Mirabel, and their first-run dolls are often higher-quality than the later versions. So here I am--yet again--coming back from a big disappointment to give the Disney Store another chance. We'll see how it goes.
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| Encanto Mirabel doll from the Disney Store, $24.99. |
Well, I missed celebrating the one-year anniversary of the blog re-start. That's typical. I can't believe it's already been a year, but I guess the huge pile of dolls in my basement is pretty good evidence. I need to get more serious about selling the dolls I review--or at least the ones who are worth something more than $20. And since I've gotten out of the habit of selling dolls right after I finish their reviews, I'll find other ways of letting you know when something is for sale. I can post on Twitter and Patreon easily, and I'll add a comment to the review of any doll that's about to be for sale. There's also a gadget on the right side of the blog that will appear when there are items in the shop.
Another thing that's worth celebrating is that I have sixty Patrons already! Woo hoo! Thank you so much to that dedicated crew for helping out financially, and also for your inspiring comments, suggestions, and messages. I could not do this without you.
But that's enough of that! If I don't get this review written soon, some other new thing will come along to distract me and I'll be even more behind. I've had three different dolls from the Disney movie Encanto sitting in my workroom for months now, and it's high time that I take a look at them. Today I'll focus on two Mirabel dolls (and one Antonio doll) by Jakks Pacific, and then in a few days I'll follow up with a comparison to the Disney Store's version of Mirabel.
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| The Mirabel and Antonio Adventure set by Jakks Pacific, $24.99. |
I have all of these carefully-laid plans with the blog, I promise I do, but then things keep coming along to derail those plans--often in a delightful way. Two weeks ago my discovery of the DALL-E image generator threw me off track, and then last week it was the much-anticipated release of the Generation 3 Monster High dolls. I knew the G3 dolls were coming out in October, and so I showed up at my local Target bright and early on October 1, eagerly scanning the shelves for the familiar logo, but I didn't see any sign of the new dolls. Then, on October 2, my friend Darcy alerted me to the fact that many of the dolls were available online. And so I ordered one. OK, two. Alright, most of them. Oops. And then, of course, the moment they started to arrive at my house, I had to put aside what I was working on and open them immediately.
Mattel has been very busy over the last few months, trickling out tantalizing Monster High releases like the Haunt Couture collection, the greyscale Reel Drama group (which I love!), and the Boo-riginal Creeproductions of the first wave dolls. All of these dolls look like the original Monster High characters, with the same body and the same face molds. So I was surprised to see that the G3 dolls are completely different! The characters' names and styles are the same, but almost everything else has been changed.
I'll admit that I wasn't too thrilled with some of the promotional photos of the G3 dolls. I could tell who all of the characters were supposed to be, but they looked too mainstream and cutesy to me. They weren't weird enough to be the Monster High that I know and love. But I decided to put my misgivings aside and give them a fair chance. Things change, right? The first doll that I bought, and the one who I'll feature in this review, is none other than my favorite Clawdeen Wolf...if you can recognize her:
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| Generation 3 Monster High Clawdeen Wolf by Mattel, $24.99. |
Today started out totally normal for me. I got up, let the dogs out, grabbed a cup of coffee, and sat down to read the news. But then an article in the Washington Post completely changed the course of my entire day. And forgive me in advance, but it's likely to steal all of the free time you thought you had, too.
The article I read was about DALL-E, an artificial intelligence, text-to-image generator that has just become widely available to the public. A text-to-image generator is software that can use regular text to create an image. So if I input a phrase like "pencil drawing of a dog," DALL-E will give me several computer-generated images that look like pencil drawings of dogs. And judging by the Washington Post sample images, I could see that DALL-E is very good at what it does. The article was focused mainly on how this type of AI can be dangerous--and I can see that angle. For example, people wanting to make a point could generate fake photographic evidence to claim something happened when it actually didn't.
But of course I wasn't interested in DALL-E because I want to create conspiracies or topple governments, I just wanted to see how good this thing is at rendering photographs of dolls. And it's darn good...at least some of the time:
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| DALL-E redhead doll in a blue polka dot dress. |
Happy fall, everyone! It's so funny, because just as the season officially changed, New Jersey went from 90° and oppressively humid to 72° and breezy, with nighttime temperatures that are downright cold. It's a nice change, but I have whiplash. The colder temperatures reminded me that we're coming up on the one-year anniversary of this blog's re-awakening! That's hard for me to believe. I'll have to think of a fun Sunday Surprise review to honor the date.
In the meantime, you might be surprised to see something that's not a 14-inch doll on the cover today! Sorry if that's a disappointment to anyone, but I decided to take another little break from the 14-inch comparison series so that I could explore different things. Way back in January, when I reviewed the Honey Bee Acres figures and compared them to Li'l Woodzeez and Calico Critters, I mentioned that some day I wanted to come back and take a look at the accessories and playsets that are available in that line, which is exactly what I'm going to do today.
Long-time readers of the blog might remember how much I like the Li'l Woodzeez shop-themed playsets, like the Tickle Your Tastebuds Bakery and Honeysuckle Hollow General Store. Because of my affection for those two toys, I really wanted to look at the equivalent Honey Bee Acres set, which is called The Buzz General Store. I'll certainly have the Woodzeez sets that I've already reviewed in my head as I look at this toy, but I'll also make some more direct comparisons to newer Li'l Woodzeez sets. All of that means that this is going to be a long one (shocker), so I'd better get started!
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| The Buzz General Store from Honey Bee Acres, $19.94. |
