The true test came when I requested a Barbie doll as a child and the request was categorically denied. You know as well as I do that it had something to do with the lampshade.
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| Source: Tracy's Toys |
I was given other options though, including trolls. Wait a minute! This one has a lampshade on its head too.
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| Source: Tracy's Toys |
At the age of 6 or 7, I was presented with a lovely bisque Deanna Durbin doll (Durbin was a movie star in the 30s and 40s.) Deanna had real (human!) hair and sleep eyes and was quite lovely, but she was not as durable as a Barbie doll. A direct hit from a basketball thrown by one of my brothers broke one of her legs. She has since been repaired and seems to be fine. It also appears that she actually ate the marshmallow I tried to feed her as a child or it dried up and disintegrated. As lovely as she was, I had to decline invitations to Barbie parties, because you simply do not walk into a Barbie party with a bisque doll of any kind. It would be sort of like wearing a lampshade.
My mother bought me some other dolls too, including a Native American doll and a plantation doll of unknown origin (Caribbean?). They have since been joined by a doll I bought in South Africa in the 1970s, a Hungarian doll, and the gregarious Don Ho bubble doll.
When I lived in Hawaii, I passed a huge cart of these Don Ho dolls that were being given away. I'm not sure why I only took one. The tag around his neck says "Don Ho blows tiny bubbles and big ones too." His head screws off and then you press on his chest and a bubble wand emerges from his chest cavity. A quick blow and there you go...tiny bubbles and big ones too.
Just in case you're interested, I leave you with a clip of Don Ho singing Tiny Bubbles
And here's Deanna Durbin.
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Great post Christine. I really enjoyed your witty words, and the pictures are wonderful. How sad that you weren’t allowed a Barbie; an aunt in The States sent me one of the first Barbies and Kens. Didn’t do me any harm ;)
ReplyDeleteI see you’ve changed your picture to include a little doll too!
Great post Christine. Do the dolls all live in the same room, and if so how do you sleep at night? ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm learning all the time about dolls you ladies have/have had. Of course I'd heard of Barbie but Don Ho was a new one to me.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE the Don Ho doll! If only you'd taken two, so you could send one to me!
ReplyDeleteI loved hearing about the lampshade! What a great post! I had Barbies and a whole troll collection, too (no lampshades required.) But Don Ho and the tiny bubbles? Hmmm...that was not part of my doll family.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a doll person but i love the picture of your mother with the lampshade hat!
ReplyDeleteThat Don Ho dolls sounds really weird. Barbies were a little after my time, I think. I never liked them. I don't think my daughters had too many but my granddaughters sure did.
ReplyDeleteI think your mom probably got over the lamp shade hat pretty easily, but I'm guessing that doll of hers, which looks like it had a side job as a bouncer at the biker bar down the street, definitely instilled a phobia or two... Hmmm, Lisa is right about the motley crew of dolls, perhaps that is why Christine has them set up next to my desk instead of hers. And lastly, many thanks to Tracy for the image of Newt Gingrich in a pink dress on a bad hair day, a classic!
ReplyDeleteI couldn't tell whether that was a lampshade or a sun hat in the first photo. I think I would be more embarrassed by the clothes she is wearing. I like your group of dolls (except for Don Ho).
ReplyDeleteInteresting post that brought back personal memories. It seems that as a child I always preferred fluffy toys to dolls.
ReplyDeleteDolls, especially the Barbie types, projected an image of the ideal woman by physical standards which, although I was aspiring to become one day, I found terribly intimidating to deal with!
The lampshade thing made me laugh out loud as did taking the Deanna Durbin Doll to a Barbie party! But the Don Ho doll, I had no idea such a thing existed!!!
ReplyDeleteGrowing up I hated my sister's dolls. I don't know why but I felt threatened by them. She had a Baby First Step and I had her walk down the stairs, which resulted in a free fall to the bottom! I could toss her dolls around like rags, but stuffed animals were protected and revered. Confessing to this type of behavior would nowadays have me in for therapy, but it is what it was. And did you find out that when you cut the Troll Doll's hair it never grew back?
ReplyDeleteSteven,
ReplyDeleteI NEVER cut my troll's hair. You can do that to Barbies but not to trolls. I think something bad happens to you...
However, like the Barbies, the troll set me up with unrealistic body image issues. I always thought I was supposed to be short and squat with 4 fingers on each hand and bulgy eyes.
The Deanna Durbin doll is beautiful. I was not big into Barbie, was happy to play with my sisters' Barbies, one had the bubble cut and the other had the ponytail style. Kissy and Tiny Tears were favorites. And Betsy McCall, of course. Don Ho doll is a little scary.
ReplyDeleteInteresting/sad true stories about dolls, Christine...
ReplyDeleteToys, like the internet and so many other things, are what you make of them, with them, because of them, etc.
To me, I'd like to exaggerate and say that there are 2 categories of toys: LEGO, and anything else.
I wish I had LEGO as a child, longingly seeing them in Neckermann catalogs when I was growing up behind the Iron Curtain...:)
I was about 30 when I bought for my daughter the first LEGO set, after the revolution in Romania. :)
Now I have a lot, but I don't have time...
However, in a future life...
Anne Frank loved Deanna Durbin, her picture is in the Achterhuis. She probably would've loved to have a Deanna Durbin doll.
ReplyDeleteI loved this post ... funny and nostalgic. Until I got to the end and Deanna Durban really hurt my ears!!! Ow ow ow! Those high notes! Did you notice the shot of Deanna's back, with the hand prints. That made it all worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteBarbara
Christine, this is just plain wonderful. You cracked me up. Too bad about the Barbie denial. I never was in to her, but my little sisters were. I used to design houses and make furniture out of blocks for their Barbies and make clothing for them though.
ReplyDeleteYour Don Ho stuff reminds me of my Mom's friend, Janice. She went to Hawaii on vacation without her husband and got her picture taken of Don Ho giving her a kiss. She mailed it back home, and her husband didn't know who Don was and got jealous and cut it up before she got home!
Have a great week,
Kathy M.
A great collection of some unususal dolls! Oh I remember those trolls, loved them and their goofy faces...the doll with your mother looks familiar...A great post all the way to Tiny Bubbles, was there ever a doll named that? Should be...
ReplyDeleteMusic and dolls - a winning combination.
ReplyDeleteThat's a scary looking doll in your first photo - perhaps it was the doll, and not the lampshade, that put your Mum off? Highly entertaining post :-) Jo
ReplyDeleteI'm not entirely sure your mother would approve of your going public with that first picture.
ReplyDeleteVery funny! And I agree that the first doll is suitable for a horror movie.:-}
ReplyDeleteThat Don Ho one is priceless. I've never seen that. I too have all the other dolls in that photo, but not the Don Ho. Why on earth did they make those? Wonder if they gave them away or sold them after his show. I remember my mother dragging me to see him in San Francisco and they didn't sell any funny dolls! I was gypped I tell you! Gypped!
ReplyDeleteWhat else would you do with a spare lampshade:-) I remember when everyone had a troll perched somewhere, from work to schoolroom, what were we thinking. Never heard of Don Ho but but I can see how you couldn't resist picking up a doll with bubbles.
ReplyDeleteWell, that was fun!!
ReplyDeleteBut truth be told,
that first doll looks a little mean, in my opinion...
Deanna Durbin, a remarkable singer/actress!!
And I love how you've gathered those ethnic dolls for the pic.
Nice collection.
:)~
HUGZ
christine, what a great post! i played don ho all the way thru
ReplyDelete(had my picture taken with him decades ago on my first trip to hawaii:) luv your doll collection ... thanks for the memories; LUVED my trolls...