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Toy Industry Set to Cuddle Realistic Baby Doll : Though Long Popular in Europe, They Have Not Usually Done Well in U.S.

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Times Staff Writer

Until a few months ago, Cabbage Patch dolls were as hard to buy as happiness, but today these pudgy-faced little creatures are falling off shelves in discount stores and their overwhelming popularity is giving way to something new.

Even though trying to predict the doll market is like trying to predict the automobile market (Remember the Edsel?), some toy-industry experts say the next doll to catch on is likely to be so realistic that it could be mistaken for a real baby.

The doll business that most people know is a trendy thing. Kids clamor for the latest Baby Blanko beaming from television commercials and filling their playmates’ toy boxes, but this year’s treasure is next year’s trash.

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Although realistic baby dolls have long been popular in Europe, they didn’t sell well in the United States until recently, and then only in a limited market.

‘Anatomically Correct’

Efforts to market “anatomically correct” dolls to the American general public have failed several times in the past decade.

Neil Bailey, vice president and buyer for Intellitoys, an upscale specialty toy store in Beverly Center, saw a trend toward significant sales of realistic baby dolls take root a couple of years ago in stores like his.

“For the past two years there has been very heavy activity in sales of natural looking dolls in specialty stores,” he said.

Peter Reynolds, president of BRIO Scanditoy Corp. in Milwaukee, distributes Corolle dolls, a French product and a mainstay of the specialty doll business. Like Bailey, Reynolds has seen realistic baby dolls gain popularity in recent years. “The sales steadily increased until last year, when they doubled,” he said.

It seems likely, Bailey and Reynolds agree, that the increasing popularity of realistic baby dolls in specialty stores is filtering down to the promotional retailers (mass merchandisers, such as chain stores).

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“Hasbro has seen our type of market succeed with realistic baby dolls,” Reynolds said, “so they are doing it in a mass market with a less expensive type of doll.”

Reynolds was talking about Hasbro Inc., a large toy manufacturer, which recently entered the doll market for the first time with “Real Baby,” a $30 to $45 doll (depending on where you buy it) designed to look real. It is even weighted with concrete so it feels real.

“A lot of the time you can sell this doll by having the customer pick it up and the customer says, ‘Oh, this feels like a baby,’ ” said Dale Noble, a partner in Doll City U.S.A., a doll store in Orange.

“Hasbro is the first major American toy company in a long time to come out with a realistic baby doll,” said Bob Grey, executive director of Karls Toys Hobbies, a chain of 23 toy stores in California shopping centers.

Grey, like Bailey and Reynolds, sees the “Real Baby” emergence as a combination of copycatting and trailblazing that may have major impact on the doll market.

“The sale of lifelike baby dolls for the past few years in specialty stores did not go unnoticed by mass marketers. Hasbro is the first in this country to commercially take advantage of it. But if they are successful, I expect other manufacturers to come out with the same kind of thing.”

Janice Gibson, a professor of developmental psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, and a columnist for Parents magazine, said she thinks “there’s a trend to real life dolls,” and “a major trend to soft, cuddly dolls.”

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“Dolls that were made to resemble small children have been around for about 100 years,” Gibson noted. “Before that, dolls were made to look like adults. About 100 years ago we began to recognize childhood as a stage of life . . . (previously) children were expected to mimic adults, and they were given adult-looking dolls--dolls that were replicas of adults performing their roles in society--so children of royalty were given dolls performing royal functions, children of lower classes were given dolls performing lower-class functions, and so forth.”

As time passed, Gibson said, “we began looking at the early years as a period in which the personality and ability to solve problems develops; we began to think of dolls that kids could use for play. And the baby doll allowed a child to role play nurturing. It could also be a friend, and this was what was most important. ‘Real Baby’ is marvelous as a substitute baby if a child has younger siblings.”

Corole Seymour, a partner in Star Toys, a West Los Angeles toy store, backs the psychologist’s contention, saying: “There’s a baby boomlet now, and a lot of mothers get lifelike dolls to give their other children because they ‘look like baby brother.’ The realistic baby dolls are definitely coming back.”

If realism is indeed taking over from Cabbage Patchism, the change may not be so drastic as it first appears.

Scoffs at Predictions

“In some respects the Cabbage Patch represents a real look to a child,” said Gary Ruddell, publisher of Doll Reader magazine in Cumberland, Md. “The features of Cabbage Patch are more pronounced than the fantasy or fairy tale doll, so the realistic doll like ‘Real Baby’ is somewhat of a natural extension.”

Not everyone sees realism as the coming trend in the promotional toy market. Frank Reysen, editor of Playthings Magazine, a toy industry journal in New York, finds “no new big trend in the realistic direction,” but views realistic baby dolls as “a steady theme.”

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Gayle Hoepner, president of Toys International, a group of three Southern California specialty toy stores, scoffs at the idea that anyone can predict the doll market. “Nobody knows what the trend is going to be,” he said. “Anybody who can tell you what the trend is going to be, if they’re that good, they shouldn’t be working for a living. They should be retired by now. Predicting the trend for dolls is like predicting what’s going to be the hottest stock next year. I see a tremendous groping around, and I don’t know what it’s going to lead to.”

Hoepner said of “Real Baby,” “It’s a dud. It hasn’t been selling, at least so far, in our stores. It could take off with different television advertising, or whatever.”

At some other stores, “Real Baby” has been doing better. Star Toys’ Seymour said the doll has been selling well. When its planned television ad campaign gets rolling, sales are sure to skyrocket, she said.

Hoepner sees “Real Baby” as a toy industry Edsel. Others see it as a Mustang. In either case, Hasbro has its neck out a mile.

“It’s a multimillion-dollar investment, between development, tooling and TV promotion,” said Maurene Souza, Hasbro’s associate vice president of marketing, girls’ division.

Browsing Around Fair

The company has commitments from stores for orders of more than 1 million dolls, and last week began an extensive television campaign that will last through Christmas.

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So far, no other major American toy company has announced plans to market a new, realistic baby doll. In Southern California, neither Tomy nor Mattel has such a doll in its 1985 line, and company spokespersons won’t talk about next year.

R. Dakin & Co., a San Francisco toy manufacturer best known for stuffed animals, does not offer a realistic baby doll. “We are researching realistic baby dolls right now,” said Harold A. Nizamian, Dakin’s president. . . . there is a very fine line between realism and the whimsy that you have to hit. We are researching, and if we can find the right combination we will certainly consider putting it in our line.”

Hasbro’s commitment to “Real Baby” began by chance in February of 1983 when Souza and her colleague Stephen Schwartz were browsing around the American International Toy Fair, the big annual toy trade show in New York.

Souza saw a woman carrying a baby. Or was it a baby doll? “I said to Steve, ‘Is that a doll or is that a baby?’ We followed her back to her showroom. Within a couple of days we had signed a contract with Judith right at the Toy Fair.”

Judith is Judith Turner, “Real Baby’s” creator and a doll designer who owns a doll store in McLean, Va.

As a 4-year-old, Turner was sewing doll clothes. At age 10 she was repairing dolls for her friends. By the time she was 19, Turner was making and selling porcelain dolls for $25 each. She maintained an interest in dolls and doll making, even while working as an executive secretary at a Virginia publishing house.

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A dozen years ago, in her mid-30s, Turner opened her doll store, working there on a part-time basis. A year later she quit her secretarial job; since then, she’s devoted all her time to designing and selling dolls.

It was an $800 porcelain doll designed by Turner that Souza and Schwartz spotted at the New York Toy Fair. “Real Baby” is a copy of that doll.

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