Wednesday Addams, Part One: Living Dead Dolls by Mezco Toyz

I'm not a die hard fan of The Addams Family franchise by any means, having never read the original comics or watched the 1964 television show.  But I enjoyed the 1991 film when I was a kid (especially Christina's Ricci's deadpan portrayal of Wednesday) and had a great time with Season 1 of the 2022 television series, Wednesday.  It was hard for me to imagine an actor capturing the Wednesday Addams character with more skill than Christina Ricci, but Jenna Ortega did a wonderful job.

The second season of Wednesday has been highly-anticipated, as evidenced by the deluge of Wednesday Addams merchandise currently on the market.  I've been particularly impressed by the diversity in doll offerings.  Off the top of my head, I can think of Wednesday dolls or figures from Monster High, Robert Tonner, Funko POP!, NECA, Hot Toys, Lego, Polly Pocket, and Just Play.  And I'm sure there are more that I'm missing.

As I immerse myself in the second season of Wednesday, I thought it would be fun to do a miniseries here on the blog.  I have three or four short-ish reviews planned, each featuring Wednesday Addams dolls from different companies.  I'll start things off with the Living Dead Doll's depiction of the character, because LDD seems like the perfect brand to represent this morbidly monochromatic mischief-maker:

Living Dead Dolls' Wednesday Addams, by Mezco Toyz ($44.99)

The last time I reviewed a Living Dead Doll was way back in Halloween of 2012.  I'm still fairly fascinated by the brand, although many of the characters are simply too gruesome for me--which, to be fair, is their entire purpose.

I've made a few LDD purchases in the past year or so, though, but not necessarily with the intent of reviewing them.

I snagged LDD M3GAN because she's creepy-not-gruesome, and also because I've been collecting dolls from that movie with the same compulsive fixation that led me to hoard Wednesday dolls.

I also bought Damien, because he's highly articulated (yay!) and not gruesome:

That haircut is a little gruesome.

And I have Posey on pre-order, because she's a classic LDD character and I like this cloaked, articulated rendition:

I probably will review her when she arrives, to see what the articulation is like.

Anyway, today is all about Wednesday, and I have two versions of her to show you, so I'd better get started.

The first version is simply called Wednesday, and she came out in 2022 along with Season 1 of the television series:

The glare on this box is terrible so it's hard to appreciate the details.  It's shoebox style packaging (not a coffin) and the cardboard edges are decorated with purple and black stripes--the Nevermore Academy colors.

The bottom of the box has a silhouette of Jenna Ortega's Wednesday under an umbrella:

Both edges of the box have the same cool design: a black and white graphic of Wednesday, her umbrella, and stylized rain against purple and black stripes:

I love this design.

The back of the box has a small photograph of the doll and her accompanying disembodied hand, Thing:

That picture doesn't show the doll off to her best advantage, but I love that she comes with Thing.

There's a fancy purple outline of the Nevermore Academy gates surrounding the photograph of Wednesday and Thing:

Inside the box, Wednesday and Thing were secured between two molded pieces of plastic.  I removed the top piece of plastic because it was responsible for a lot of the glare:

There was nothing holding Wednesday and Thing in place other than the plastic shell, so they basically fell out of the box after I removed the plastic.  Easiest de-boxing ever.

Here they are:

Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Thing steals the show at many points during the television series.  It's hard to imagine how a severed hand can convey so much personality, but he does.

I'm no expert, but I believe that in the original comics by Charles Addams, Thing was a human character who was never seen in his entirety.  He'd lurk around watching the family from afar.  I suspect that's him at the top of the stairs in this cartoon:

For the 1964 television series, Thing had morphed into a helpful hand that emerged from various boxes around the house:

The 1964 version of Thing.

By 1991, computer wizardry allowed Thing to be an actual disembodied hand that moved around freely, spider-like and humanoid all at once:

Thing in the 1990s.

In the current Wednesday television show, Thing is a more detailed hand, with signs of age in his suture lines and dirty nails:

Thing from Wednesday (2022).

LDD's Thing is an excellent replica of the television character:

The detail in this figure is wonderful.  There are lots of molded creases and tendons, with great shading and nicely-painted suture lines:

Everyone loves a good suture line.

The detail is present everywhere on the hand:

The fingernails are probably my favorite part.  They're sickly greenish-brown in color with little line details:

There are good treatments for nail fungus these days...

Wednesday herself is nowhere near as detailed.  She has a simple head and body mold that are hallmarks of most LDD characters:

Here she is from the side, where you can see her signature long black braids:

And the back:

Wednesday's face looks more realistic than other LDD figures I've seen, perhaps because there was an effort to create a resemblance to Jenna Ortega:

Here she is in profile:

I dug up an old shot of my Frozen Charlotte so we could compare the level of detail:

That photo is bad, but you can see that Charlotte has a lot of detail in her painted head crack, but otherwise her face is simple.  Wednesday has a lot more shading and nuance in her features.

I clipped Wednesday's bangs back so that we could get an even closer look at her face:

Whoa.  Those are some seriously severe eyebrows!  They're very dark and angry.  That high forehead is also giving me Christina Ricci, which is interesting:

Christina Ricci as Wednesday.

Wednesday also has purple shading around her eyes, and lots of faint freckles:

The freckles are more a feature of Ms. Ortega's Wednesday:

Jenna Ortega as Wednesday.

What's missing from the doll is Jenna Ortega's mesmerizing dark eyes.  The doll's eyes are way too light.

In the end, the doll doesn't look exactly like either Christina Ricci or Jenna Ortega, but she's pleasantly reminiscent of both:

A Wednesday amalgam.

This doll comes wearing an outfit that appears in both of the 1990s Addams Family movies, and also (briefly) in the Wednesday television show.  It's a calf-length button-down black dress with a large white collar and matching cuffs:

Here it is from the back, where there's a velcro seam for easy dressing and undressing:

Christina Ricci's Wednesday wears a dress like this for almost all of The Addams Family and Addams Family Values:

The pattern on the dress changes, but it's always white on black, often with flowers.

In contrast, Jenna Ortega only wears this iconic dress at the beginning of Season 1:

The print on this dress is hard to see, but looks vaguely floral:

The LDD dress is very nice.  It's made out of a fine, flowing fabric (rayon?) that feels good and isn't at all transparent.  The cuffs and collar are more crisp, made out of a woven material like cotton or a cotton blend:

There are nice little sewn details, like the pleats on the shoulder, that are true to the television costume:

Here's a closer look at one of the cuffs:

It's well-tailored and looks great.

The print is very similar to that on Jenna Ortega's dress in Wednesday:

But the pattern is upside-down.

The row of buttons down the front of the dress looks good, although the buttons themselves are only decorative.

The construction is neat and tidy, but the edges of most seams aren't reinforced:

Underneath her dress, Wednesday has the classic LDD body with five points of articulation (neck, shoulders, hips):

She also has pitch black underwear and some staining from her black dress:

Here she is from the back:

On her upper back, there are printed MGM and Addams Foundation copyrights:

And on her lower back, there's a molded Mezco Toyz copyright from 2004:

On her feet, Wednesday is wearing dark black socks and vinyl shoes.  There are plastic sleeves on each leg to protect the vinyl from all of that black dye:

The shoes are very stiff.  Even though they have upper straps that come unfastened, I found them hard to get on and off:

The design of the shoes is cute, though, with three molded buckle straps and a rounded toe:

Thankfully, the plastic on Wednesday's legs protected her from more staining.

Here she is without her clothing:

I've reviewed the LDD body before, but I'll run through the joints quickly, as there aren't many of them.

The neck has great flexibiliy and can look up...

And down:

It can also spin around and tip back and forth:

Wednesday's shoulders are rotating hinges, so she can lift her arms up and away from her body:

She can also spin her arms all of the way around:

Her hips have a tiny bit of side-to-side movement, but nowhere near enough to do splits:

She can sit on the ground with her legs at about 90 degrees from one another, though:

And she can do nice front-to-back splits:

I've never been very impressed by the articulation on these dolls, but I understand that their design focus lies elsewhere.  Still, I'm excited that the company is branching out to include more highly-articulated dolls like Damien and Posey.

I would have taken Wednesday's hair down to check the rooting, but I could tell pretty easily that it's bad.  Most of her scalp is bald:

These dolls are not designed to have their hair let down.  However, the hair fiber feels silky and smooth--from what I can tell through the braids, anyway.

I struggled a bit to get Wednesday's dress back on.  The cuffs are very tight, especially over the splayed fingers of the left hand:

I finally wrestled the sleeve into place, but not without some loose threads poking through and making the whole thing look messy:

Here's Wednesday back in her full outfit:

She looks great, but now that the plastic is gone, there's nothing to protect her vinyl body from all of that black fabric!

Black, like my heart.

I wanted Thing to join Wednesday for her portrait session, because the two of them make a great pair:

Thing immediately wanted to perch on Wednesday's shoulder, where the view is good:

Careful, that's my cold shoulder.

He's not molded to sit securely like this, which would have been nice, but he was able to hang on for a little while:

Way better than a shoulder cat.

Maybe this is Thing's way of giving a hug?

I prefer this to an actual hug.

Wednesday has a small posing repertoire, but she can sit on the ground pretty well:

I see you, Thing.

And she can walk...hand-in-hand with Thing, of course:

Let's stroll through the graveyard together.

It looks like Thing is going for the shoulder again...

That's my other cold shoulder.

Nope!  This time he had a higher vantage point in mind:

While you're there, maybe you could massage my head.

I'm very happy with this version of Wednesday.  She conjures up some great memories of both the Addams Family movies and the new television show.  Her outfit is nicely-made and authentic to the character, and the face mold is surprisingly recognizable.  I only wish that Jenna Ortega's dark brown eyes had been captured more faithfully.  The $45 price feels high, but the inclusion of Thing eases the sticker shock.

There are two more versions of Wednesday available from LDD right now.  One of them is a pre-order that won't be released until October:

This Wednesday is wearing the Nevermore Academy uniform and costs $57.99.

The other option is Rave'n Dance ($51.99) who's wearing the gothic vintage dress that Wednesday chooses for the school dance:

I know I'm not alone in having the Rave'n dance scene as one of my favorites.  So I love the idea of a doll based on this moment.

There are so many Harry Potter parallels with Wednesday, but for some reason I feel the similarities a lot with this dress.  It's not a black version of Hermione's Yule Ball gown or anything like that, but the vibes feel similar to me:

Of course this is just the classic Cinderella scene, isn't it?  With the heroine's grand entrance down the stairs?  So maybe I'm just fixated on that.

In any case, I purchased the Rave'n Dance Living Dead Doll:

Also with horrible glare.

The packaging is very similar to what we saw with the first Wednesday doll, including the purple and black stripes and the umbrella silhouette at the bottom:

I like the back of this box more, though, because the photograph of the doll is bigger and more engaging:

This version of Wednesday is unique because she has partially bent arms, to mimic Jenna Ortega's freaky-fabulous dancing style in the television show:

Wednesday comes encased between two molded plastic cartons, but this time Thing is not by her side:

Here she is out of the box:

This doll has the same face mold as the first doll, but her eyes are side-glancing:

She also comes with fancy up-do hairstyle...and a lot of plastic to protect her body from the black dress:

Here she is from the back:

The dress made a great first impression, but the hairstyle did the opposite.

From the back, you can see that every possible shortcut was taken with this hairstyle.  The bulk of Wednesday's hair isn't tied up in braids, but rather pulled back into two low pigtails that were hacked off as close to the scalp as possible:

Hatchet job.

The braided section is a long piece of hair taken from the back left side of Wednesday's head, wrapped all of the way around to the right side, and stapled into her scalp in four places:

The staples massage my brain.

And, once again, the hair is only rooted around the hairline and part, with nothing in the middle.  

It might be entertaining to take this hair down, and I'm morbidly curious to see how bad it would look, but I can imagine it well enough.  And I draw the line at ruining a $50 doll to satisfy my twisted curiosity.

It's a good thing Wednesday looks better from the front:

Did you say I look deader from the front?

Her bangs are uneven and fall over her eyes, which is accurate to the television character:

Everything looks darker this way.

I clipped the bangs back so that we could appreciate those angry eyebrows and high forehead again:

Bring back the darkness, Emily!

The forehead is not as high on this doll, but the eyebrows are still fierce!

This doll's face paint is very similar to the first Wednesday, including the faint freckles, dark lip lines, and purple shading around the eyes:

Here's a closer look at the lip detail:

As before, I really wish that the eyes were darker.  In fact, these eyes are lighter and greener than what we saw on the first doll.  So it's worse, not better.  Here's a GIF to compare the two faces:

Rave'n Dance Wednesday has more red in her complexion than the first Wednesday, and the eyes are very different.  I usually like side-glancing eyes because of the expressiveness they bring to a doll's face, but in this case I like the first Wednesday best.  Her coloring and front-on stare are more fitting for the character.

Wednesday's dress is elaborate, and has a lot in common with the movie costume:

The top part is especially detailed, with its intricate belt, ruffled sleeves, and floating collar:

Here it is from the back:

This Wednesday is wearing the exact same shoes as the first one, but with no socks:

In order to get the dress off, I first had to remove the belt--which is actually two belts!

Both belts are made out of imitation leather.  The larger one closes in back with velcro, and the narrower one has a metal belt buckle that fastens in front.

With the belts out of the way, I could see that the dress actually opens down the front with a narrow velcro seam that's concealed by a row of decorative buttons:

The velcro only goes down to the waist, though, so it was hard to pull the dress off over Wednesday's shoulders:

Straitjackets are cosy.

I was able to pull the dress down to about waist level (exposing a lot of protective plastic):

Like a body bag.

But that was as far as I got.  The fit is too tight to comfortably remove the dress.  I felt like I was about to rip some seams.

I don't really need to get the dress off for this review, since Wednesday's body is exactly the same as the one we just saw--except for those dancing arms.

At least I was able to get all of the plastic off, which makes the dress look even better:

Perfect for a funeral.

I can show you some of the details on this dress while it's still on Wednesday's body.

The tiers in the skirt are hard to see, but there are three of them.  The top tier has elastic gathers at the top and a tulle ruffle at the bottom:

Underneath that, there's a plain black satin layer:

And the last tier has a band of satin with a series of tulle ruffles at the bottom:

I'm very impressed with this dress.  I just wish that it would come off so I had the option of storing Wednesday without the risk of dark stains.

I am a dark stain.

Here are the two versions of Wednesday side by side:

Your skin is very pale.

I think Rave'n Dance is a bit friendlier than classic Wednesday:

Shall we play a little game I like to call...French Revolution?

Rave'n Dance certainly has the more interesting outfit, and I like her unique arms, but I still prefer the original Wednesday overall.  Her dress is classic and her steely gaze is perfect...save for the color of her eyes.

I took a minute to play around with Rave'n Dance and her unusual arms.  They're quite fun!

Dead like an Egyptian.

And a little spooky:

The stack of bodies was this high.

Wednesday can direct the orchestra :

I'd rather be playing my cello.

Contemplate her surroundings:

Those dark clouds look promising.

Or...wash her face like a cat?

Check out my claws.

But she's at her best when she's dancing:

I can tear it up.

In fact, I can tear lots of things up...

Bottom line?  It's been fun to review a few Living Dead Dolls after a nearly thirteen year hiatus.  Most things about these dolls heaven't changed much during that time, which I find slightly disappointing, but also oddly consoling: you definitely know what you're going to get with an LDD.

My basic expectations with Living Dead Dolls are that they'll have limited articulation, mediocre hair, interesting face paint, and great outfits.  Both of these Wednesday dolls live up to those assumptions.

The limited articulation doesn't bother me too much with these dolls, especially because the neck joints allow for excellent head mobility.  A flexible head can balance out other shortcomings.  I also like Rave'n Dance Wednesday's unusual arm mold.  This allows for expressive poses that aren't possible with conventional, straight-armed Living Dead Dolls.

The bad hair is a bigger problem.  Just like the Frozen Charlotte that I reviewed in 2012, these Wednesday dolls have minimally-rooted hair that can't shouldn't be taken down and restyled.  It's particularly bad with Rave'n Dance Wednesday, whose crude up-do style looks bad from the back and would be positively frightening if it were ever taken down.

And you knew I wouldn't be able to resist taking it down, didn't you?  I'm somewhat predictable that way:

I predict you'll regret this.

Whoa.  It's actually not as bad as I thought it would be!  It's a cute little asymmetric bob with a long braided tail in back.

The silkiness of the hair fiber makes up for a lot, too.  Both Wednesday dolls have hair that's pleasant to touch--what little hair there is, anyway.

With that out of the way, now I can focus on the best things about these dolls: their faces and their outfits.  Living Dead Dolls have child-like faces with simple molds.  Despite that, both of these dolls capture the essence of Wednesday Addams well.  They're both easily recognizable, and manage to somehow simultaneously resemble both Christian Ricci and Jenna Ortega's interpretation of the character.  I love the subtle freckles and fierce eyebrows on both faces, and appreciate the detail in the lips.  I wish that the eyes were darker brown, though.  It's the one feature that feels inauthentic to all the many versions of Wednesday.  On a more personal note, I'm glad that these dolls have creepy faces without being grotesque.  It's hard to find an LDD with an unmarred face, and the grossest facial aberrations from this brand have never been my cup of tea.

Last but not least, the outfits are both great, despite their propensity to stain and (in the case of Rave'n Dance) their inability to come off.  The original Wednesday has the classic black button-down dress with white collar and cuffs.  The fabric choices are smart and the tailoring is good.  The Rave'n Dance outfit is even more impressive, with lots of intricate little details that make it an accurate replica of the show's costume.  The complexity of the Rave'n Dance dress probably accounts for the ~$10 price difference between these two dolls, but I'm surprised that the inclusion of a highly-detailed Thing figure with the classic Wednesday didn't negate that discrepancy.

These dolls are both good, although I slightly favor the original Wednesday with her icy stare, signature braids and dress, and Thing companion.  But there are more interpretations of Wednesday, from at least four different companies, still to come in this series!  Stay tuned to find out if any of them can top these two Living Dead Doll divas.