Would You Like Big Staring Eyes with That?
McDonald's® has started to sell Madame Alexander® Wizard of Oz® figurines, inspired by the MGM movie, as premiums in its Happy Meals®. These are apparently offered as alternatives to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle® dolls. Some websites indicate that girls receive a toy from one set, boys from another, but I doubt McDonald's® would officially court protest that way. Rather, I suspect they recognize some American parents still aren't ready to hop on the turtle bandwagon.
I saw larger versions of the Madame Alexander® dolls at last year's Munchkin Convention. It was interesting to hear about how the company operates (the young ladies from marketing always referred to “Madame”®), but frankly the product creeps me out.
5 comments:
That IS creepy....
I have seen those "Madame Alexander" dolls in all kinds of catalogs. I think they are ugly. Their faces are exactly alike, there is no creativity going on here, just a generic doll dressed in a myriad of different costumes. Considering some of the fantastic doll designs I have seen, I don't know what is so great about Madame Alexander dolls. I would rather have a Ninja Turtle! Personally, I would be ashamed of myself if, as a doll designer, I just constantly repeated the same plain, ugly abnormal-looking face and just dressed them in different clothes. They look cheap, too.
I think the whole point of Madame Alexander dolls is that they do all have the same face, with different costumes. It's like the Love Is... cartoon always having the same big-eyed characters. That's not lack of imagination; that's an artistic choice, whether we like the result or not.
When you go to get the Happy Meal they ask you "boy toy" or "girl toy" it drives me crazy. I was very excited when I asked my daughter which toy she wanted and she said the Ninja Turtle.
The biggest challenge I've heard from Oz fans seeking these toys is a communication barrier. McDonald's employees do their best to be helpful, but some have limited knowledge of English which doesn't extend to, "I don't want a #3 value meal; I want to buy one of every Wizard of Oz doll you have in the store." And not being a child or (in some cases) a girl makes conveying that message even harder.
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