Pages

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Amos and Annie Ken and Barbie Knockoffs

A cardboard label with an image of dolls, Amos and Annie, and their names was attached to a cellophane package.


If I have not regretted purchasing a doll this year, that changed with these two Ken and Barbie knockoffs. The man is 12 inches tall and the woman is 11 inches tall. They scream cheap, made-in-China dolls with rubber heads and super-thin, hollow plastic bodies. The bodies dent easily if the slightest pressure is applied. The man's legs can dangle if his feet are not on a flat surface, and the woman's nose is blemished from rubbing against the cellophane package, but I'm a sucker for fashion doll clones. I have to confess that this purchase was my mistake.

Amos and Annie arrived in a cellophane baggie with a cardboard label closure that identifies the dolls, as illustrated in this photo.

I had seen these dolls on eBay months to a year before I purchased them and felt they were cheaply made. Still, after recently seeing someone else's redressed dolls that looked decent enough for me to add to my clone doll collection if I redressed them; and seeing another collector's rebodied and redressed dolls, I took the buying plunge. I knew I would redress them, but I will not rebody. 

This close-up photo of their faces was taken just before I opened the package. The blemish on the tip of Annie's nose is better visible in this close-up.  

Out-of-the-Box Photos

A straight-out-of-the-box photo illustrates their (cheaply made) clothing.

Amos wears a dark and light gray striped shirt with a dark pink collar, dark pink pants, and thin plastic white boots. Annie wears a tan dress with raw edges at the sleeves and scalloped hem. Red high-heel shoes were inside the baggie. The shoes easily fall off Annie's feet.

An out-of-the-package close-up photo was taken before undressing to redress.

Amos has black sculpted straight hair, painted blue eyes, a smiling open mouth with painted teeth (area), and a pink bottom lip (cringe-worthy). I should repaint his lips, but I don't care enough to do that. Annie has a rooted bubble-cut hairstyle, blue side-glancing eyes, and a closed mouth with painted-red lips. Annie's hair, surprisingly, is closely rooted.

Undressed

Redressed

For Amos, I used a shirt, pants, and shoes from a recently purchased 32-piece male fashion doll clothing pack purchased to redress Ken Looks #25 (see the link below). Annie wears a Dollar Tree fashion-doll ensemble, including the purple pumps, designed for Dollar Tree's thin-bodied fashion dolls. I've had the ensemble for years. Until now, none of my dolls could wear it because I do not own any Dollar Tree fashion dolls.

This is a final close-up photo of the dolls redressed.

I was initially disturbed by the dolls' Amos and Annie names when I first saw them on eBay. The names are too close for comfort to the Amos 'N Andy Show, a 1930s radio broadcast with blackface actors that was later a briefly televised 1950s show with African American actors. The televised show was cancelled after NAACP complaints about the characters being negative stereotypes. The scripts of both shows used minstrel depictions of black dialect and mannerisms. I should have never  purchased the dolls for this reason. Lesson learned.

Related Link


©Black Doll Collecting/dbg

There are countless items to collect and write about. Black dolls chose me.

__________

Thank you for reading. Comments that are not spam are appreciated. Spam comments will not be published, so don't waste your time. To contact me directly regarding dolls or any of my posts, please use the contact form on the right of the home page, which is visible in "web view." A link to web viewing should be visible at the bottom of this page.

If you're not already a subscriber, visit, "like" and follow the Black Doll Collecting Facebook page or bookmark the Black Doll Collecting home page and visit on Tuesdays and Thursdays when typically new posts are published.

Check out what I am selling here
Check out my eBay listings here.
Please follow my sister blog Ebony-Essence of Dolls in Black.
*New*Visit/Follow DeeBeeGee's Virtual Black Doll Museum
Donate here to support this blog. Thank you!

2 comments:

  1. Well, they are history. I can't say much good about them, but the clothes you picked out suit them better than what they had on. lol Annie does have a sweet face though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The show is history; these dolls, not so much. Thank you for complimenting the clothes I chose for both.

      Delete

Your comments are appreciated. To eliminate spam, all comments are being moderated and will be published upon approval. Thank you!