The TY Girlz (Who the hell decided a Z was edgy and cool?) were a line of 14 inch tall plush dolls with removable fashions (but sewn on shoes... kinda defeating the point but there ya go). They had rooted brushable hair, stitched on eyes and no noses.
They had internal wires so they could be posed, but honestly these things kinda freaked me out and I thought they were super ugly.
However, they did have some nice clothes. And at the time Moxie Teenz came out, TY Girlz were hitting the clearance bargain bins. A couple of quid for a full outfit seemed a good deal to me, and so a lot of these things came home with me.
(For the record, the shirts fit Moxie Teenz pretty well but Teenz have narrower waists, meaning a lot of pants and skirts are a bit loose. Nothing some alterations couldn't fix i'm sure though, and given the crappy selection of Moxie outfits, these tops were a great help. The shirts also fit, albeit baggily on barbie sized dolls.)
Anyway,
for some reason TY decided to move away from creepy plushie fashion rag dolls and instead turn these characters into small plastic toddler dolls, similar to Barbie's little sister Chelsea.
These are the TY Li'l ones.
Wilkos has in their store a stand with "pocket money toys" in little tubs. One of those toys are these little boxes. They're £2 each and there were only two different dolls. A LOT of Hannah, and two Sydney.
I grabbed one of each.
Like the TY Girlz, the li'l ones all have a random adjective connected to their name. Here's Sweet Sydney and Hip Hannah. Though i'm not sure what makes Hannah so "hip", she looks a bit alternative slightly punky to me.
Oh well.
I think these two must be from different waves as Sydney's box features a lot more characters and is a slightly different shade of pink.
But these are all the dolls. Note the adjectives.
Lazily, there's a beautiful Brianna AND a beautiful Bella... wth? Couldn't think of another B adjective?
Oo-lala Olivia cracks me up for some reason.
Anyway, most of them seem to have little dogs or cats for pets, except Abby and Bella who have a monkey and a penguin? uh.. ok?
at the top there's two special ones, a Hello Kitty licensed girl with no name, and a likewise nameless Snoopy girl. (Unless she's also named snoopy? Parents big fans?)
So let's take a better look at these girls.
Sydney's hair is a bit crazy in the box but their faces look ok and their outfits seem fairly solidly constructed.
Honestly, for the price, I was NOT expecting much.
I opened Sydney first because that crazy hair was bugging me.
The boxes are super easy to open. They aren't even taped down! they just pop open at the top and the inner card slides out smoothly. Super easy.
The dolls themselves are held in place by one tie around the hair, one around the waist and one around the ankle. It only takes a few seconds to get them loose.
The dog is held in with a metal twisty tie.
Free at last !
Sydney is a teeny little doll but she has a decent weight to her. Her hair is super thickly rooted but it's very soft and shiny. There's just an awful lot of it, it's a bit ridiculous.
Sydney here is a teeny plastic replica of her plush version, a doll based apparently on one of the Obama kids. (Sasha?)
I actually had to look this up because her box says "comes with BO!" as if I should know who the hell Bo is. So i looked up "Bo!" and was informed it was the presidental dog.
Because yeah... that's... something a non american would give a shit about. Yep.
Anyway, this is the original Sydney with her squished up face.
Other than the earrings though, the teeny plastic version's a pretty good likeness. Same outfit, same glossy black hair, same big brown eyes.
I think the li'l one's cuter though. There's something about the plush faces that just really turns me off.
The li'l ones have somewhat odd faces. This open mouthed smile i'm sure is supposed to look cute, but then they have these really ugly shaped lips with no dip at the top and these really chubby cheeks that make their mouth look a bit sunken in.... and then there's a teeny almost no there nose, not helping matters.
I dunno, there's something off about them.
they're still cute, but I think they could be cuter.
Sydney's hair is very shiny and very soft, but it's all over the place. It's ridiculously long and so thick it just looks silly. It also massively unbalances the doll, she keeps pitching over backwards.
She has no clear parting, so i'm going to assume this hair should be tied back in a ponytail.
Her outfit is a cute little dress with heart motif, and a pair of green leggings. Honestly, i think the little girliness of this outfit suits the child body better than the more grown up TY Girlz body.
The shoes don't seem to be removable which is a shame, i'm not sure but they are either moulded to or GLUED onto the doll. Either way, they aren't coming off.
The body is pretty straightforward. Articulation at the hips and shoulders only.
one arm is crooked, the other straight.
She's oddly lanky for a young girl. Those limbs are really long and skinny which is a bit unnatural but she looks pretty much in keeping with Barbie's younger sister dolls in that respect.
With those shoes not coming off, getting her leggings on is a bit awkward. Thankfully they stretch quite a bit.
the seam at the waistband is super messy, look at that!
Thankfully the dress covers it.
So each of the li'l ones (i'm getting sick of writing that stupid word) comes with a teeny plastic pet.
In this case, "Bo!" (the box had the exclamation mark so i'm keeping it hah).
He's made of solid plastic and really surprisingly good quality. He's moulded with a lot of detail, from his teeny little black eyes and nose to all the curly fur.
the dolls also come with a brush that's so small it's effectively useless.
Bo has a white painted belly and front paws, d'aaaw.
Seriously, this little doggy is adorable.
Sydney's crooked arm means she can ALMOST hold the dog... kinda. He looks a bit uncomfortable.
I tied her hair back and wow it looks so much better.
though it does mean you can now see the little paint error on one side of her face. I can't be bothered trying to remove it so i'm just claiming it's a birthmark.
Jules isn't sure why there's a naked child beside her.
But this is a size comparison. Honestly, the Li'l ones are absolutely tiny. Like... baby sister Kelly/Shelly sized which is way too small to be in scale with Barbie.
From what I can figure, the li'l ones are supposed to be young children, not babies, but they're toddler sized against Barbie.
Now it's Hannah's turn. She comes with a kitty.
Hannah's hair is streaked with pink and black, which unfortunately is at the back so not as prominent as i'd perhaps have liked it. Still, it looks funky. (maybe that should be "hip")
Like Sydney she has down slanting brown eyes. I wonder if they all have brown eyes... hmmm.
The faces are identical, just different skin tones. Sydney's that sort of generic "Caucasian" pink tone while Sydney is "ambiguous brown".
Just like Sydney, Hannah is based on one of the plush TY Girlz.
though unlike Sydney, the likeness really isn't great.
the hair is different (I kinda like this flip curl) and the li'l one doesn't have the socks. Which is a shame, teeny socks would have been cute.
Also unlike Sydney, Hannah's hair is a bit um... thin in places. I suspect this is due to the way her hair was held in the box, it's left this strange kink that leaves a bald patch at the back.
Poor girl's far too young for bald patches.
The pink in her hair reminds me of highlighter pen.
Her outfit is a single piece dress made to look like a shirt and skirt. it's a bit messy around the seams but it's a solidly constructed piece. No real complaints. I think it's super adorable as well. I kinda want the full sized version now.
Hannah's hair is soft and the same sort of fibre as Sydney, but her hair is an absolute mess thanks to the box. I have to wonder if it'd be too difficult to cut it shorter and style it like her TY Girlz counterpart.
Hannah's kitty is just as detailed as Bo!, and also super cute. It's a simple little black kitty cat, teeny tiny and with a decent heft to it. I love that they bothered to sculpt all that fur effect detail into these things, as well as individual little toes. No whiskers though.
Of course the scale is... bizarre. either that's the smallest dog ever, or this cat is freaking enormous.
I mean, I know Bo isn't a large breed of dog, but small dogs are still generally bigger than cats.
Nameless kitty is the same size, which I know, makes sense from a manufacturer point of view, but kinda bugs me from a play point of view.
They're cute wee girls, I just have to find a doll scale I think they'd fit with. (Perhaps Daisy, she's pretty short)
But before I do my wrap up....
this is on the side of Sydney's box. Oooo play suggestions?
Let's see...
Put in pocket:
Seems straightforward enough...
Put in backpack:
Sure why not, I can take her out and about.
Wait.. put in... lunch box?
Moooom, when I said I was sick of PB&J sandwiches this isn't what I had in mind!
No..oh god no...
Having rescued Hannah from a hungry husband...
These dolls are cute and super cheap. In terms of a small simple gift for a child, they're ideal. Great stocking stuffers, brilliant for party bags if you're so inclined.
They feel decent enough quality and I think they'd stand up to play pretty well. their hair will frizz, but then so will the hair of much more expensive dolls.
Their outfits are made of fairly thin fabric, but there's no unravelling seams or unfinished edges. Overall, they seem to be pretty solidly constructed.
the moulded on/glued on shoes is actually a good idea for a doll you plan to give to a very small child. I know a fair few mothers who remove doll shoes before letting their child play for fear of choking. I think it'd be difficult for a kid to get these shoes loose enough to choke on.
So overall, they work pretty well as cheap little dolls. I think they're cute, their outfits are adorable and their small size makes them very portable.
Yes, i'd say they were worth the £2. Considering the shittasticness of £1 dolls or how crappy dolls priced at £5 or more are, these girls are surprising for their price point.
they're solid, they're robust, their pets are absolutely damn darling.
I have to wonder if the scale of the pets would work for other toy lines. The cat might work as a kitten for Barbie scale dolls, but I think the dog is a bit too small. Perhaps 8-10 inch dolls wouldn't look too ridiculous with this puppy.
Overall, i give the TY Li'l ones a solid 8 delicious dolly sandwiches out of 10. For their price point, they're brilliant.
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