How Monster High’s Monster Died: A Redux

The original Monster High was, safe to say, a revolutionary doll line and one that is unmatched by its grandness even today, but, everything must come to an end, and so did Monster High, which was quietly canceled in 2016 following declining sales and general fatigue. Promptly, two years later, Mattel rebooted the series, creating an horrific monster of what was once a beloved doll line. 

The Backstory

For a long time, Mattel held the exclusive rights to create Disney princess dolls and doll sets. It was a long-standing, 20 year partnership between Disney and Mattel, which had been mutually beneficial. This was until Mattel released their series of dolls, Ever After High. Ever After High was essentially Monster High, but with fairytales and classism, though that is a story for another time. The important thing to note was that it came out in October 2013 while Disney’s Descendants doll line was released in 2015—created by Hasbro. Both stories were actually in development at the same time, and it is highly speculated that either Disney copied Mattel or vice versa. The main issue was that Mattel was obviously more concerned with their own projects to even consider how it may compete with Disney’s own princesses.

Mattel had notably been neglecting the original Disney Princesses, which could visibly be seen by just looking at them. This 2012 Aurora, for example, has a cheap and, frankly, ugly skirt with a molded swimsuit bodice in comparison to this 2009 Aurora, which has a full cloth dress and nicely detailed accessories. These both even belonged to the Sparkling Princess doll line and both demonstrate a depletion of care. This would lead to the announcement in 2014 that Disney was leaving Mattel for Hasbro starting in 2016, according to this CNN article, which would obviously put a large dent into Mattel’s profits. This, along with the dwindling sales of both Barbie and Monster High, along with the failure of Ever After High, left the company scrambling to figure out how to fill in the Princess Disney shaped hole that Disney was planning to leave behind. 

I wonder which beloved tween, edgy doll line, that was quietly canceled in 2014, they’re going to fill it with? 

How Do You Boo?

The second generation changed nearly everything dear and important about the Monster High brand. From the style, to the sculpts, the lore, the main characters, and even the beloved tagline. No longer was freaky fabulous, rather, you were met with the meaningless question, “How do you Boo?”

“Freaky Just Got Fabulous” was an amazing tagline because of its message; being different is cool and good. It was a message that appealed to tweens who were likely struggling with the want to fit in among their peers, encouraging them to be their own ‘freaky’ selves. “How do you Boo?” means nothing, sends no message, tells you nothing about the doll line and isn’t even a good joke. Yes, this new tagline was directed towards children, but even taglines for children tend to mean something and send a good message. Take Barbie’s famous tagline, “You can be anything!” as an example, which was also created by Mattel. It has a clear message easily understood by kids. “How do you Boo?” manages to fail in every aspect of a good tagline, an omen of what was to come.

A Change of Style

In an archived statement from Mattel, the company explained, “The brand will have a fresh new look with new contemporary colors and graphics whilst still incorporating the iconic signatures that make the brand unique and relatable to the core audience of 6-10 year olds.” The insanity of this is the shift in demographic. The first generation of Monster High was highly popular with  10-14 year olds, with a collector audience that was generally much older than that. While it’s not wrong to change the demographic that you target, it’s dangerous and threatens to destroy the fragile ecosystem that is your fandom. The dolls, generally, had a much more childish look, and not just their clothing and makeup, but also their sculpts—a specific mold of a doll—were softened. Comparing the original signature Frankie Stein and the second generation signature Frankie Stein, you can see that along with visibly brighter, less detailed clothes, bigger eyes and fuller cheeks. This is a clear form of just ‘baby-fying’, trying to turn these ghouls as approachable as possible, especially to parents, it actually failed to connect with the audience they were trying to market it to. The dolls themselves were also, frankly, cheap, lacking articulation in their limbs and features printed on fabric and patterns, which was actually something that the first generation generally tried to avoid, aside from their budget dolls. It was an insult to the legacy of Monster High, likely stemming from their declining profit margins. 

A New Story 

Along with the changes to the dolls themselves, there was a dramatic change in the story. Before, the lore was that Monster High had been a long established high school, with new student Frankie Stein getting to know some of her fellow students, going on fabulous adventures, and learning about Monster culture all the way through as seen in the Monster High movies, shows, and books. 

The Second Generation overhauled this with the Welcome to Monster High movie, where Draculaura and Frankie Stein create the school and welcome all sorts of Monsters to the school. They have to deal with typical school issues, like bullies, which is strange considering they’re in charge of the entire school. Can’t they just kick them out? Whatever the case, the new series was short lived, with only 21 episodes currently found on the Official Monster High YouTube channel while the original had over 180 episodes. 

The stories were quite similar to the original in the sense that they focused on episodic moments in the main characters' lives. The biggest compliment I can give to the show and movies of the Reboot was that the art felt better and more polished in my opinion, though that also took away part of the charm that the older movies and show held. It was clear there was at least some effort and, for the artists behind this movie, that is commendable. 

Ghoul-Bye

About 2 years after the initial release of the reboot, Monster High was quietly taken off shelves, quietly and without much chatter from the living corpse that was the Monster High fandom at the time. Another failed doll line for Mattel, and a spoiled legacy left for the fans to clean up with their own fanworks. 

It is a shame what became of the second generation of Monster High, especially the movies and shows that had great potential in their styles, but with the lack of effort and money put into the actual doll line, there was no way for it to survive in the harsh and competitive world of dolls.