Dollar General goes all-in for fakies, plus bonus Walmart camper

In the wake of acquiring Dolores, the Dollar Store Beauty (who is now getting rerooted with yarn dreadlocks, just because), I made a trip to Dollar General to see if the bagged African-American $1 fashion doll was as luridly bad as I recalled. Short answer: yes. Her only possible future could be as a superhero, as she was clearly bitten by a radioactive spider.

However, Dollar General has geared up for Christmas with a full new toy aisle that included Gothic Tales, including a pretty good Clawdeen Wolf on an unarticulated 9" body.

I'm pre-teen Clawdeen.

The Draculaura and Frankie knockoffs weren't nearly as good: Draculaura has an orange streak in her hair, while Frankie is very, very green. As a dose of painful irony for budget-conscious families, Dollar General now stocks Monster High dolls for $12.98, so the real thing is right there to compare. (The sudden surge of MH product to discounters suggests that Mattel is still dealing with excess inventory problems.)



I resisted because how would I ever re-body her? There was never an articulated ambiguously brown Skipper that I know of, and if I found Howleen deeply discounted, I could just decide if I wanted Howleen.

But Dollar General is not done with knock-offs! It takes on Frozen, albeit not very effectively.

I am totally Elsa's scullery maid dressed in her old clothes.

It takes on Disney Fairies and. . . drum roll. . . possibly Ever After High, which has tended to run fakie-poor. (There's no way the princess-y dolls represent the anime Angel Tales.) There were only two models of Angel Tales dolls: the blonde here in yellow and a brunette in pink.

You're gonna buy me for the dress, so I've already got it half off me.

There was a $12.98 Vespa, in pink, of course.

I bet Sparkle Girlz would rather ride this than that coupe with lashes.

*** beep beep beep beep beep ***

We interrupt the regularly scheduled discussion of dollar-store fakies
to bring you this special bulletin on Walmart.

The Kid Connection line -- heavily tagged on the shelves with NEW yet mostly
indistiguishable from K-Mart's Just Kidz -- includes a camper.

The gas mileage is lousy, but the outdoorsy Moxie Girlz would love it.

This was a test of the emergency new-product warning system.

*** beep beep beep ***

Back in Dollar General, either the factories in China are a phase behind with fakies or they had extra old-style My Life As heads, as these have the Madame Alexander-style faces discussed by Toy Box Philosopher earlier in the week. I cannot speak to anything about their quality, since I don't do this size at all. Google Translate tells me caminante suave means soft walker.

Having bought nothing -- as the poor baggie doll was hopeless even as an Experimental Subject, and her clothes are deplorable -- I went across the street to Zia and found a fabulous toy for Katie, which will be unveiled later, as it must be crooned over.