Palitoy’s Action Girl was the UK’s version of Uneeda’s Dollikin
Dollikin was first produced in 1969 by the Uneeda Doll company in America and was released by Palitoy in 1971 as Action Girl here in the UK. Action Girl was in production right up to 1977 and one can only presume that the line was dropped to make way for the new Star Wars range.
Both Dollikin and Action Girl use the same body and head moulds. Their bodies are made from a hard plastic with joints at the elbows, wrists, knees and ankles, the arms, legs, head and waist are held together by elastic, giving the dolls a decent range of articulation.
There is very little difference between Palitoy’s “Action Girl” and the American “Dollikins”. Both dolls shared the same outfits and had the same manufacturers markings. The only real difference between the dolls are their hairstyles, face paint and eyes.
The bodies on both dolls are marked: DOLLIKIN ® U.S. PAT 3010253 OTHER U.S & FOR PAT. PEND. and the heads are marked UNEEDA DOLL CO. INC MCMLXIX MADE IN HONG KONG.
The best way to tell the dolls apart is by looking at the eyes. The Dollikin has dark blue, forward looking eyes with three small painted lashes, while Action Girl has paler blue side glancing eyes with no lashes.
Action Girl came with a tag-line on her box reading “She Moves in Such An Exciting World” and came complete with her own miniature, black-and-white adventure comics. she had five different hair colours: redhead, dark brunette, light brunette, platinum blonde and gold-streaked blonde
Both the Action Girl and Dollikin Dolls were held together with Elastic straps and hooks very similar to the way that the Action Man and GI Joe were strung.
OUTFITS & PLAYSETS REFERENCE LIBRARY
A lot of Action Girl’s outfits were reminiscent of the fashions worn by Mrs Emma Peel (played by Diana Rigg) in the 1961 TV series “The Avengers”.
The Horse in Palitoy’s Pony Rider Playset is the same Horse used by Action Man
The Space Rover Outfit and Playset is quite rare and very much sought after by collectors
Some of the Stock Outfits that came on many of the Action Girl dolls
