SHINDANA'S DISCO JUANITA

Here's another of the Shindana Toy Company’s successful fashion dolls: - Disco Juanita from 1978, (the Latin sister to the African American Disco Wanda, whom I am still hunting for! Funny that the ‘Disco Wanda’ logo is on the front of Juanita’s box, but the product codes for both Disco Wanda and Disco Juanita are on either end of the box.) If you read my last post, you’ll know that the Shindana toy company operated from 1968 to 1983 in Los Angeles, and was a black owned and operated toy company that was a division of ‘Operation Bootstrap Inc.’ and was a trailblazer in mass producing ethnically accurate dolls. Mattel provided a lot of assistance when they started up, and you can especially see their input with this doll who is exactly the same size and shape as Barbie. The head sculpt and the body moulds used for her are very Mattel, (She even has the same bendable ‘click-click’ legs,) and she even came with the Mattel clear plastic ‘X’ stand that was a leftover from the previous Mod era. I love her effervescent smile! I have taken her out of the box for display, but I should dress her up in Barbie’s disco get-ups, shouldn’t I? ;) For more information on Shindana toys, check out the wonderful blog, Black Doll Collecting by Debbie Behan Garrett @blackdollcollecting.blogspot.com (Or copy and paste the link: blackdollcollecting.blogspot.com/2010/02/mibdh-shindana-s... ) and also the great DeeBeeGee’s Virtual Black Doll Museum at virtualblackdollmuseum.com/tag/shindana-dolls/

 

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