Monster High: Dolls with Character Bios

1. If you're not familiar with Monster High, they're fashion dolls created by Garrett Sander for Mattel as if in the tradition of the Twilight Saga.  So there's a vampire's daughter named Draculaura and a werewolve's daughter named Clawdeen Wolf.

Cleo De Nile, the Mummy's daughter

2. But of course, because it's Monster High, they're joined by a host of other monster staples: respective progenies of the Frankenstein monster, the mummy, a ghost, the Sea monster, the Phantom of the Opera, the Yeti, even Medusa.  Together, these quirky characters are out to cater a new generation of discriminating kids fed up with the lackluster life of Barbie.

3. So monsters (at least their trendy offsprings) have been rendered harmless, less scary, and manageably brought down to the level of wide-eyed curious youngsters.  It's all about reappropriating, trying a different and interesting angle, just as with microbes rendered as plush toys.

4. Thank God, Stephenie Meyer (of Twilight fame) didn't beat Garret Sander to the monster-themed dolls first.  A Bella Swan doll would already be overkill.

5. The Monster High dolls even have character bios on the Monster High website.  Nothing wrong with it.  We're suckers for character bios. 

It's as if someone must do the imagining for us about the characters' eating habits or favorite nail color.  If every little kid in the whole wide world faithfully adopted the character bio for their Monster High doll, that would really even out things, make everything consistent; your doll can only groan ala zombie, just like my doll and the other Ghoulia Yelps dolls.  Somehow I don't like the idea of dolls pre-imagined for kids, no matter if there are webisodes detailing their high school life on the Web each week.

6. And yet our grandfolks fared well back in the old days with their character-bioless dolls.  You gotta miss the old days.