The day of the celebrity doll has arrived; stars of music and films are rubbing vinyl elbows with plain old Barbies.
By PAMELA DAVIS
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 4, 2000
Justin Timberlake won't be moving in with you and your family anytime soon, so until he comes to his senses and realizes that you're the one for him, you can settle for a miniversion of Justin.
The members of 'N Sync are part of a growing trend this year: celebrity dolls. More and more of your favorite singers and actors have been turned into plastic people, about the same size as Barbie.
According to Playthings, a magazine about the toy business, this year "represents the most crowded field of licensed dolls (those based on TV shows, movies or music) the industry has seen in a long time."
Standing out in the crowd:
The 'N Sync guys were made into marionettes, just as they are depicted on the cover of No Strings Attached. They, along with singer Vitamin C, arrived on the scene this summer.
New versions of Britney Spears and Brandy. The two singers were available as dolls last year and proved popular.
Dolls in the likenesses of Christina Aguilera and those ubiquitous video twins, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen.
When the Charlie's Angels movie hit the big screen, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu dolls hit store shelves. According to People magazine, Barrymore insisted her doll have a tattoo, just as she does.
More celeb dolls will be out next summer, including tennis-playing sisters Venus and Serena Williams.
National toy expert Chris Byrne says there are more celebrity dolls on the market this year because the celebrities are more kid-centric than ever before.
"They are people who are part of (kids') lives every day and part of their social interaction," Byrne said.
Some kids just love the performers, period.
Jason Palmer, marketing director for Living Toyz, the maker of the 'N Sync dolls, said many kids are collecting the toys.
"People are recognizing that these are going to be very collectible, so they are holding on to them in boxes," Palmer said. "We found that a lot of girls like to just have them in their room. Girls worship this band, so many of them probably make a shrine."
"Kids will only get to play with them if their mothers let them open the box," said Maria Weiskott, editor of Playthings. "They have a special value as collectibles; it's the culture we live in right now."
The likenesses of the 'N Sync guys were subject to the group's approval.
"They took a look at them, and a number of changes were made," Palmer said. "They decided what clothes they were going to wear and what they wanted to look like. 'N Sync wasn't hard to work with, but they definitely wanted it to look right and resemble them."
So which came first, the dolls or the video about them as dolls?
"It was about the same time. The video was being made as we were developing the doll, and, in fact, the boxes that were used in the video were designed to look like the boxes we used for the doll," Palmer said."We worked with the director when he was making the video."
Last year, kids complained that some celebrity dolls didn't look like their live counterparts, especially one of the Britney Spears offerings. But this time around, most of the dolls are good likenesses.
"They made a lot of changes to make the dolls look more realistic," said Jim Silver, publisher of Toy Wishes magazine. "But the key to the celebrity doll is whether it sings or not. If it doesn't sing, it's no different than a Barbie."
The dolls don't actually move their mouths and appear to sing. Instead, the Britney and Christina dolls shown here, made by Yaboom, have a cartridge inside their bodies which plays a full-length song.
The 'N Sync marionettes don't sing, and neither do any of the other celebrity dolls on the market this year.