Just One Phony After Another

Down the path of madness lie ponies.

Some time in early 2016, I went on a mini-My Little Pony Surprise Pack binge because Kroger had them on sale and buying more eased my resentment that grocery shopping must be done whenever one runs out of food, rather than only when there's a fun recipe in the future.

Somehow, in the course of post-Xmas dollar store sales, that led to this, at Family Dollar.

Like Equestria Girls, but with an extra buzzword!

That, in turn, led to this, which has an even more complicated origin that I'll get to down below the jump.

How many different toy lines are being knocked off here?

 We be unboxin'...

The First Rule of Clone Club...

Thanksgiving brings turkey, cranberry sauce, and the Buy One, Get One 50% Off sale at Family Dollar and Dollar General. This year's toy selection in my neighborhood was frankly disappointing, the highlight being...

The first rule of clone club is, we don't talk about clone club.

Drag your gaze to the bottom left corner of the back of the box. FUNVILLE. Weren't Sparkle Girlz from Funville Ltd.?

Yes, they are. Googling "Glimma Girlz" leads into a weird alternative universe of oddly familiar cone dolls and minis, to the point that I started to doubt my own reality. Had there only ever been Glimma Girlz? Had I had the name wrong all this time? Is there a glitch in the Matrix, and I've switched from a Sparkle Girlz reality to a Glimma Girlz reality? If so, what else is now different?

Apparently they've only ever been Glimma Girlz in the UK, South Africa, and probably some other countries that aren't the United States. So while we over here are sparkling, much of the world is glimmering. Or glimma-ing.

So let's unbox the Glimma Girlz Superstar Lifestyle pack (the superstar lifestyle presumably includes having a body double?) after the jump.

Jingle all the way to the Lille Huset

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Elvin and Melvin's house. (Psst! There will be a SURPRISE of usefulness at many doll scales after the jump!)

Melvin, still in his robe due to chilly weather, is surprised when Elvin hauls home a tree!

Melvin said to lay out the garland and untangle it first, but does anyone ever listen? No.

It must have two ends! Everything has two ends!

Keep going...

Last Christmas, I Gave Myself Princesses

My usual habit with dolls bought at the dollar-store after-Christmas sales is to save them to be opened around Easter, and this year, I took that practice so far that it's now December.

Among last year's bonanza was two black dolls I'd had an eye on: a black Moxie Girlz Storytime Collection Princess and a black Lovely Patsy. Both had been, up to this point, creatures of legend in Phoenix, never seen by mortal eyes.

Don't piss off Tianna's* fairy godmother.
*the second N is for "clone"

While Hasbro's got the license for official Disney princesses, clearly this stops nobody from princessing all over the place. So let's haul these ladies out of their boxes and take a minute over their respective knock-off princess lines (the Moxie is distinctly slumming).