Last week I wrote about Cheesy Knockoffs, and I mentioned that last year I wrote about the Midnight Magic line of fashion dolls as a knockoff of Mattel’s ultra-successful Monster High fashion doll line.
The Walgreens outfits
As is sometimes the case, a knockoff has become a fairly high-quality success in its own right. This year Midnight Magic has expanded with eight new designs for its core line of four dolls, and four new dolls at a higher price with more elaborate designs and packaging. There’s even a dress-up kit for young girls.
The Family Dollar outfits
They’ve managed to do this while keeping the prices low, and the quality high. Brand-name imitations of Monster High like Bratzillas and Novi Stars have fizzled at retail, but Midnight Magic, with a presence in discount stores and Walgreens, seems to have thrived.
Two of the new Ten-dollar ‘Pets Collection”
This year we noticed that the dolls at Family Dollar had new outfits. Later we discovered that the four main dolls at Walgreens had four new different outfits. A week or so after that, we checked out the new Family Dollar on the West Side and discovered four all-new characters in more elaborate packages, with translucent, glitter-filled skin, all for a still-low ten bucks.
Makayla, from the new series
Makayla’s cat
If you remember from last year, the Midnight Magic girls are four high-school students who sneak into school one night and drink a special potion concocted by their Science Teacher. This changes the color of their skin and makes them able to stay up and party all night before changing back to normal at 6 PM.
Later, their Science Teacher changed his name to “Heisenberg” and went on to other ventures.
The story, so far
The four new girls were invited to join in the fun by the original four Midnight Magic girls, but they messed up the formula a bit, and the new girls have glowing glitter skin. They still change their name from something normal to something pretty much equally normal when they become “Midnight Magic.”
The new dolls make up the “Pet Collection,” and each one comes with a little plastic animal along with a brush and a barret. Alexis has reddish pink skin and comes with an owl. Makayla has dark purple skin and comes with an orange cat. Selina has green skin and comes with a purple cat. Brianna has clear skin with blue highlights and comes with a pug. All the girls also have glitter molded into their skin.
Brianna’s visible leg joints
Brianna is of interest because with her you can best see how the joints work on these dolls. They are partly compatible with Monster High dolls, and a lot of collectors are using these girls as the base for custom projects, but they do not have the detachable limbs that the Monster High dolls have, and that can make dressing them difficult because their fingers tend to be spread out.
…and her visible elbow joint
For a low-end line of fashion dolls, Midnight Magic stands out with a fairly high quality and a pretty active Facebook page. They still have their own website, but it hasn’t been updated much lately. Midnight Magic has made the leap from Cheesy Knockoff status to become a cult collectors item. These might be a great gift for a little girl who sort of likes Monster High, but wants to be a non-conformist.
Brianna and Frank, her pug
A full shot of Brianna
Each box tells about the Midnight Magic girl and her pet
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