First Three Dolls

Then Peter asked me to draw a Tree House, and he built a 3 foot tall foam model of it himself, almost overnight, on his own time in his own basement workshop. That's how much he believed in this project and wanted it to succeed.

And Succeed it did! Peter knocked himself out to make the Mop Tops look as good as possible and his presentation to upper management worked. Fisher price bought the concept, giving us, Kiscom and I, a generous advance and guarantee and promising an additional sum of money, if the seemingly impossible happened, and they didn't produce it in the end.

Peter knew that once the project was taken out of his hands and moved "inside", he would have No More Say or input in it. So, while He still could, he tried to get as much of my input in the project as possible. Peter was very aware of the fact that so much of what he liked about "Best Friends" as the "Mop Tops" were soon to be called, was "Mel's look".

Now he commissioned me to reduce the size of the dolls, so they would price out right, and the packages with the scenes would not be too large to be affordable. He helped me out by reducing the heads for me, by means of the now, far advanced, since Baby Face's time, computerized pantograph. This made perfect replicas of my head, only smaller, and I only had to cast them in Latex and flock them, myself.

The photos are also all I have left of my original doll and the two different smaller sized replicas I made of her.

He also permitted me to rework the baby head, which I did by adding wax to one of the pantographed reductions. The photo doesn't do justice to it, but, trust me, the heads made from this new one were adorable!

He also asked me to help them out by sculpting a cat, and I still have a photo of that too.

Cuties Album Home

NEXT