Monster High returns - Frankie Stein

 Okay I haven't got any real preamble here except to explain one thing.

Frankie now uses they/them pronouns apparently. But you'd only know this if you'd been keeping up to date with the movie and cartoon series stuff. Which actually kinda pisses me off because what's the point of having a character using they/them if you don't bother to actually TELL PEOPLE THIS clearly on the goddamn fucking box!?? 

So yeah, don't get mad if some people still use she/her, a lot of people won't be aware of this change because Mattel didn't really make much, if any, effort to ensure it was known. 

Right now it kinda comes across as a sort of condescending "hah, didn't you know? Aren't you a REAL fan?" kinda gotcha which is irritating. 

And the thing is, I appreciate the representation but IS it representation if you don't bother to actually declare it on the doll's box? You know what I mean? 

It would have been such a small simple thing to just add "pronouns" to the very short little bio on the back of the box but I think I know WHY they didn't. Mattel are one of those companies who love them some diversity IF they think they can sell it, but at the same time are loathe to actually stand behind that diversity against the rage of the bigoted conservatives who also buy their product. So they try to court both by being wishy washy about the whole thing. By not having pronouns on the box it means the sort of people who whine about "woke nonsense" (AKA Assholes) won't be put off and start a stupid social media pile on and pointless ineffectual boycott. They won't notice because they aren't going to watch the animated show, they aren't going to watch the movie, they will however buy the toy for their kid. 

And this is an added frustration to the whole thing because it shows that Mattel aren't really the allies they pretend to be. Which raises the question, why bother changing Frankie's pronouns in the first place if you're not going to stand proudly behind it and own that? 

Even their official social media can't get the damn pronouns consistant. 

As I said. Wishy washy. 

That aside, I will be using they/them to refer to g3 Frankie throughout and she/her to refer to g1. It might get a bit confusing so i'll try to be as clear as I can. Singular "they" can be a little awkward in English and I say this as someone who uses they/them. 

But i'll do my best! 

Frankie's box is pretty much identical to Draculaura's, except of course the contents and the little picture in the corner. While Drac's featured Clawdeen and Lagoona in the background, Frankie's features Draculaura and Lagoona.

The art on the back features Frankie and their pet, who is apparently named "Watzie" in this continuity. We'll get to that. 

Though while we're on the topic of the wierd cyborg dog, can I point out that the dog appears to be able to fly by propelling itself with farts. Yes I know the trail behind it is supposed to evoke "movement" but it's unfortunate and my immature brain sees it as lightening wind shot out the butt. 

Maybe they stuck a jet engine in there <_< 

I mean it's not like those wings make any sense or would provide any sort of lift. 

Unlike Draculaura's Frankie's artwork outfit is actually pretty close to their actual doll outfit. Looks like Frankie didn't go through so many changes huh? 

Their very brief and honestly pointless bio on the back of the box just calls them a "voltageous frankenmonster" which is just... words. I think it's a pity we lost "monsterous parent" and the whole "children of famous monsters" aspect but I get why they might want to separate themselves from that and the limitation it presented. Still... I miss it. (as an aside, Frankie's parents in g2 are apparently Dr and Dr Stein, as opposed to the implication that they were the Monster and the Bride from universal pictures in g1.)

Frankie has lost Watzit and now has a new dog named Watzie. I assume the name change was a trademark issue or something. 

This is definitely a whole new dog though. Watzie is grey rather than brown, has a different shaped muzzle and appears to be part cyborg with a reptilian lower body. 

it's all pretty wierd actually. Watzit was substantially more just "dog" shaped. 

Watzie also has these wierd lightening bolt "wings" that make zero sense and just look like someone rammed novelty lights into the poor animal. The original Watzit had wings, but they were actually WINGS, like bird wings or something. 

Anyway, Watzie is a whole new pup with a wierd design that we'll look at in more detail when I debox. 

Like Count Fabulous, Watzie has really grainy printing on the eyes.

The side of Frankie's box has a bunch of symbols to represent the character. Like Draculaura's the vast majority are just illustrations of the doll's accessories but also included are a couple of severed hands, a stitched lightening bolt and a stitched up "broken" heart with a lightening bolt across it. There's also a safety pin which must be a nod to g1 right? g1 quite often had safetypin earrings but the g3 dolls have none in sight.

UNLIKE Draculaura's box, Frankie's didn't try to bite me. 

I still don't like those plastic tabs though. They seem thirsty for my flesh. 

Anyway, Frankie is packaged in much the same was as Draculaura. Way too many plastic tabs, multiple staples in the head, hair tabbed down with a lot of tabs, phone plastic tabbed to hand and so on. 

Far too many plastic string things. Far far too many. 

And just like Draculaura, Frankie's accessories aren't tabbed in at all but held in place with the moulded plastic. So... why can't they do this with the doll? 

Like Draculaura, the print on these accessories is absolutely SHIT. 

Wierdly Frankie doesn't come with a drink like all the other dolls but rather this... bag... camera... thing. 

I honestly thought it was a bag til I noticed Frankie had a backpack also in the box. Why does it look like ice cream? I mean it has to be a camera right? Those little polaroids slot into it like a toaster.... mmm polaroid toaster... 

but it doesn't LOOK like a camera beyond the big eye on the front being the lens. There's nothing on the back, no view finder, no view screen, no button to snap the picture, nothing. What sort of camera only has stuff on the front of it? And what sort of camera is this big and shaped like this? 

I don't understand! 

Frankie has a whole new body, one that's different to Draculaura's. It's taller and very slender. It's still thicker than the original dolls though. 

The joints work much the same, though the knee joints don't feel quite as sturdy as Drac's, likely because they're thinner/smaller. Still, the body feels pretty robust and able to withstand play.

Frankie has long white hair with black streaks and two small streaks of blue on their left side at the front. This isn't the first time Frankie has had blue added into their hair, it provides a nice little pop of colour and I don't hate it. Certainly I prefer the blue to the yellow they started adding in at the end of g1. What was UP with that? 

 

 

Frankie's hair is held up in two small little ponytail things at the front to sweep that hair out of their face, but it's a bit messy and there's a lot of loose hairs on mine. 

On their right side they wear two lightening bolt shaped barettes that imo feel a little oversized but doll hair accessories usually are. 

My Frankie has a slight printing error which has resulted in their eyebrow piercing/staple being set a little lower than the eyebrow. Whoops? 

Sadly this piercing is printed on rather than being sculpted like it was with g1 Jackson. I get this though, it's cheaper, it's quicker and it results in a doll that doesn't have a big hole in their face. 

Another fun little touch is that Frankie's eye hightlights are lightening bolt shaped. That's cute. 

The makeup is pretty simple. Yellow with grey around the eyes, some light pink lips and pink blush. 

I do like these thicker eyebrows though. I also appreciate that they're actually grey coloured. G1 MH had a real tendency to have eyebrows in a totally different colour to the doll's hair and it always looked so jarring and wierd to me. (Lagoona's purple brows, Frankie's brown ones) 

They have lost their neck bolts but retained their face scar/stitching and the stitching across the neck.

Instead of bolts we now get a whole prosthetic leg for Frankie. I can't say i'm sad about this switch. 

The leg is molded in silver coloured plastic and has a load of doodles all over it which judging by the angle, look like Frankie did themselves. This amuses me because it's totally something teenagers do, drawing on their leg in class. Heck, I still do it sometimes when i'm sitting at my desk and happen to have a pen in my hand lol. 

Relateable. 

 

 

What's maybe a little wierd is that the prosthetic features moulded stitches, which makes no sense if it's metal. But it does tie it in with the rest of them I suppose. 

The ankle has three cogs or gears which again, don't make much sense but do look cool and make the leg look a bit less like just a regular leg painted silver. They have seams and bolts on her foot and a molded false ankle joint. Their ankle doesn't move, it's just decorative. 

 

People have reported issues with the printing on this leg and indeed all the painted detail on the bodies. I'm told that the plastic itself just doesn't hold paint well (so WHY use it then Mattel? HMMM?) which means that even if you seal it, it'll still rub off with friction. 

It doesn't shift if you rub a fingernail over it, but other people have reported it rubbing off from holding the leg to do the hair or whatever. Whatever the case, it likely will NOT hold up to play which is a huge oversight from Mattel. 

So we gotta address the elephant in the room here. 

YES, g3 Frankie is now BLUE. 

Now there is a rumour as to why, and it has to do with Universal's copyright on depictions of their classic movie monsters. However, this rumour which has been banded about like gospel doesn't actually stand up to scrutiny. Why you ask? Well, I looked it up. Waaay back in 2011 Universal released a criteria for what they claimed were the "defining traits" of their specific interpretation of Frankenstein's monster. In order to be in breech you needed to have all five of the following traits: 

1. Green Skin
2. Flat Top Head
3. Scar on Forehead
4. Bolts on the Neck
5. Protruding Forehead

Now, while g1 Frankie did indeed have green skin (well, mint green) and neck bolts, she did not possess a scar on her forehead (it's on her cheek instead) nor a flat head or a protruding forehead. As a result, g1 Frankie wasn't in breech of this criteria and was dirivitive enough to be fine. After all, Universal cannot copyright green skinned monsters, that would just be silly. 

People have claimed Universal's criteria is some new thing when it isn't, this criteria was reported back in 2011, a year after Monster High first LAUNCHED. 

g1 Frankie's depiction was fine for all those years, why would Universal suddenly change things? And on what grounds? They wouldn't have a case if they decided to pursue it as Frankie lacks 3 of the 5 traits neccesary to classify as copyright infringement. (Green Frankenstein monsters are nothing new in pop culture and yes, it stems from Universal's depiction but it's now such a mainstay that you'll be hard pressed to find an animated depiction that is NOT some shade of green) 

Further to this, Mattel continues to produce green neck bolted Frankies as part of their Skullector and Creeproduction lines. Why would it be alright there but not for the playline dolls? that doesn't make any sense and isn't how copyright claims work. 

It'd be all or nothing. 

Which means the whole "universal said no green" is a crock of shit and completely without substance. 

So, why is Frankie now blue then? The simple answer is "because Mattel decided to do so". 

Now, they may have done this simply to differentiate Frankie from the typical depictions, though i'd argue mint green was already different enough but what some influencers were told was that it simply came down to colours "little girls preferred". So Frankie is now blue because the kids Mattel asked thought blue was prettier than green. 

Now, as a big fan of the colour green this makes me sad, but it also resulted in another character colour change. Lagoona. Frankie's new skin tone is very very close to Lagoona's original skin tone (it's a little more saturated, G1 Lagoona's a sort of greyish blue), so now Lagoona is bright pink. Presumably those same "little girls" Mattel asked also thought a garish pink was "prettier" than a soft greyish blue, but it's not a change that needed to happen unless Mattel had already decided that Frankie needed to inexplicably be blue. But if their argument was "we can't have two blue skinned characters" why the hell did we end up with two pink skinned ones instead? Why is double pink fine but double blue isn't? 

Yeah i'm salty about Lagoona's skin tone change okay? They could have made her a pretty purple or something. Something soft and cool. Instead they went for a garish bright pink that doesn't go with anything and makes me think of sunburn. 

Ew. 

Anyway, Frankie is now blue. And no, I don't believe Universal were at all responsible. It simply doesn't hold up to any sort of logic. 

 

Frankie's outfit is all separate pieces just like Draculaura's, which is nice to see. I love the mix and match potential there. You know... if any of the dolls can actually share clothes. 

 

Frankie's outfit consists of a sweater vest, a blouse, a pleated skirt, a belt and a pair of platformed sneakers. 

The skirt has actual folded pleats which is nice, but it is quite scratchy stiff material. Still, it works fine for a skirt as it means it holds a shape well. The pattern is printed on, which is pretty typical. 

the blouse is actually really nice, it has proper cuffs and a real collar. It's a cropped blouse with no buttons and little puff sleeves. It's adorable. 

The sweater vest is the disappointing garment of the bunch. It's made of that horrible thin printable synthetic Mattel likes to make all their shitty Barbie sack dresses out of. You know that stuff that's white but they print all the colour onto so it's white on one side and coloured on the other? Yeah. That stuff. It feels thin and cheap and while it is hemmed, all the details are printed on including the fake ribbon trim and it just feels jarringly out of place with the quality of the rest of their pieces. 

It's a horrible piece and I hate it. Thank goodness it can be removed. Into the box of shame for you shitty cheap sweater vest! 

The earrings are pretty simple sort of.. greenish yellow lightening bolts.

Frankie also comes with a varsity style jacket. This is also made from a pretty thin feeling material but it's quite soft. The printing on the black parts is very obvious unfortunately. The whole garment aside from the blue trim is made from the same material, they just printed black onto some of it. I don't get why they couldn't just get some black material but that's Mattel for you. Cheaping out wherever they can and doing things the shitty way. 

Anyway, 

the blue trim is slightly elasticated and the jacket itself is perfectly servicable. It doesn't enrage me the same way the sweater vest does because unlike that piece of shit this jacket actually DOES have sewn detail with a contrast stitch along the front and the different material for the collar and cuffs.

The back of the jacket has a printed pink skullette on it. Is this our first glimpse of a skullette in this itiration of MH? 

It's cool to see this logo back. 

 

The jacket is a little awkward to get on over the puff sleeves of the blouse but it looks pretty decent once it's on. 

I feel like with the sweater vest thing as well it's just too bulky anyway and it all bunches up around the shoulders and collar making Frankie look like they have no neck. It's not a great look. 

Frankie has the same joints as Draculaura including the bust joint. I swear Frankie's head sculpt is bigger than Draculaura's though, it's more similar to the original doll's head size. How random.

 

Frankie's new head also features the jugged ears we saw on Draculaura. Frankie's ears aren't pointed like Draculaura's but do have a very slight taper to the tips. 

Frankie also has a HUGE forehead, but then, so did the original Frankie. 

The new body is closer to the original Monster High body but still thicker and slightly pear shaped. Frankie has a very small bust and then their torso tapers out into a nice curved hip which makes the original doll body look very very shapeless. The torso is shorter on the new dolls but Frankie's limbs are extra long adding height. As a result g3 Frankie stands just a little taller than the original Monster High dolls.

Because the new Frankie body is broader in pretty much every direction I couldn't get original Frankie's dress on, but some of the stretchy dresses might fit. Ultimately though, I really don't think you can expect much in the way of backward compatibility here. 

Frankie's feet are the same size as Draculaura's, so Rainbow High shoes fit but the old MH ones don't. 

 

Frankie's backpack is transparent blue and lightening bolt shaped. It's not as cute as Draculaura's bag but it's fine. It has a pink charm on it that's also elastic banded in place. The charms look to be a lightbulb, a lightening bolt and.. I.. .don't know what the other thing is. It's like a rectangle with scar patterns on it. It's a bit too vuage to make out. 

 

I do like the addition of backpacks here, it feels very "high school" and far more so than handbags like the original dolls had. 

 

Frankie's bag also opens, or rather, like Drac's has a slit in it you can slip stuff through. 

 

Frankie also comes with a lightening bolt shaped pizza slice which makes me wonder what a mess they made of the rest of the pizza to cut that one slice. It has a little loop so Frankie can hold it but I couldn't get it to look natural. 

The print on the front of the pizza is awful, it's grainy and blurred and the back is just flat plastic. So it looks pretty crap. 

 

Frankie also comes with a pair of sunglasses, everyone apparently also gets sunglasses now. Why? not a clue. These ones are blue and lightening bolt shaped and remind me of the Gloom Beach sunglasses. They may in fact be a reused sculpt but I don't have the gloom beach sunglasses to hand. 

 

 

Watzie is a bloody weird looking critter. And that print on the eyes is just horrific. 

For whatever reason Watzie has gears in his eyes and only some of his details are painted. Why paint his nose but not his fangs? The tip of one ear is supposed to be metallic but it's the same dull grey as the rest of the thing and the lower body looks reptillian but again, is just grey. The "wings" look like neon lights rammed into the poor animal and look stupid imo. I feel like the pet would look less ridiculous without them. I'm honestly tempted to cut the stupid things off and fill in the holes with epoxy and repaint the whole thing so it looks finished and not so half arsed. 

 

That tail is clearly a reptile tail. Which would be cool if they'd embraced it and actually tried to play up the "made of different animal parts" aspect with colour and texture and stuff. 

 

Watzie only has one set of stitches, high up on the head. They're completely unpainted, like a lot of the detail. 

I don't get why the hair is green and the eye spot is yellow, it looks out of place when everything else is just grey or black you know? and the yellow just looks like makeup anyway. 

This pup definitely needs work but i'm not sure I have it in me to try to fix the ugly little thing. 

Like Count Fabulous it's just a solid chunk of plastic with no mobility at all. I can't help but wish they could move their fat heads. *sigh*

 

Frankie's Icoffin features a stitched heart and lightening storm motif with a bolt on one side and a safety pin on the other.

 

Like Draculaura's the print on the screen is horrendous. It's blurry and unclear and generally looks cheap and shit. I suppose we should be grateful they didn't use this same method on the dolls themselves. Bastards. 

The "camera" still confuses the shit out of me. 

The big green eye is clearly supposed to be the lens right? and the smaller "eye" on the drippy bit is maybe the flash? but then there's buttons also on the front. Do cameras generally have buttons on the front of them? How do you even opperate a camera like that? 

why does it look like a handbag? 

why does it also look like a waffle cone with melting icecream on top? 

why do the photos fit in it like a toaster? 

Why is the back just the square pattern with no buttons or view finder or screen or anything?

So many questions. So much confusion. 

I mean, they've done cameras before. Draculaura's newspaper club fashion pack had a little camera which you know.. LOOKED like a camera. An old fashioned one sure, but still a camera. But i'm pretty sure polaroid cameras aren't this huge (this thing is like dinner plate sized in the hands of the doll) and don't have blank backs. I'm also fairly sure the pictures come out the bottom, not pop out the top like toaster pastries. 

Does anyone know what sort of camera this thing is trying to be? Am I just missing something here? 

The photos have that same horrible blurry grainy print on them. 

 

Frankie is a lot taller than Draculaura, as well as being substantially more slender and willowy in shape. I love that we finally have body AND height diversity. It's about bloody time! 

Frankie's platforms add a little more height as well. 

 

You might notice I ended up actually changing Frankie's hair style. The original style on mine was quite messy and the more I handled them the more little strands of hair came out of their ties. I also wasn't keen on how her barettes seemed to just perch on top of their head and wanted to see if I could get it looking a little neater. 

I ended up doing a traditional Frankie style, which is pulling the front sides back and up into a single half ponytail. Doing this exposes Frankie's adorable jug ears but also imo made them look more like Frankie. 

 

The sunglasess are HUGE and get in the way. I did finally work out how to do the Icoffin though. It slips over the THUMB! Took me long enough huh? 

I'll say that i'm not as "OBSESSED" with this Frankie as I am Draculaura but both are nice dolls. I'm pleased with both of them. 

I feel like Drac maybe has the more cohesive outfit being only 3 colours while Frankie has a little too much going on with the addition of the green earrings and the different shades of pink all over the place. 

I feel like the little flashes of pink in the clothing and shoes works fine but I would have liked the pink barrette to be the same colour as the shoes instead of the substantially brighter pink that makes it stand out. I also feel like their earrings should perhaps have been dark blue or silver or something to tie in better. The yellowy green colour feels out of nowhere. 

That said, I think they look pretty good. 

Their sweater vest sucks and the printing on their accessories is shit, but the rest of the outfit isn't bad. I really like the blouse, it's adorable and their skirt and jacket are fine and easy to put on and take off which is an important factor for a "fashion" doll. Likewise the shoes are easy to put on and take off. This isn't something I can say of say, Rainbow High, who have far too many pairs of shoes I have to really struggle with and hurt my fingers. Cut that shit out MGA. 

Much like with Draculaura, I do wish Mattel had put a little more budget into the clothes of the doll rather than giving us food and wierd ice cream cameras. I can't help but wonder if they'd not bothered with the food and drink and shit and just given us the pet, the backpack and the doll would they have been able to actually paint the eyes onto the pets better and finish more detail and would we have been able to have a sweater vest that wasn't a piece of cheap shit? 

One can dream right? 

*sigh*

it's the missed potential that annoys me there. 

I mean yeah, as they stand the dolls are still pretty nice, but they could have been even BETTER. So far both Draculaura and Frankie have had disappointing elements where it's clear Mattel ran out of budget and it's so frustrating to see them using a limited budget on bullshit accessories they didn't even bother to print properly anyway instead of just paring things down and making less plastic shit and putting more time and effort into the stuff that MATTERED (you know, the CLOTHES) 

I don't miss brushes or stands, the dolls stand up fine on their own and play dolls don't need stands anyway because they're for playing with not displaying. 

But I do find it endlessly annoying that Mattel continues to fixate on extra plastic crap with their dolls (like the Barbie extra dolls all coming with ugly, cheap pets) rather than actually just making the doll's outfit better quality. It's like they've become convinced that more plastic bullshit adds more value than decent clothes and it's bewildering. 

I mean, I can't think of any other doll line that uses this tactic. LOL OMG literally just come with clothes and a stand and brush. The "fierce" version of them are the same. No plastic accessories aside from a handbag, no random drinks or food, no pets, nothing of the sort. Same with Rainbow High, they come with just clothes and shoes. So where did Mattel get this idea that random plastic food was the thing kids wanted and needed? It's baffling. Almost as baffling as that fucking ice cream camera bag. 

It didn't work with Barbie Extra and I don't think it's working here either. Particularly not when the print on those extra plastic accessories is SO BAD. 

If mattel pulled their heads out their arses for a moment or two and actually got their shit together they could make a near perfect doll line. All they needed to do for Monster High was invest a little more money into making the outfits better quality in every single piece, avoided disgusting poly hair and used decent stuff (Why use poly when kiwi nylon exists!? WHY?) and been a little more consistant across the whole line (like why do some dolls have saran hair but others have poly? What the fuck are you smoking Mattel? Stop it. Get back to work). While Frankie's hair is mostly good, the knowledge those blue streaks are poly and will very likely start to decay and dry out and fall out in a few years makes me angry. It was such a stupid move on Mattel's part. They KNOW poly rots, they've known this for decades. It's not new information. So why the fuck are they using it at all? Especially when they clearly have the ability to access decent hair like Saran. If it was a colour issue (as saran only comes in a very limited number of colours) then why not use kiwi nylon like Rainbow High does? There's literally thousands of colours available there, why would you ever use poly in preference? 

I LIKE the threeboot thus far, the dolls feel solid and well made and they have really characterful faces. They still feel like the characters and I think that's pretty cool. There's also several outfit pieces I think are awesome and I like the backpacks and that they all have customised phones. I just don't get the random cost cutting Mattel did in some places while still insisting they HAD to give every character a half dozen extra plastic pieces of crap. That makes no sense to me. if you only had a certain budget why would you ADD plastic bits rather than just focusing on a few pieces and making them the best you could?

It's absolutely bewildering. 

So i'm kinda torn about the threeboot. On the one hand, the dolls themselves look and feel really nice. On the other, the shortcuts and cost cutting Mattel took are frustrating reminders that they don't give a shit about producing toys that'll actually last. 

But it's still really cool to see Monster High back again in a new itiration for a new generation. It's been what, like 6 years since MH was on shelves? So it's fun to see them again. I've missed them. 

I hope that Mattel gets back into the swing of things and pulls their shit together. MH deserves to succeed but whether it does will really depend on how much Mattel fucks it up. And sadly, their current trajectory with Barbie is ominous. 

I just have Cleo left to open and then I wait impatiently for the line to actually hit the UK. That may not be till dec/jan, which also pisses me off. Why can MGA manage global releases but Mattel can't? Fucking amateurs. 

I like Frankie though. Despite the flaws. 

In keeping with tradition, I give Frankie a solid 7 out of 10 inexplicable waffle cone camera purses. 

They'd be an 8 or 9 if their sweater didn't suck, the body paint was stable and they didn't have shitty ass poly streaks in their hair.