The Sensuous Doll

From the playroom comes the chatter of happy voices. Little figures are dancing to rock music, while off in one corner a paddle-ball game goes on. A demure little blonde quietly recites nursery rhymes. Other little ones busily tidy up, sing and pour tea. None of the active figures is human; all are toys. Around them, real children stand silently, watching their dolls perform.

This is the year of the action doll. Across the land, toy stores are alive with the sound of dolls singing, whining, cooing and crying; with dolls that dance, walk, clean and shop; and dolls that ride their own horses, posture in their own beauty contests and drive their own convertibles.

A few of the homunculi, however awesomely mechanized, remain in the infantile category. In a Minute Thumbelina, seated in a high chair, bangs its cup on the tray and demands to be fed. When Baby Tweak's tummy is squeezed, it coos, and when Drowsy's pullout cord is yanked, it whines things like "Mommy, I want another drink of water" or "Mommy, I want to stay up." Slightly more sophisticated but equally maddening to adults is Timey Tell, which has twelve different messages matched to the hour of the day. Set its wristwatch at 12 and pull its cord: "It's 12 o'clock. Time to eat lunch." At 4: "It's 4 o'clock. Let's have a tea party." Still more obnoxious is Smartypants, labeled by its makers as "the first truly intelligent doll in the world." Sample demonstration of intellect: "I have five little toes."

For the child who wants more mature companionship there's Play 'N Jane: it plays ticktacktoe, horseshoes or a primitive form of basketball whenever its human counterpart flips an activating switch. Randi Reader sits holding a book, and at the touch of a button proceeds to read 15 nursery rhymes, her blue eyes gazing intently at the page.

Motorized CheckOut. T he more spectacular new dolls, however, are those that perform grown-up tasks. Bizzie Lizzie pushes a carpet sweeper, dusts and irons. Busy Becky the Handi Helper, programmed in much the same way, comes with twelve housekeeping accessories. Shoppin' Sheryl pushes a shopping cart, reaches out with a magnetized "Magic Hand" to pluck items off shelves, then pays at what is labeled a Motorized CheckOut Counter after the sale is rung up on a Ringing Cash Register. Surely an Overdrawn Bank Account is in the works somewhere.

Staples like Barbie and Dawn are still around, but they too are now available in live action. Poised on a motorized stage, Barbie (or Ken or PJ.) can be made to dance, jog and exercise to either hard rock rhythms or Lawrence Welkish tempos.

Barbie's rival Dawn stars this year in a beauty pageant--a mini-Miss America contest complete with bathing suits, evening dresses, a dinner-jacketed escort doll named Gary and a jeweled scepter all on a pink plastic stage. "It is a part of Americana," explains Jack Jones, a spokesman for Topper Toys, which manufactures the pageant. "We are constantly seeing things that are based on beauty and talent, and the child wants to be a part of it."

Simple Fantasies. Here and there, a few voices protest the trend. Dr. Herbert C. Modlin, a Menninger Foundation psychiatrist, believes that mechanized dolls do not give a child a chance to participate, while "a simple doll gives a child a chance to invest it with her own fantasies and to express her own personality."

Slightly less "simple" are the boy and girl dolls manufactured for the U.S. market by a German firm. These have both secondary and primary sexual characteristics and, according to a buyer at a large Manhattan department store, are selling well. "I believe very strongly in them," he says, "and expect that Barbie and Ken will probably go this way in the future--though there's no telling what the children will have them doing then."

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