In any case, I've reviewed a few different surprise babies over the years, including Zapf Jolly Dollies and the unrivaled Cabbage Patch Babyland Mini Kids--which are still probably my favorite surprise mini of all.

The Baby Born Surprise Mini Babies probably do the best in this department in my opinion, because I find all of the themes adorable. My favorites were the Baby Born and Skipper's Babysitter baby in great part because they're playscale and I'm not sure a baby doll that small can be a standalone collection or toy for very long unless it's the baby of other dolls in the toybox. The wings look very dramatic, but their velcro attachment isn't very strong, and they tend to look floppy. The most successful brand play concept of Zapf Creation AG is processes constantly and is enhanced by new, lovingly designed accessories. That feature was a surprise to me, but I don't think it counts as one of the official ten surprises.Both butterflies taste bad to predators, and so together they strengthen the connection between this particular pattern of orange and black and an icky taste--making predators more likely to stay away. Even for kids who don't have Barbies, there are a lot of other dolls who can adopt 1:6 babies like Marigold. His costume is ridiculously cute, and his head mold is more versatile than Apollo's since it doesn't have the antennae and crown attachments. It used to be relatively hard to find a surprise-themed toy, other than the smaller (inexpensive) blind box assortments.

I'm glad that I took a chance on a second character in this scale, because I think Chester is adorable. I don't think any of them will replace my favorite 2000s Barbie babies, but its nice to have cheaper and easier to find options. More than 24 million BABY born dolls have been sold all over the world since the market launch in 1991. The dolls have movable arms and legs and they come in a crib with a dinky soft blanket for snuggly snoozes! Brianna's clothing was accented with seafoam green, and all of the Creatable World kids have that color in their packaging.Even as an adult, I find myself walking through huge Christmas displays, wanting to unwrap all of the decorative presents just to be sure there's nothing inside. I'm a little worried that surprise themes are overused these days, but I can totally see why people put value on the mystery element.

I think Chester and Apollo would make great bath toys, with their ability to drink and pee, but little Chester was still leaking water out of his mouth when I took that picture, above, which was days after I'd fed him. My complaint about Gina is they molded her in a way that it looks like she needs a diaper change but you can't do anything because its painted on.

I've had quite a negative view on surprise toys lately, but the quality of some of the ones you've been reviewing have been a pleasant surprise (lol). A surprise toy with an option that's clearly better than the rest (maybe even advertised as such) is setting kids up for a *bad* surprise, which is the worst. But changing diapers is a big part of baby play for kids, and so I agree that Gina's molded diaper comes up short! But here I am sitting on my couch typing up a surprise review, which, if you'd asked me a year ago, is not something I ever thought would happen again.