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Hey ! New doll at Chez Insanity ! Stay tuned for a full review of Chat Diva Teresa !
| Yes - I actually got Chat Diva Teresa... |
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With Christmas ’07 rapidly approaching,
doll fans might find some good deals on fairly new items, as toy dealers make room for the latest-and-hottest toys. One example
is today’s Chat Diva Teresa. Originally on the market for $30. to $40., a sale combined with a markdown got me this
one for just $11.98 plus tax. A blonde Barbie is readily available as well, along with a very rarely seen African-American
Nikki.
Her chief function is to move her mouth
while ‘talking’ on her included cheesy cell phone or ‘singing’ three pretty chipmunky songs, all about
Barbie and friendship. These are all mercifully short. And sung in three different voices – can’t Teresa here
make up her mind ? She could also be detached from her stand and played with like any other Barbie. But the big thing I wondered
about was the ‘attach to your iPod’ feature. Did she really move her mouth to the song ? Or at least bop her head
to the beat ? Does it work with regular non- Apple brand MP3 players ? And was it worth $11.98 plus tax to find out ?
There’s also a surprise at the
end of the article, one that’s sure to get me into trouble with Mattel if they find out. So don’t say anything,
OK ?
| I've looked at this doll from both sides now... |
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Here she is, out of box. Mattel’s
doing better on its promise to keep down packaging waste and make deboxing easier – most
of it was taped-down cardboard tabs, simple to free with fingernails. Four new plastic buckles held soft plastic anchoring
strips. I saved the buckles, you may see them on a doll fashion someday soon. There were only four twist-ties, one of which
was around the doll’s waist, which, as you’ll soon see, was completely unnecessary. Clear elastic bands anchored
the doll’s shoes (instead of her feet !) and arms and props, and I didn’t see any damage from them on the doll.
And there was one of those stitched-on hair strips, also very unnecessary.
If you’re thinking of buying one,
let me tell you now – line all the ones you’re considering up and look at them carefully. The head is completely
immobile. No right/left, no up/down. Wherever the head is on the neck is where it’s gonna stay. Most of the ones at
our TRU were at an odd upward angle. It took me a bit of effort to find one who had a level chin, not one thrust upward, always
tilted skyward. While the mechanism does tilt the head a bit to the side, if the angle isn’t what you like, it’ll
look even worse when it’s leaning to the side.
Isn’t it neat, how the cord
for iPods and MP3 players wraps around for storage ? The ‘stereo’ and everything on it is permanently affixed
to the platform. The microphone won’t unplug, but it can rest on the speakers, and the cell phone looks cute there,
too. Her ‘phonecall’ and ‘singing’ functions don’t depend on either prop.
| Not your average Barbie...or Teresa ! |
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Here’s what her back looks like,
off the stand. While you knew there was a mechanism, you might not have been expecting a serial port ! And that’s why
the twist tie was rather a waste – with that in her back, she wasn’t going anywhere. She removes and reattaches
easily, but for her to wear other clothes on the platform, they have to be either low-backed or big enough to wrap around
the clasping part.
Speaking of re-dressing your Chat Diva,
you may wanna find her some underwear. She has an odd leg joint that looks as if it could go to the side as well as back and
forth, like a Gymnast doll body. But it doesn’t. Legs go back and forth, but not to the sides, and the odd construction
keeps her legs apart, showing her off embarrassingly if the she’s seated in a skirt.
Here’s some photos of CDTeresa
in action. This is about the limit to her motion. When she ‘sings’ – you lift her right hand by her head
and push the pink button on the ‘stereo’ – her mouth moves in perfect time to the song. Same with the phone,
with her left hand. You don’t need the phone or microphone, just raise the appropriate hand and press the button. When
you’re using an iPod or MP3 player, if you raise her right hand to her head, her mouth moves constantly, and her head
bops back and forth. Lowered, her lips twitch a bit, almost like she’s humming, and her head bops more-or-less in time
to the music. Her head motion seems almost random instead of in time, but it’s hard to tell when ya can’t tell
what she’s responding to.
While her mouth mechanism doesn't make a sound - a vast improvement from 1995's
'Talk With Me Barbie' - the neck servomotor does make an audible 'zzzzt zzzzt' sound while in motion. It sounds sort of like
a small Furby mechanism. Not bad, but mildly distracting.
Annoyingly, she talks while you’re
playing your music. She’ll say ‘New music !’ followed a few seconds later by ‘We’re listening
to your music now !’ over the song. If the song is low-key and quiet, she keeps saying it. Over and over, about every
twenty seconds. If the music’s louder with a heavy bass beat, she’ll say it once, but say it again if you change
tracks or the playlist goes to the next song. So, while she’ll move, more or less, to anything with a headphone jack,
I wouldn’t recommend this as a speaker to your Walkman or iPod. That muffled but loud voice gets annoying very quickly.
And here she is, redressed. This is a
Fashion Fever dress, fit is good, so she should be able to wear just about anything you already have. I had to take this
photo about twenty times before I got a shot that didn’t have her imitating Lindsey Lohan or Brittany Spears out on
the town. Yikes.
When you pull her off the stand, wherever
her face and head are, that’s where they stay, at least until the next time you plug her back in. Her arms have the
familiar ball joint, but they seemed quite stiff, and the shoulder part of the torso seems to stress a bit when her arm is
brought up and out. Her knees bend, but it’s two extremely weak clicks, one of which doesn’t always hold. Her
hair is nice, quite fine in texture – I haven’t taken it down, and probably won’t. Here’s my MP3 player,
clearly not an iPod, but it seems to work well. There’s no sound control on CD Teresa’s platform, even the manual
expects you to use the volume on the player.
Speaking of the manual…
Here ya go. Your very own Chat Diva Teresa
coloring page ! Right click on it, choose 'Save Picture As...', and save it under whatever name wherever ya want it to go,
then print it out at your leisure and grab the crayons. When I tried, I could even print it as a full-page, without too much
distortion. Scanned right off the manual. Enjoy !
This
is, of course, Mattel material, and they own all rights to it. I'm not makin' any money here, just thought it'd be fun to
give you something for making it through another of my articles. And, since I'm broke 'cause I bought a doll today...
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