Monster High

Monster High

Type	Fashion doll
Company	Mattel
Country	United States
Availability	2010–present
Slogan	Where Freaky just got fabulous.
Official website

Monster High is an American line of fashion dolls created by Garrett Sander with the illustrations done by Kelly Riley. They were officially released in July 2010 but made in 2008.

The characters are inspired by monster movies and horror fiction, distinguishing them from most fashion dolls. The characters are depicted as being either related to or as offspring of famous monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Mummy, Medusa, the The Creature from the Black Lagoon, zombies and the werewolf.

The Monster High franchise also includes other consumer products such as plush toys, stationery, bags, accessories, apparel and various toys and electronics. A live-action-musical 5-part pyschic around the world adventure Monster High movie is listed as in development with Universal Pictures.

Description

Monster High dolls from 2010

The dolls are 10.5 inches tall (11 inches for the male dolls) and have small heads, doe eyes, small noses and full lips. Their bodies are made from ABS plastic, while their heads are made from soft PVC. They have various skin tones (blue, green, pink, etc.) and each character has a green head mold. Their hair is made of saran or nylon fibers (though all of the male dolls have molded plastic hair, except Jackson Jekyll and Clawd Wolf). They also have articulated bodies and their forearms and hands are removable to make redressing easier.

Aside from physical attributes, the dolls are quite different in the characterization of their clothes. All of them have various attributes of the monsters they are related to (i.e. fangs, stitches, wolf ears, fins, bandages, etc.).

Website

The Monster High website went live on May 5, 2010. Visitors can access games, character bios and several downloads. The site also makes available online webisodes for Monster High. One new webisode was added each Friday from May 5 to July 30, 2010. After a nearly 3 month hiatus, the show returned with Freakout Friday uploaded on October 29. The webisodes can also be viewed on Monster High's YouTube channel.

A commercial for the website aired on national television on August 5, 2010 in the U.S..

A music video featuring the Monster High theme song for the webisodes is available on Youtube and for purchase on iTunes.

Season 1 (2010 - 2011)

Webisode #	Title	Release date
1	Jaundice Brothers	Wednesday, May 5, 2010
2	Talon Show	Wednesday, May 5, 2010
3	Fear Squad	Wednesday, May 5, 2010
4	Substitute Creature	Monday, May 10, 2010
5	Party Planners	Friday, May 14, 2010
6	Blue Lagoona	Friday, May 21, 2010
7	Copy Canine	Friday, May 28, 2010
8	The Hot Boy	Friday, June 4, 2010
9	Bad Scare Day	Friday, June 11, 2010
10	Photo Finish	Friday, June 18, 2010
11	Cyrano De Ghoulia	Thursday, June 24, 2010
12	A Bad Zituation	Friday, July 9, 2010
13	Clawditions	Friday, July 16, 2010
14	Freedom Fight	Friday, July 23, 2010
15	Totally Busted	Friday, July 30, 2010
16	Freakout Friday	Friday, October 29, 2010
17	Mad Science Fair	Thursday, November 4, 2010
18	Shock and Awesome	Thursday, November 11, 2010
19	The Good, the Bat, and the Fabulous	Monday, November 22, 2010
20	Rumor Run Wild	Wednesday, November 24, 2010
21	Fur Will Fly	Thursday, December 2, 2010
22	Horrorscope	Thursday, December 9, 2010
23	Idol Threat	Thursday, December 16, 2010
24	Hatch Me If You Can	Friday, December 17, 2010
25	Date of the Dead	Thursday, January 6, 2011
26	A Scare of a Dare	Thursday, January 13, 2011
27	Parent-Creature Conference	Thursday, January 20, 2011

Season 2 (2011 - 2012)

Webisode #	Title	Release date
1	Scream Building	Thursday, February 10, 2011
2	Why We Fright	Thursday, February 17, 2011
3	Fear-a-Mid Power	Thursday, February 24, 2011
4	Beast Friends	Thursday, March 3, 2011
5	Varsity Boos	Wednesday, March 9, 2011
6	Gloomsday	Thursday, March 17, 2011
7	Falling Spirits	Thursday, March 24, 2011
8	Fatal Error	Thursday, March 31, 2011
9	Screech to the Beach	Thursday, April 7, 2011
10	Witch Trials	Thursday, April 14, 2011
11	Don't Cheer the Reaper	Wednesday, April 20, 2011
12	Road to Monster Mashionals	Wednesday, April 20, 2011
13	Queen of the Scammed	Thursday, May 5, 2011
14	Frightday the 13th	Thursday, May 12, 2011
15	HooDoo You Like?	Thursday, May 19, 2011
16	Fear Pressure	Thursday, May 26, 2011
17	Fear The Book	Thursday, June 2, 2011
18	Desperate Hours	Thursday June 9, 2011
19	Miss Infearmation	Thursday June 16, 2011
20	Hyde and Shriek	Thursday June 23, 2011

Television special

'Monster High: New Ghoul @ School', a 30-minute Halloween special created by Wildbrain Entertainment, aired on Nickelodeon on October 31, 2010. For the special, Allison Iraheta performed 2 songs: "Scars" and "Friday I'll Be Over U". The special followed new student Frankie Stein's first week at Monster High, as she tries to fit in with the other students. Comcast's On Demand released the special before it aired on Nickelodeon.

Plot New Ghoul @ School begins with newly-created, 15-day-old Frankie learning about the real world from magazines, which tells her it is vital to make a good first impression during her first week at her new school. She spends the first day alone, and on the second day is derided by Cleo de Nile for being unpopular. She nearly makes friends with Cleo's assistant, Ghoulia Yelps, and develops a crush on Deuce Gorgon. During class, she becomes friends with Draculuara. In the hallway, Clawdeen Wolf saves them from a horde of zombies and meets Frankie in the girls' bathroom.

Frankie's magazines instruct her to join a club or school group to make new friends. Her efforts at joining the zombie-filled chess club fail because she doesn't know how to play, and she can't join the swim team because her neck bolts send electric shocks through the pool water. She decides to try community service, but inadvertently shocks Cleo de Nile, making her hair stand on end.

Frankie's new friends Clawdeen and Draculaura are on the Fearleading squad, run by Cleo de Nile. Frankie tries out, and although she is very skilled, the stitching on her leg comes undone and the leg falls into Ghoulia's milkshake, covering Cleo de Nile. Frankie runs crying into the pool room. She meets Lagoona Blue, who tells her to be herself. Frankie rejects her advice, believing that she needs to create a new persona in order to be popular.

Cleo agrees to re-interview Frankie for a spot on the Fearleading squad, and the two girls discuss musician Justin Biter; Frankie says that her father resurrected his career. Cleo asks Frankie if she has a boyfriend, and Frankie claims that she is dating Deuce, not knowing that he and Cleo are already together. Cleo becomes upset when she hears and runs out of the room. Everyone shuns Frankie.

The next day, she realizes that trying to fake her way through friendships was never going to work, and resolves to be herself from then on. In order to "stitch things up", she confesses to Cleo that she lied about Deuce being her boyfriend, and with help from Draculaura and Clawdeen, organizes a Justin Biter concert at the school. He dedicates a song to Cleo, and the girls all dance. Later, Cleo accepts Frankie's apology and invites her to be on the Fearleading squad in a probationary capacity. The girls all get onto the stage as Frankie describes not trying so hard, being yourself and letting things fall into place is what every new girl should do.

Books

The Monster High books are written by Lisi Harrison, who is known for writing the popular book series The Clique. The books take place in a different fictional universe than the webisodes and deal with the Regular Attribute Dodgers (RADs) and their struggles to find dates and not be outed as monsters to humans.

Mattel released the first Monster High novel on September 20, 2010. The next book, "The Ghoul Next Door", was released at the end of March and features chapters on Cleo de Nile. The third book is due in September 2011 and appears to feature chapters with Clawdeen. It's titled "Where There's a Wolf, There's a Way"

Characters

Further information: Characters of Monster High

The events of the webisodes are set in a high school called "Monster High" where the whole student body and staff is made up of ghouls and monsters from popular monster fiction. Most of the main characters are children of the famous Universal Monsters.

• Frankie Stein — daughter of Frankenstein. She is only 15 days old when she starts school, but seems to stay that age until specifically stated otherwise. Frankie has a pet puppy named Watzit, who has been stitched together like her with all the best bits of diffrent animals. She is voiced by Kate Higgins.

• Draculaura — daughter of Dracula. She is a vegan vampire, abstaining from any blood. She is hemophobic, being unable to even say the word "blood" without feeling faint. According to her biography, she is 1,599 years old. She has a pet male bat named Count Fabulous that Draculaura dresses up in pink and black clothing. Her father would like her to wear more black. Her style resembles the Japanese Lolita style. Draculaura likes to carry around a frilly black and pink umbrella because she likes to walk in the sun. In the books, she goes by a more normal name, Lala. She is voiced by Debi Derryberry.

• Clawdeen Wolf — daughter of The Werewolf. She has brown skin, visible wolf ears and protruding fangs. Clawdeen comes from a large family and is not entirely happy about it, but does love her family. She desires to run her own fashion design company. She has a pet cat named Crescent. She spells her name Claudine around normies in the books. She is voiced by Salli Saffioti.

• Lagoona Blue — daughter of the Sea Monster. However, she resembles the Creature from the Black Lagoon more. She has long, blond hair with blue streaks because of the chlorine in the swimming pool, and light blue skin. She also has several fins, webbed hands and webbed ears. Lagoona speaks with a Australian accent and is depicted as the tomboy and is obsessed with surfing. She has a pet piranha named Neptuna. She is known as Blue in the books. She is voiced by Laura Bailey.

• Cleo de Nile — the daughter of the Mummy. She's 5,842-year-old Egyptian princess. Cleo is an extreme perfectionist to the point where she drives everyone else around her ragged. She has olive skin wrapped with stray mummy bandages and frequently wears Ancient Egyptianian jewelry. She has a bejeweled cobra named Hissette. She can speak to snakes and manipulate them to do what she wants. Cleo's attitude in the first season is selfish and underhand, but in the second season she warms to the other girls on the fearleading squad, the previous personality appearing to transfer to Toralei. She is Deuce Gorgon's girlfriend. She is voiced by the same actress who voiced Clawdeen, Salli Saffioti.

• Deuce Gorgon — the son of Medusa. He has green snakes for hair styled into a mohawk which he calls a 'snakehawk'. Despite being a Gorgon, he has a charming face, peach skin and an athletic physique. Deuce always wears sunglasses, even indoors, to prevent his gaze turning others into stone. Unlike his mother, the petrification from him only lasts up to 24 hours. He has a two-tailed rat named Perseus. He is Cleo de Nile's boyfriend. He is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal.

• Ghoulia Yelps — the daughter of two zombies. She has light blue hair and pale gray skin, and wears horn-rimmed cat-eye glasses. Ghoulia considers herself extremely shy. She is the smartest 'ghoul' in school but she can only speak Zombie (basically, moans and groans). She has a blue, baby owl named Sir Hoots-A-Lot. She is voiced by one of the producers of the Monster High webisodes, Audu Paden.

• Jackson Jekyll — The only human character within the original doll franchise. The website lists him as Deuce Gorgon's best friend. According to Deuce's diary, they met when Deuce went to play "casketball" (monster basketball). Jackson had a short-lived relationship with Draculaura, who grew tired of Jackson not showing up to their dates at night. His alter ego is Holt Hyde, but is unaware of it. Jackson only shows up during the day. His doll box only refers that he is the son of Mrs. Jekyll. In his first webisode appearance "Fear Pressure", he is the cousin of Heath Burns and is the only normie at Monster High. He is constantly bullied by other students for being human. In the books, he and Melody are a couple and he becomes aware of 'DJ' (Holt). In the lost chapter in the first Monster High novel, it's revealed he probably helped Ghoulia in illustrating her Dead Fast fan comic. He is voiced by Cindy Robinson.

• Heath Burns — Heath was first seen as a background character in "Substitute Creature". He started out as being Draculaura's crush, but her infatuation soon ended. Heath has bumped up to being a regular character in the webisodes. In "Fear Pressure", he mentions that Jackson is his normie cousin. In the first novel, Heath appears to be a normie (human). In Book 2 "The Ghoul Next Door", it is revealed that this Heath is a RAD as he sneezes fire. This ability he said appeared when he turned 15 and is still developing as it first started as gassy outbursts. In season 1, Heath was voiced by Yuri Lowenthal, but as of Season 2, he is voiced by Cam Clarke. He has been trademarked for a doll.[1]

• Spectra Vondergeist— The daughter of a Ghost. She can float through walls and has an "uncanny" ability to hear school gossip. Spectra loves to be free and unbound to normal conventions. She prides herself on being sweet, like her favorite food Angel Food Cake, and getting the truth out to everyone about the ins and outs of Monster High. She writes the column "Oh My Oracle" for her school newspaper, but anonymously so her name won't be attached to bad advice. Spectra believes she comes from a highly noble family, until Ghoulia shows her a newspaper on "The Real Vondergeists" and promises to keep her secret. What Spectra's family did in the previous life is unknown, but the memory breaks her heart. Her first webisode mention/appearance is in "Miss Infearmation" known only as "The Ghostly Gossip". In the Fearbook, she is voted as "Most Likely to Star in a Reality TV Show." Her pet is a ghostly ferret named Rhuen. She is voiced by Erin Fitzgerald.

• Abbey Bominable — The daughter of the The Yeti. She is an exchange student from up north. Frankie mentions meeting Abbey in her newest diary, helping Abbey in the creepateria. Abbey's native language is Yetish and can understand most of English, but has a hard time with the slang. The Fearbook lists her as captain of the snowboarding team. Her pet is a a baby woolly mammoth whose name is Shiver. She is voiced by Erin Fitzgerald.

• Operetta — Operetta is the daughter of The Phantom Of The Opera. She was mentioned in Holt's journal, when he went on a date with her. Holt mentions she is a diva, but loves her singing voice. On her and Holt's date, mentioned in Holt's diary, he takes her to one of his favorite band concerts, but then a gargoyle bumps into her and Holt gets them kicked out because he was yelling at the gargoyle. She then feels embarassed about the whole thing and asks Holt to take her home. She and Holt have not been in contact since. Operetta is mentioned again in the newest wave's diaries. Deuce came to Operetta so she could help him record a song he wrote for Cleo. Spectra overhears a small part of their conversation and runs wild with it across the school. She does not appear in any of the webisodes and on the Monster High site. Mattel has owned the trademark for the name "Operetta" since 2007[2] but there is no evidence yet that an Operetta doll will be produced.

• Clawd Wolf — Clawdeen's older brother. Clawd is frequently mentioned in the diaries that come with the dolls and made his first webisode appearance in "Fur Will Fly". According to Ghoulia's diary, Clawd dated Cleo up until the day before she started dating Deuce. Clawd is the BMOC (Big Monster on Campus) and plays on the casketball team with Deuce. His doll's diary ends with Draculaura giving him a kiss, but his feelings for her are currently unknown. In season 2 of the webisodes, Draculaura has developed a crush on him. At first he thought of her as a friend, but they've started dating. He is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal in season one. However, Ogie Banks voices him in season 2. He owns a pet gargoyle bulldog, named Rockseena. In the Monster High books, his normie name is Claude.

• 'Sloe-Moe — Sloe-Moe occasionally shows up in webisodes and his first appearance was "Cyrano De Ghoulia" as Ghoulia's crush. Sloe-Moe, just like Ghoulia, can only speak in moans the zombie "language" in-universe. Sloe-Moe is often around without Ghoulia and is a member of the chess team, pretty much an exclusively zombie club.

• Gillington "Gil" Webber - Lagoona's friend and crush. He was first introduced in the webisode "Blue Lagoona" and has made reoccurring appearances. Gil is one of the top members on the swim team. When on land, Gil has to wear a tank full of water over his head. "Hatch Me If You Can" and throughout Gloom Beach does show he can be on land for a short period of time without it. Gil likes Lagoona back, however, his parents do not want him to hang out with her because she is saltwater, while he is freshwater. His full name was revealed on Trademarkia.com.[3] He is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal.

• Toralei Stripe — Toralei is an orange Werecat who was introduced in the webisode Scream Building along with two werecats, whose names are revealed in the newest diaries to be Purrsephone[4] and Meowlody. She was a fearleader until she and the rest of the fearleaders, besides Frankie, quit tired of Cleo's perfectionism. She later tries to rejoin, but is rejected. Toralei is now the Fearbook editor and is using this status to ruin Cleo and her friends' lives. Toralei is self-centered and will do whatever it takes to be number one, even underhand motives. Cleo's recent diary reveals that Toralei and the Werecat Sisters are on the squad because of Nefera, Cleo's older sister who graduated, and apparently keep in touch. She has been trademarked for a doll.[5] She is voiced by America Young

• Nefera de Nile - Nefera is Cleo's older sister. Nefera is first mentioned in Clawd's diary and her first webisode mention is in "Miss Infearmation", but makes an onscreen appearance in "Hyde and Shriek". Nefera was the previous Fearleading captain prior to her graduating and is the one who placed Toralei, Purrsephone, and Meowlody on the squad and insists Cleo keeps them on. Nefera has also gained a modelling career after high school to the chagrin of Cleo. Cleo feels insecure whenever compared to Nefera. Nefera has been recently trademarked for a doll.[6] She is voiced by Wendee Lee.

• Manny Taur - Son of the Minotaur. Manny has appeared in the background of many Monster High webisodes in season 2, but doesn't come in the foreground until "Miss Infearmation". Not much is known of him, but he is seen picking on Jackson and does not like to be referred to as a "bull". He has a sister named Minnie, whom he might fear because in the episode "Miss Infearmation", he's picking on Jackson when Frankie comes defending Jackson and yells at Manny, threating to tell his sister if he doesn't stop. He then pleads to Frankie not to tell his sister. He has been trademarked for a doll before his webisode appearances.[7]

References

Spectra Vondergeist-She is a confirmed character;on the Monster high website.

External links

• The Official Monster High Website
• Best Monster High reviews ever.
• Monster High doll series.
• Monster High Wiki on Wikia.
• http://monsterhigh.com/bios/abbey
• http://monsterhigh.com/bios/spectra