- HOW BABY FACE WAS BORN...
- 24. Boxes and Black Dolls
Kiscom had made arrangements with Galoob to run a licensing program for Baby Face, So because of that we got to
see the photos taken for the boxes as soon as they were ready. Otherwise I'm sure we wouldn't have seen anything
until Toy Fair!
I absolutely LOVED the photos! And Still Do! Of all the elements that made up Baby Face, I believe these photos
are the Best! And they Show Baby Face Looking her Best! They are, in my opinion, the closest thing to Perfection,
that Any Element in the project achieved! Alas the Baby Face on the box, is Only a Dream!
I Loved the Boxes Too, I simply couldn't imagine them being any better! There was only one thing about the boxes, that bothered me a little! And that was on the back of the box. Early on, I somehow got the impression that I would be sculpting a series of Black dolls, And tell the truth I was looking forward to the challenge. But, I guess, between time running out and Galoob "cheaping out", they never mentioned them to me again. It IS expensive to add a completely new head, and in this case, it turned out to be, truly, unnecessary! They used the same heads for both the Caucasian and the Black dolls!
And, I thought It Worked Out Great! In many cases the heads looked
much better "black" than "white"! A perfect example of this is so
funny Natalie. On the early heads, I hadn't anticipated some of the
strange ways they would shrink, I came to learn that not only the eye
plugs did not shrink, but also what amounted to "mouth plugs"
wherever mouths were open, prevented shrinking as well. So, as the
heads got smaller the open mouths got bigger. This effect was at its
worst in Natalie. Kiscom referred to her as "The Doll from Hell"!
Somehow, she didn't look so bad in the black version!
The Guys running Galoob really were old fashioned toy people, they harkened back to the old days, when dolls were
simply "run" in two colors, So there would be a black Chatty Cathy and a white Chatty Cathy, even a black Barbie
and a white one, Same doll, Same Name!
Galoob not only didn't have enough sense of what's politically correct, these days, to give the black dolls names and identities of their own, but not knowing what to do in the group cross sell photo on the back of the box, they didn't give the black dolls Any Names at all! This was not only insensitive, in our racially sensitive society, but It was bad merchandising too. A child may buy a different colored friend for her doll, but not a different colored Clone!
Next Page: 25. Eye Trouble