Golden Girl & The Guardians of the Gemstones
She loves…gold.
Ep. 207 is live!
Here we are again for another Odd & Obscure entry for February. This week's subject comes by way of one Allison Troy, The Retro Toy Princess! When Allison made her pick for Golden Girl it was as if a storage cabinet in my mind's eye had the doors ripped right off of it. Vague memories of these figures began to come into focus, and soon after I found myself going down a rabbit hole. Let's get into it, shall we? Now, this write up will likely be a little shorter, as there isn't much to this line...and that will be touched upon toward the end here. Golden Girl was an offering by Galoob in 1984, JUST behind She-Ra and The Princesses of Power from Mattel. This was a line of action/fashion dolls with "hair-play" as a feature that was primarily aimed at girls. You saw one wave of characters released, with supporting products, and the line went away by 1985. The line up saw Golden Girl leading Sapphire, Rubee, Onyx, Jade, and Prince Kroma against the dark forces of Dragon Queen, Vultura, Moth Lady, Wild One, and Ogra, leader of the barbarian forces. These figures of course had accessories such as the fashions subline that delivered 27 different outfits, Olympia the Unicorn and Shadow the stallion for Golden Girl and Dragon Queen respectively; each had the option of coming with a chariot. Additionally, there was a MOTU-esque playset called the Palace of the Gems, which is very difficult to find as the plastic became VERY brittle. Finally, four Dream Tents were released toward the end of the line's run. These tents could accommodate 2 figures, and with their release being toward the end of the line they tend to be a bit more expensive on the secondary market. The center piece, though, were the dolls themselves.
I will say, these figures had amazing box art, the overall designs were great, but the execution was lacking in one major regard. The head sculpts were just a bit too big for the bodies. If they were about 20% smaller, I think you'd have had some truly stellar figures. You naturally had a full court press of other branded products that included Coloforms, Halloween Costumes, Broche like pins, cups, kids' luggage, and even a board game. What is most notable for being absent though...was a cartoon or even a comic book to aid in connecting with the mythology of the line. In fact, the only way kids could really connect to the story was by way of the coloring story books.
Now, if one were to look on YouTube, you can find commercials for the line which did have some great animation. It does make one wonder if a cartoon had been discussed. This is sort of a money on the table situation because a cartoon was integral to the 80's marketing full court press. To quote the patron who picked this month's property, Miss Allison Troy, "It was bad-ass and needed a cartoon or comic book so us 80's babies could've attached to it more." She honestly couldn't be more right. Had there been a cartoon, I think we wouldn't have been covering this in the Odd & The Obscure Month. On that note, this will wrap things up for us here at Yesterdaze for the week, but join us next Monday as we will be getting grotesque with the history of Madballs. Meanwhile, outside of this episode, the only other person putting out new content regarding this property is Allison herself! Special thanks to Allison for providing images from the coloring story books, please check out her YouTube page. Allison is a creator as well, and makes long form videos/livestreams of coloring pages from vintage coloring books. She will also have shorter form videos showcasing a particular toy, and tremendous time lapse shorts. I find her channel incredibly relaxing and satisfying. Give her a like and follow, and tell her The Yesterdaze Crew sent you. Take care everyone, we'll see you next week!
