26 Sept 2015

Disney Descendants


Descendants! Which only hit the UK a week or two ago and has done so in really random drabbles. 

For those who don't know, Descendants is a Disney made for tv movie. Basic premise, the kids of various Disney villains get a chance to go to school with the kids of Disney heroes, shenanagins happen... it's as you'd expect, cheesy harmless fluff with musical numbers of the campy variety.

Anyway, there's dolls, the first of the Disney licensed dolls made by  Hasbro. 
Hasbro won the Disney franchise off Mattel last year and come 2016 are set to be doing ALL the Disney princess dolls, so Descendants is a good first look at how Hasbro might handle this lucrative string to their bow.

Suffice to say, many have noticed the parallel between Descendant's premise and Ever After High and I refuse to believe a few of the design choices were simple coincidence from either side.
Both for instance, have ambiguously brown skinned daughters of Sleeping Beauty. Hmm... 

Anyway, a new doll franchise is always exciting, particularly from a company who's been mostly absent from fashion dolls for such a long time (No, i'm not counting those crappy Equestria girls dolls, those things are just... suffice to say, i was very unimpressed with the one Husband bought for himself.  ahem) 

I've missed there being proper competition for Mattel, they've been playing with themselves way too long (and yes, I DO know how that reads bwhahaha) 

So let's take a look at these new dolls shall we?

11 Sept 2015

Monster High - Finnegan Wake

I've been obsessively stalking the Smyths website ever since I noticed they had Finnegan listed, and when the Sep 4th "expected stock" date came and went, I admit I was pretty bummed out.
I was even more upset when a few days later the site changed their expected stock date to "sep 18th", it didn't bode well to me.

Thankfully, others in the UK started to report seeing the doll in stock in stores, but i'm in London and thus nowhere near any Smyths stores (yeah, what?). Nearest one to me is a good hour away, a trip totally not worth taking imo for ONE toy.

But then good fortune intervened. Husband rang me from work yesterday to tell me "Toys R Us have Finn!"
He pops into tru most lunch breaks as it's right next to his office lol, so I told him to get me a good one and eagerly waited for him to get home that evening.

I'll admit it, I haven't giggled so excitedly about a MH doll in a long time. I don't quite know why but I was super excited about Finnegan Wake, probably because he's quite an unusual product. We just don't get many disabled dolls, Mattel hasn't produced a doll in a wheelchair since Barbie's friend Becky in the 90s.

Also, I totally voted for Finn. Why? Because BOY doll. I love boy dolls, and the more boy dolls the better as far as i'm concerned.