This meant we never saw Frankie, Clawdeen or Draculaura available in our stores, and being exclusive to Argos, finding the ones we wanted was an excercise in immense frustration.
I only ever saw Deuce once, and his glasses were broken in half. Boo.
I always wanted Frankie and Clawdeen, so much so that I eventually ended up buying a Clawdeen on Ebay. But Frankie I never could quite justify the expense of shipping, so when slim box versions of Frankie, Lagoona and Cleo popped up randomly on Ebay.co.uk, I couldn't help but excitedly hope they were legit.
I'm glad I held out on paying the £20 the ebay seller was asking though, because only 2 weeks later what should hit Asda supermarkets? You got it, the DOTD rerelease! And better yet, they're £9:98, a good £4 CHEAPER than any other budget line.
Wowza.
I popped to my nearest store hoping they'd have them in, and I was right, they'd just stocked one case. 2 Frankie, 1 Cleo, 1 Lagoona. I grabbed Frankie.
She didn't scan at checkout though, despite being on the shelf someone hadn't bothered to put the codes into the system *eyeroll*. Thankfully the staff were feeling helpful and scanned her through at a flat £10. I wasn't going to quibble over a few pennies.
So here she is! Dawn of the Dance Frankie Stein, in a slimline box at a less than budget price. I almost can't believe it.
For the record, the original boxes looked like this. The same size as standard full price releases. They came with a stand, a brush, a little card "photograph" of the gang, a plastic "Icoffin" phone with a sliding front and a fabric handbag. Along with of course the detailed outfit and hard shiny plastic moulded shoes that were an absolute nightmare to get on and off.
The second wave had a DVD of New Ghoul at School included. Which was nice.
Anyway, this new Frankie may be in a slimmer box, but is she as detailed as her original release?
;
Well firstly i'm delighted the back of the box features the original schedule of the old boxes. The boxes for the second wave we in the Uk got didn't have these schedules due to being "international multilingual" versions, and I always found that irritating because the schedule is cute.
I'm glad they retained it.
Opening her box, look at that? could it be... a... a BUDGET RELEASE WITH A STAND! not just a stand, a unique character specific coloured one! something we haven't seen since what, 2011? Frankie's is pink to match her outfit, Lagoona's is blue and Cleo's is teal.
It's a blast from the past to see that. And a stand for such a low cost doll? When budget MH dolls never come with stands these days? I'm astounded and delighted.
So, what else does she come with? very little really. There's obviously no dvd, nor does she have her purse/icoffin or a brush interestingly enough (i'll take a stand over a brush any day Mattel).
She comes with two cards though, featuring art from the original DOTD.
The one thing that strikes me as random about these cards is that they depict dolls who did NOT get a rerelease. Draculaura only ever got a doll as part of a 3 pack, which never made it to markets outside the US, Deuce was horrendously shortpacked while Clawdeen and Ghoulia for whatever reason were left out of this new assortment. A shame because that Clawdeen is absolutely fabulous with the bright green hair but I suppose New Scaremester Clawdeen has similar hair already and Mattel seems cautious about Ghoulia since the Skull Shores Ghoulia overload a few years back.
The second photo btw, canonical proof that Deuce totally has a forked tongue. Make of that what you will hahaha.
Interestingly, the back of the cards have a 2014 copyright on them. As well as a faded MH watermark.
So here's Frankie! I've spent so many years looking at photos of Frankie, she almost feels like she's been in my possession forever already. I'm pleased to have her though.
Her outfit looks to be bang on, a dead ringer for her original outfit. The shoes are cast from that hard shiny plastic (and are a nightmare to get on and off), her dress has faint embedded sparkle, the jacket is a pleather sort of fabric and her waist cinch is made of shiny fabric.
There are a few noticable differences though.
Here you can see the original. Note her shoes are the opposite way around with the new version. So theoretically if you own an original dotd Frankie, you now have two matching sets of shoes lol.
Of course there's the missing bag and Icoffin but I never used the purses anyway and i'm pretty sure I have a Frankie Icoffin somewhere in my bag o stuff.
But mostly it's the face.
The original screening for Monster High featured rather more spaced apart, smaller eyes than the current faces. I honestly prefer the current faces, they look more refined and "cute".
So the newer Frankie has larger eyes, vividly pink lips and two toned blue eyeshadow that's honestly quite striking.
Her hair is tied up into a high ponytail, though it's honestly a bit sloppily done.
I'm pretty sure that purple splotch in her blue eye wasn't a trait so obvious in her original dolls (Gloom beach has it, but it's quite a lot more subtley done). Not sure why she has it, it's a bit odd but there ya go.
While original DOTD Frankie looked fierce and quite grown up, the rerelease looks sorta soft and sweet. I like this face, I think it's adorable.
Frankie sports blue lightening shaped earrings that sit close to her head and therefore are less inclined to tangle with things.
Her bolts are shiny and she has a little nut on a thread necklace. The thread is just tied behind her and mine wasn't really knotted well, so I had to retie it so the whole thing didn't fall off.
Yet more delight, unlike those god awful rereleased "original outfit" 6 pack dolls with the stitched together super cheaped out outfits of crap, this rerelease comes with ALL her original outfit pieces as seperates.
There's the mismatched shoes, a short black and white sleeveless dress, a blue shiny waist cinch, a pair of pink fishnets and a cropped pink pleather jacket. She also wears a little black and white "beaded" bracelet. It comes off a lot, I elastic banded it to her arm.
Frankie doesn't wear pink too often, but I love it on her. It goes well with her minty green skin.
The only real problem with the dress is that it's not the best fitting thing. I'm not certain if the original dotd Frankie's had this issue, but I find the dress is a bit gapey around the bust area, like it needs to be taken in by a fraction of an inch to stop it falling down and exposing teen monster boobage to the world. (yeek)
Thankfully the cinch mostly holds the bodice up.
And look! just like the boys always have shoe tread detail, so does Frankie! A hexagon pattern that i'm sure is supposed to be nuts, but looks more like honeycomb.
Overall i'm honestly delighted by this rerelease. We never got Frankie in the UK and obtaining one for a price I was willing to pay including shipping was proving awkward. A lot of the time i'd find them for a decent price, but missing vital outfit pieces, or missing arms or something. It was getting very tiresome.
While she may not be an absolute rehash of the original DOTD, her outfit IS and I think I actually prefer this face on her. I sold a lot of my first wave MH dolls due to simply preferring the newer style of face with the larger eyes.
So this doll is the best of both worlds for me. An outfit i've always loved, and the style of face I prefer. I couldn't be happier.
She's a welcome addition to my Frankie family, and stands out due to her unusually pink dominated outfit.
Even the original DOTD crew readily accepted her as one of their own.
Rumour has it this rerelease will be a walmart black friday exclusive in the US, though quite WHY it's hit the UK in August is anyone's guess. Still, it's nice to get stuff early, it doesn't often happen but when it does, it's kinda nice to feel special for a bit lol.
I do hope we get a rerelease of the rest of the crew, but I don't think it'll happen sadly. But it's great news for those who missed out on the original DOTD, which is still imo, the best formal line Monster High has done.
Budget dolls with stands and super detailed outfits for a fraction of the usual price is an absolute slam dunk A+++ for me. So Frankie gets several thousand "about bloody time"'s out of 10.
FINALLY I have a DOTD Frankie of my very own. Yesssssss
The first Monster High dance line, rereleased way back in 2010/11!?? Dawn of ... mmonsterhighdolls.blogspot.com
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