Welcome to the first installment of our newest segment on Twinsanity, Brain Candy. As Jason mentioned previously, Brain Candy is what Highly Opinionated has morphed into after a 2-year hibernation with nothing to rant about. These will be random, stream-of-consciousness musings about inconsequential pop-culture trivia that we have running through our heads; you get a glimpse of what runs through the recesses of our twisted creative minds. Enjoy.

Indigo is not only my current favorite color, but she’s also one of my favorite Color Kids from the Rainbow Brite franchise.

But I’ve always wondered: why is her name just Indigo?

The other 6 Color Kids each have cute, toyetic names which incorporate their respective colors: Red Butler, LaLa Orange, Canary Yellow, Patty O’Green, Buddy Blue, Shy Violet, but Indigo’s name is just her color. Why is Indigo the Jean Grey of the Color Kids?

Recently I came across something interesting (to me, anyway): in a Rainbow Brite coloring book, Indigo was listed as having the full name of Indigo Doll. So why wasn’t that moniker used full time? It works. Were the Powers That Be worried that calling her ‘Doll’ would be considered sexist? Throughout the 20’s through 40’s, ‘Doll’ was what guys called a pretty girl or an attractive young woman.

Not only does the title ‘Doll’ apply to her from an aesthetic standpoint…

…But in the 80’s, she was made into an actual doll. So why not call her Doll? From now on, as far as I’m concerned, her name is Indigo Doll. That’s what I’m calling her now, ’cause that’s her name. Her name shouldn’t just be her color; that’s lazy.

The following is Indigo’s character profile from Golden’s ‘Who’s Who in Rainbow Land’ coloring book.

Indigo (Doll-Ha!) is a very beautiful little girl who wants to be a famous actress. She is always “on stage,” so to speak, rehearsing and reciting lines from famous plays and making entrances wearing imaginative costumes. Though some may think she is over-dramatic and somewhat of a dreamer, she likes to think of herself as an artist with high aspirations. Indigo’s color represents drama and emotion. Her responsibility is for the indigo Sprites and for the colors they create.

-Now that sounds like a fun character–too bad we never got to see that in any of the TV shows, specials or movies. To be fair, most of the Color Kids were more or less fodder in the Rainbow Brite TV and movie adaptations, that Golden book gave us some interesting character traits and quirks which we typically only got fleeting glimpses of, if anything at all, such as LaLa Orange supposedly having a “giant crush” on Red Butler or how Canary Yellow was the Color Kid who got caught by Murky Dismal the most due to her extreme naivety. More’s the pity; I would’ve liked to have seen this version of Indigo in action. She sounded fun.

Indigo, along with all of the other Color Kids, recently appeared in the Rainbow Brite reboot from a year or so back which aired on Feel’n (now called Hallmark Movies Now). I have yet to see this reboot, so I don’t know whether or not we got to see any of this ‘drama queen who’s always on’ persona from Indigo there, but at least she was included.