Dolly Review: Monster High Zomby Gaga

Zomby Gaga, made in collaboration with Lady Gaga’s Born This Way foundation and Mattel, is a pretty cool looking Monster High doll. She’s probably one of the last interesting and articulated Monster High’s we’ll see, in my opinion. Since the reboot (and even before the reboot), there haven’t been many thrilling Monster High releases. Some Electrified dolls look promising, but the excitement that I felt when shopping for, say, the original Dawn of the Dance wave, just isn’t there.

There’s a good chance that if you collect Monster High, you pre-ordered your Zomby Gaga ages ago and even got her open and out of the box already. My doll arrived a few weeks ago. I give Mattel kudo’s on her packaging. The doll is packaged in a cool triangular box. Her accessories are hidden on the bottom of the box. Zomby Gaga comes with a stand and extra outfit. Her stand is pretty horrible. It’s one of those poorly made stands that just doesn’t want to stay together.

The extra outfit, a shirt dress and fishnets, is cute. However, it’s very short. It’s more shirt than dress. A little extra length would have made this extra outfit perfect.

While Zomby Gaga is articulated, she has some major body issues. Similar to what others have experienced, my Zomby Gaga’s left elbow doesn’t work. When you try to bend it, the elbow joint pops out of the arm. Her outfit’s tight sleeves also hinder the shoulder joints from moving well. I’m disappointed in the poor construction of her arm joints. Mattel has been making articulated bodies for a while now and for such a huge tie-in release, they should have made sure they were putting the best product in consumers hands.

The suit she wears in the box is stylish, even though it hinders her movement a bit. I think the collar should have been lowered a bit, as to not hide the small neck detail painted on the doll, but besides that, the look is pretty neat. I love the flair pants. And her shoes? They’re awesome.

Zomby Gaga has long hair that is styled in a high ponytail. I like the combination of light pink and grey hair they used. It works really well with her zombie/skeleton like skin tone. Unfortunately, her hair has a tendency to fall out, at least on my doll.

What makes this doll super cool is her face design. The details are on par with early Monster High dolls. It has depth and dimension to it, like Monster High faces should. You can tell this doll was designed before the ‘sugary sweet’ reboot was really put into play. Zomby Gaga’s eyes aren’t the cutesy anime kind that the new dolls are getting. There’s something alien about them, again, much like early Monster High dolls.

Another nice touch are her hands, which say Lady Gaga (one word on each hand). Small details like that are getting rarer and rarer in the Monster High series. The bubble gum is a nice accessory, too.

Overall, I’m happy they made Zomby Gaga. It was nice seeing some excitement around the line again. However, they did a huge disservice to the doll by giving her a wonky body and weak hair. But, if you’re a fan of Lady Gaga or the golden age of Monster High, you may want to add one of these to your collection. What do you think of Zomby Gaga? Did your doll come with a bad elbow? Let me know in the comment area!