More Minis! Part 1: The Funville Sparkle Girlz

I had so much fun reviewing the new Moxie Girlz Friends dolls and the Battat Our Generation minis, that I've stayed focused on smaller dolls for the last week or so--hunting around locally and online to see what else is out there in the 5-10 inch size range.  Locally, I visited Target, Walmart, Toys R Us and the Dollar Store to see what mini dolls are readily available here in my part of the world.  Online, I hunted down some older Battat mini dolls that I learned about while researching the new dolls.  In a two-part mini series, I'll show you my favorite dolls from this search: the Collector's Lane Kids 6-inch dolls by Battat (that'll be Part 2...), and today, the inexpensive line of 4-inch dolls from Walmart called Funville Sparkle Girlz.

There are a few different sizes of Sparkle Girlz.  There are 20-inch play dolls, 12-inch fashion dolls, and 4-inch toddlers.  I was interested in the toddlers for this review, but these smallest Sparkle Girlz are actually quite hard to find around here.  There are four Walmart stores in my immediate area, and I've visited all of them within the last five days.  All of these stores had plenty of the larger dolls, but most had only one kind of mini...or just empty cardboard display cases.  Since these dolls cost $2.47, it's no surprise that they are hard to keep in stock.  At the very last Walmart I visited, I finally found a representative variety of little Sparkle Girlz.

In this post I will show you four different dolls from this series and contrast them to the comparably-priced Moxie Girlz Friends dolls.

Funville Sparkle Girlz "Little Ballerina" mini doll.

Moxie Girlz "Friends" Mini Dolls by MGA Entertainment

On the same day I found my Our Generation mini dolls, I also saw the new (Target exclusive) Moxie Girlz minis for the first time.  It was a mini doll kind of a day, I guess.  The Battat minis grabbed the spotlight, but I wanted to show you some of the Moxie minis, too.  These dolls are pretty cute, but what really impresses me about them is their price.  They are $2.99 each, which is hard to beat.  I think Walmart's Sparkle Girlz are less expensive at just under $2.50, but I can't think of much else.  Even some of those blind bag foil-wrapped toys cost more than this.

Today, I will review Tally (the redhead...of course), and compare her to Neve and Amorie:

Moxie Girlz Friends mini dolls, $2.99.

The Liv Dolls' Horse "Nutmeg" vs. the Moxie Girlz Horse "Cricket"

I am a big fan of horses.  When I was younger, I had a massive collection of Breyer model horses that was the focus of my entire imaginary world.  In the early 80s, you could get these highly detailed plastic Breyer models for about $6.00 at Woolworth (in nice cardboard boxes...), but now they run in the $40 range and are typically found only at high-end toy stores (although Toys R Us does carry a play line of Breyer horses).  

When Spin Master premiered their Liv horse in 2010, I could not wait for it to hit the shelves.  I saw some small pictures online suggesting that it was a highly articulated horse which I thought was very appropriate considering the impressive articulation of the Liv dolls themselves (no, no, don't worry--I am not going to gripe about that again).  There aren't really a ton of articulated play horses on the market right now.  Our Generation has a 20" horse that looks semi-articulated and pretty handsome (available at Target).  There's still an articulated horse for the Fisher Price Loving Family.  I think that's about it.  Let me know if you have intel on any others.

I was really hoping that the Liv horse would be kind-of like "Smoke," a 1970s  Lone Ranger articulated horse I had when I was a kid.   I loved posing that horse and I don't know what happened to it.  Smoke had about 14 points of articulation and could strike some very realistic poses.  That was the coolest toy. 

Anyway, I have been meaning to write a review of "Nutmeg," the palomino Liv horse that I've had for about a year now.  While I procrastinated with that review, however, I caught wind of the new Moxie Girlz "Cricket," who is a palomino horse that is articulated and apparently walks and whinnies.  Well!  I thought it might be fun to de-box Cricket and have a nose-to-nose showdown between the steeds of two very popular play doll lines.  Here's Cricket:

Moxie Girlz horse, Cricket

Moxie Teenz by MGA Entertainment

MGA Entertainment is responsible for producing a lot of today's hot dolls like Bratz, Moxie Girlz, BFC Ink and Lalaloopsy.  I am feeling the pull towards purchasing a Lalaloopsy doll, and if I do I'll let you know, but for now, the only MGA dolls in the house are Moxie Teenz.  Moxie Teenz are 14" articulated play dolls with inset eyes and changeable wigs.  Sound familiar?

First things first: "MGA" stands for Micro-Games America.  I did not know that.  I guess in my head I had MGA confused with MGM, which is Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and is a Hollywood movie-making studio.  MGA is a toy manufacturer.  Now that we have that straight, MGA released the Moxie Teenz line in the summer of 2010.  This was after the Liv release and at the same time as the Monster High debut.  In retrospect, MGA might have chosen different timing.

In any case, I was drawn to this line mostly because I was so smitten with Liv dolls.  Moxie Teenz, with their inset eyes and changeable wigs, seemed to me like fairly blatant Liv mimics.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  Back in 2010, I had not yet fallen prey to Monster High dolls, and so there was plenty of room on my shelves for a teenage big sister to the Liv crew.  Also, FYI, I live in Maine, so I am legally required to have an inherent affinity for all things Moxie.

I am going to show you those original 2010 Moxie Teenz dolls in this post, but I'll also fast forward to the present and de-box the newest Moxie Teenz "Tristen" for you so that we can see what's up with the Moxie Teenz these days.

Got her on an awesome sale!