"Star Muse" Poppy Parker by Integrity Toys

February 6, 2025

It's hard to tell in this picture but she's skating away.

"Star Muse" is here and this doll is all about the roller skates baby. Well, for most collectors I think she's all about the redressing possibilities baby. She's very versatile with her nondescript blonde-haired blue-eyed corn fed midwestern charm. Yawn... Oh sorry. She is pretty but let's just say she's not breaking any new ground here. When I first got my poppy out and set up, I took off her sequined coat so that I could get a better look at her iridescent shirt and her lavender star shorteralls. But that was a mistake. Young teen model of the '60's Poppy suddenly looked like over the hill stressed out single mom Poppy of the early '80's on her way to coach her daughter's roller derby team.

I don't know why, she just doesn't look happy.

But when I finally took Poppy's skates out of the bag and put them on her little articulated ankles, she looked like her old self again, or her young self. Oh, and the shiny sequin jacket too, she needed her bling.

"Now I can relax"

In this Poppy's description written by Integrity Toys, they tease a roller derby Xanadu Ginger companion doll for this Poppy really hard. I really hope to see her soon, but it's been a while now and it feels like she's been forgotten possibly. I've been wanting a Ginger since before I joined last year and no luck so far.

"Ginger's not that great, trust me."

Poppy has a princess pony hairdo, and it's pretty well gelled in place. I mean, I don't actually hate it. I've seen pictures where people who are really talented hairdressers re-worked her hair into very cool styles but for someone like me who can't even do anything with my own hair, I would rather it come gelled to the hilt like this, so I don't have to do anything to it. I can spray it lightly with a 360 mister and soften it up a tiny bit but I'm not going to mess with it because the truth is that I can't handle the truth. And I do vaguely remember girls wearing those ribbons and beads in their hair at school when I was tiny, I'm talking kindergarten days. At that time, I personally had a Dorothy Hamill, no skates, ice or roller and no hair ribbons either in tomboy town, where I resided at that age. How exactly the hair ribbon is supposed to be applied to the skater's hair I don't know but I just tied it around one of Poppy's ponytails and I think it looks about right. Whatever her hair may be, it's still nothing like the heartbreak that was Angel Eyes... Shudder...

My Poppy...

As I gazed at my "Star Muse" I couldn't help but feel that she did have an enduring tired quality about her, and I started to put my finger on why. I think her face got squeezed too hard or something when her hair was being rooted maybe. At some point in her life, something squished her head permanently slightly out of shape. Not enough that I find her defective, just enough to make her different. She's actually a new character. She's old Poppy. She's got strange worry/smoker wrinkles running down between the outside of her nose and the outside of her mouth. It casts a shadow on her cheeks. I grabbed "Be Mine" to compare and that doll doesn't have smoker wrinkles there. "Star Muse" does have the slightly thick left lash line that many of these dolls got, but I don't think it's too bad. In the end I liked this doll more than I thought I would. Once I accepted the whole Xanadu roller derby concept, which was hard to do initially but I'm over it now.

Skates in motion

Poppy's shirt and shorteralls are not the quality you may be used to from IT, which is probably why she doesn't look so happy without her jacket on. Instead of hook and loop her whole back is Velcro, which is kind of strange to see on a Poppy, although there is precedent with "Ultraviolet" Poppy, who wore a Velcroed sweatshirt for some reason. I am not a proponent of the difficult to negotiate hook and loop closure, but I prefer it to Velcro for I admit mostly snobby reasons. Velcro feels cheap. It's totally out of scale on the dolls, and it wears ugly. Ok those reasons are actually pretty valid now that I see them written down. But on the pro side, I have to say my favorite article of clothing here is this Poppy's socks. That may be because when I was a kid, I wore them myself. I have class pictures from the 80's in which all the kids are lined up with these socks on and we were undeniably adorable. I still think they are. They may actually be my new strategy to eliminate shaving next summer now that I see how cute they look on Poppy...

"People are always copying me."

While I realize it may have just literally been MY Poppy with the misshapen head and tired old Poppy face, this doll is likeable but she's not one of the greats in my opinion, they can't all be. She's tired and let's face it Poppy's too old by the time roller disco comes around. She's supposed to be a teen model in the 60's, and this fashion is early 80's to me. It's not that I mind them moving Poppy around in time that much, it's just that Integrity Toys has so many characters to play with, did it have to choose Poppy for this mission too? That thought occurred to me at first but then I realized, Poppy is IT's biggest seller. She's the one with substantial mainstream appeal. Everyone wants to see her interpreted every which way, so, of course she's the one who gets the roller derby doll, should there need to be one. And whether there really needs to be a pastel Velcro roller derby doll or not is a question I'll leave to your discretion, reader...