Texas A&M Ken Doll - Perfect Gift for College Fans & Collectors

(Wife): Our daughter wanted a "Daddy doll" to complement her Made to Move "Mama doll". (We use a Funville Sparkle Girlz Mini doll and a Chelsea doll for the kids. No, neither of those are well-articulated, but the Made to Move Barbie can of course hold the girls, as can this Ken doll.)So anyway, I went looking for Made to Move Ken, and found out Mattel doesn't make him.Why? Yeah, I don't get it. Maybe later?So, this is the closest we could find to a Ken "Daddy doll" who could actually hold the kids. He does not move as well as Made to Move Barbie, but he definitely moves way more than old-school Kens. Please note, though: all of our articulated dolls -- Made to Move Barbie, Texas A&M Ken -- are more challenging to balance while sitting. Our Texas A&M Ken often requires a support from behind him in order to sit -- due largely to his loose hip sockets and the fact that he can't sit at a 90 degree angle -- although he can sometimes stand on his own, if you balance him right and there are no disturbing vibrations around. Also, good grief, his lower legs and feet often rotate like that scene from the horror movie "The Exorcist". HahaBut, unfortunately, while Ken does move better than any Ken I've ever seen, his shoes fit rather tightly -- and our daughter is only three. (These are NOT normal, old-school Ken shoes! They have this ridiculous high back to them that make them difficult to remove.) I tried to take away the shoes. Yeah, easier said than done. I tried to teach her that she had to go slow and be gentle. Well, she's still learning. So, "Daddy doll" now has only one foot, and the other is in the shoe. Yes, literally in one of the shoes (and they do have a left and right shoe, so they may have gone on wrong, although I don't think so).On the bright side, a) we can see how the foot attaches; and b) folks with appropriate skill (and a little luck) should be able to reattach the foot. In essence, the foot has a little plastic bar part that goes through two holders that (my guess) are probably part of a ball joint in the lower leg. The part that broke for us was the bar, which may be able to be reattached with some glue (or maybe replaced with a metal pin, if we can get it to stay in place?).Well, I was curious about Mattel's articulated joints. Guess I'll get some experience now.On the "glue head" problem: If you don't know what a Barbie "glue head" is, look it up. This doll came out in 2010, it seems. Ours was a horrible "glue head". I love the hair, but holy cow! I washed the hair. I had to. It was gross, and there was a bald spot or two in the back. After I washed and rinsed the hair, I just wrapped a paper towel around Ken's hair and held him upside down for a few moments. That seemed to work OK. Some folks have attested to a soaking / wash in Tea Tree Oil and then Tea Tree Shampoo doing a good deal of good, although that may be more the case with folks looking to do a re-root of the hair, so just be careful, since the hair might then fall out. (The old-school way of rooting doll hair was by hand, and time-consuming -- involving threading the hair and tying off knots, to keep the hair plugs in place in the scalp. Now, Mattel uses machines that do a cheap, half-hearted job imo, and use glue that can seep out into the hair. Amazing that they'd consider such a doll a "collector" doll, but whatever.) Anyway, in our case with correcting the "glue head" problem, even just plain-old hand pump soap helped, his hair was so gluey / greasy. (That did not fix the whole problem, but it wasn't quite as bad afterward.) Also, wrapping the paper towel around his scalp / hair and then sort-of just playing with his hair a little helped to hide the bald spots.On the "this Ken looks mean" look: first, yes, the two marks by his left eyebrow are on ours, too, and he does look stern. I think that if you were to take a Q-tip and some acetone and repaint his face, he'd probably be OK. His face does not have a ton of room for large, innocent-looking eyes, but you can at least probably change out the eyebrows or something. But, you might have to play with the design to tweak it just right. Mostly, I'd be inclined to remove the two marks. (What are they? Scratches from a football game? I suppose not, although I wonder.)As for other Ken clothes: E-Ting aftermarket Ken clothes fit him a little tight but are close enough to fitting, in our experience. He has one outfit with a black t-shirt, and it is made of a stretchy material, which works all-right for us (although we have to be careful with the hook-and-loop (i.e., Velcro) in the back).That's about it, other than saying that I find it a bit ironic that I, a Baylor alumna, have written a review for a Ken doll supporting a rival school. I imagine that the University of Texas is probably Texas A&M's main rival, but we Baylor Bears did relish when we beat the (Texas A&M) Aggies, especially in football. ; )This review is mainly about the Caucasian Ken, though there are comments about the AA Ken also, as I also got him elsewhere. I bought this Ken because he's pretty much a redo of the Barbie Basics Ken (as is the AA version) a doll I really like very much only he's on the ultra posable Harley body instead of the stiff model one. For the most part he's just as nice looking, this is a totally great sculpt, but there are two things that keep me from giving him 5 stars instead of 4. First, one of his eyebrows has this weird little add on stripe that looks kind of odd. I don't like the brows on this doll as much as the ones they did on the Basics doll, but it's a little thing and can easily be removed with a little acetone and a q-tip so that's okay. The other thing though, his total mess of a hair style, that I just don't like much at all. It's all different lengths, meant to be trendy and spiky I guess, but it totally fails at that. If a male doll ever needed a re-root it's this one! Actually both the A&M Kens I bought had hair issues. The AA Ken came with flocking loss where his head was secured to the inner card. It was too annoying to see that on a collector's level doll, but I'm still happy to have them as these sculpts are nice. In particular, seeing the AA sculpt being used again was great as I missed out on the AA Basics guy and I am really glad to finally have that sculpt for my collection. Would I buy another one despite this flaw? Yeah I probably would. Hair can be redone and the body on these is so cool it's worth the $24 a pop just to buy an extra (or two) for head swaps and repaints. I'm going to order a couple more of the Caucasian Ken actually so I can swap out my 2 Basics guys. I have them on older Fashionista bodies now, but they would look so much better on the body for these dolls that I am going for it.This Texas A&M doll was purchased a year ago, with the intent of sending it to my granddaughter. Her Fashionista Ken and Disney Prince Charming dolls cannot ride the Disney horses she has. Oops, I made other outfits for Ken and forgot about the prince cape/ military outfit for this rider. She doesn't know about it, so I can still surprise her later.The A&M outfit is well sewn with details of real pockets (although the pants pockets lack the liner to hold things), belt leads, and belt buckle. I got some sewing ideas, such as the elastic to hold the shirt down and making the collar & stand in one piece. I will post photos of the outfit and pose the doll to show its flexibility in comparison with Fashionista Ken. They both have embossed underwear, so I hope Amazon doesn't think they are nude and ban the photos!The doll leans back a bit when sitting, because the legs prevent the torso from moving completely forward. The running and kneeling poses required a little balance against the wall. I don't have any toy horses, but a bronze statue (probably broader in girth and sturdier) is a good substitute to show that A&M Ken can ride a horse, which Fashionista Ken cannot do. Also, this doll comes with a stand.Update years later: There is no way to make this doll look nice. He looks angry all the time and my daughter never plays with him. Even though she only has a few male dolls. She would rather dress a barbie as a boy. He just looks scary. If you need a male movable doll, I suggest using the Descendants dolls from Hasbro. They are ken sized dolls and the look happy.I bought this for my daughter because it was the only decent bendable, moveable ken doll that I could find on Amazon. It's great that she can pose him. All barbies and ken dolls should be that way. I don't like how serious he looks, it's kind of ominous. Toys should look nice not mean. Also the foot fell off as soon as the shoe came off. It's easy to fix but he's frequently played with without his foot attached.Awesome articulated Ken!Scammersoui bonne poupée articulé rien à dire, les goûts sont divers mais je la recommande, bien je peux rien dire de plus商品はプライム翌日配達で届きました・・・が、商品の箱の上蓋が開き開封状態となっており箱も半分潰れた状態でした。人形自体にはキズ等は無かったのですが、フェイスプリントがちょっと変。左眉の細かい眉線のうち２本が眉から外れて眉間寄りに取って付けたように（笑）元々ちょっと不良っぽい顔つきなのに不機嫌そうな表情に拍車をかけています。箱の潰れは発送時のシュリンクが強すぎたためなのか元からなのかは不明です。でも上蓋のシールの接着面がかなり汚れているので元から上蓋が開いた状態のところへ、シュリンクが強すぎて箱が潰れたようになり上蓋が完全に開いてしまったのではないかと思われます。まあ、箱出しするので箱は捨ててしまうのですが余り気持ちのいいものではないですね。と、いうことで星は４つとさせて頂きます。Best doll I purchased for my lil sis. She loved it as soon as she opened the pack. Thanks amazon & ibhejo