Say hello to my beast freaky friend. For all the box opening pics on Flickr, click here.
So here she is out of the box, the giant, 28″ Monster High doll. In this picture, she’s wearing her dress and belt, earrings, and shoes.
She comes with the following accessories:
1 pair wings
1 sheet temporary tattoos
1 sheet stickers
1 mask in jar carrier
1 clip on hair extension
wolf ears headband
eye patch
1 pair glasses
two pair calf wraps
1 pair shoe covers
1 extra pair hands
2 wipe off markers
Features:
- She has a button on the back of her head that changes her eyes. There are three sets of eyes, green, blue, and one blue/one orange.
- Further change her look with wings, extra webbed hands, and a mask, and the other accessories.
Drawbacks:
- No knee joint! It’s molded, but the knee is fused straight
- Shoes don’t come off
- Upper arms strike upper torso- arms can’t hang straight at sides
- No torso articulation
She’s a pretty girl, and the size is interesting, but the drawbacks to this doll are really disappointing. With chunky shoes that don’t come off (I really tried), how can she wear pants? With knees that don’t bend, imagine how far her feet are going to stick out if I display her seated. Nope.
The other things are minor disappointments compared to those factors. She lacks the tilting head that the smaller doll have, and the torso joint of the 17″ dolls like Gooliope. The doll comes with lots of accessories, but they’re the sorts of things that are more geared toward novelty for a little kid to play with for a few hours, but I don’t think they lend themselves to a lot of play possibilities for older girls (like me 😉 ). All factors to consider if you’re thinking about shelling out $50 for this as a Christmas gift.
I’m still looking forward to making some new clothes for this girl eventually, but I don’t think I’ll play with her very much. With so much more articulation, the 17″ “large” Monster High group is much more attractive.
Dolly Delicacies 
Hi! I just stumbled on your site as I was looking for monster high dolls. I too am an adult collector and I love them so much. I found your post about scalpers that you wrote a while back. I am honestly so irritated by that. I wanted one of these tall monster dolls and I can’t find one anywhere. They’re online now for twice their price. It’s disgusting what these scalpers do. I am sad I didn’t get into monster high earlier. I started collecting last summer and there’s so many dolls I wish I could get without paying so much for them. I want to collect the originals but I am about to give up on them they’re insanely expensive. Hopefully I can get my hands on one of the 28″ dolls I want the other one with the green skin tone she reminds me of Miss Argentina from Beetlejuice.
There are some ways in which the secondary market really helps us as collectors. Stores can’t, and won’t, stock every item made indefinitely, and production runs on my dolls are temporary. The secondary market makes it possible for us to get things we missed, because we came to collecting after the doll’s original shelf life, because we weren’t paying attention, or because we were financially unable to collect at that time. When someone has held onto a doll that’s no longer in production, has stored it well and cared for it, I don’t mind paying more than the original price so that person makes a profit for that custodianship.
But that’s COMPLETELY different from what was going on at the time of that article, and what continues to go on with some toys. There were dolls that were never hitting the store shelves, and yet eBay sellers seemed to have them by the case, as though they purchased them right out of the stockroom, before they ever hit the sales floor.
I don’t know how many of the giant dolls were made. I believe they were Walmart exclusives. I saw a reasonable number of them in the store at the start of the Christmas shopping season, but I also saw a lot of shoppers genuinely excited about them. I think a lot of them legitimately went to adult collectors and as Christmas gifts for little girls while they were available.
The ones on eBay are ridiculously expensive now that they’re not in the stores. I wouldn’t recommend it at that price– the quality just isn’t there. But if you’re going to be a hard core collector, it’s justifiable, because they are a unique and interesting part of a collection.
I sincerely believe that the values on Monster High will eventually fall. There were just too many dolls produced and sold, and too many bought by teens and adults who did not unbox them. Like the Barbie collectibles, that’s going to mean plenty available on the secondary market, and dropping values. If you can’t get your Freaky Friend in the near future, you’ll probably get her eventually. You could play the same waiting game with the originals also. Meanwhile, there’s a set of the six original female characters on eBay (looks like the ones from Target) that aren’t unreasonable, and would be just as fun to play with. At this point, I would only go after the originals if a) I wanted them NRFB for my collection, or b) I really wanted the pets.
I also have to plug the 17″ dolls again. They’re wonderful. I’ve only seen them online and at Toys R Us, and when I go to Toys R Us, there are never many there. If those interest you (and they’re great), I wouldn’t wait on them.
Thanks for much for visiting and sharing your story. I hope you find your dolls!