Barbiedoll™

 

Barbie™

 

Barbie™ is a best-selling doll launched at the American International Toy Fair on March 9, 1959. The doll is produced by Mattel, Inc. She took the world by storm, surprising skeptical toy critics at New York’s Toy Fair. With her good looks, charm, and charisma, she won audiences over in record time. Soon, little girls across America, and later, the world, were singing her praises. In the coming years, both adults and children would collect her in record numbers. Today she remains one of the hottest selling toys in the world.

 

  

 

The original 1959 Barbie™

She’s a successful businesswoman, a member of a rock band and a Women’s World Cup Soccer player. Who is this superstar? It’s none other than Barbie® doll. Commemorating her 50th anniversary in March 09, 2009. Barbie doll is further expanding her versatile and limitless roles to inspire girls’ dreams as she prepares for the future.  

General Knowledge

Ruth Handlerwatched her daughter Barbara at play with paper dolls, and noticed that she often enjoyed giving them adult roles. At the time, most children’s toy dolls were representations of infants. Realizing that there could be a gap in the market, she suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, Mattel toy company. He was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattel’s directors.

 

           

During a trip to Germany in 1956 with her children Barbara and Kenneth, Ruth Handler discovered a German doll called the Bild Lilli dollin a shop window.

The adult-figured Lilli doll was exactly what Handler had in mind, so she purchased three of them. She gave one to her daughter and took the others back to Mattel. The Lilli doll was based on a popular character appearing in a comic strip drawn by Reinhard Beuthin for the newspaper Die Bild-Zeitun.

Lilli was a working girl who knew what she wanted and was not above using men to get it. The Lilli doll was first sold in Germany in 1955, and although it was initially sold to adults, it became popular with children who enjoyed dressing her up in outfits that were available separately. On her return to theUnited States, Handler reworked the design of the doll (with help from engineer Jack Ryan) and the doll was given a new name, Barbie™, after Handler’s daughter Barbara. The doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair New York on March 9, 1959. This date is also used as Barbie’s™ official birthday. Mattel acquired the rights to the Bild Lilli doll in 1964 and production of Lilli was stopped. The first BarbieTM doll wore a black and white zebra striped swimsuit and signature topknot ponytail, and was available as either a blonde or brunette. The doll was marketed as a “Teen-age Fashion Model”, with her clothes created by Mattel fashion designer Charlotte Johnson. Around 350,000 BarbieTM dolls were sold during the first year of production. Barbie’s™ appearance has been changed many times, most notably in 1971 when the doll’s eyes were adjusted to look forwards rather than sideways. Barbie® was one of the first toys to have a marketing strategy based extensively on televistion advertising,

 

 

 

which has been widely copied by other toys. It is estimated that over a billion Barbie™ dolls have been sold worldwide in over 150 countries, with Mattel claiming that three Barbie™ dolls are sold every second.

Barbie™ products include not only the range of dolls with their clothes and accessories, but also a huge range of Barbie™ branded goods such as books, fashion items and video games.

                                      

Barbie® has appeared in a series of animated films and makes a brief guest appearance in the 1999 film Toy Story 2. 

                                       

Almost uniquely for a toy fashion doll, Barbie® has become a cultural icon and has been given honors that are rare in the toy world. In 1974 a section of Times Square in New York Cittywas renamed Barbie® Boulevard for a week, while in 1985 the artist Andy Warhol created a painting of Barbie®.

Biography

Barbara Millicent Roberts

Barbie’s ™ full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. According to the Randdom House novels of the 1960s, her parents’ names are George and Margaret Roberts of Willows, Wisconsin. Barbie has been said to attend Willows High School in Willows, Wisconsin and Manhattan International High School in Nework City, (based on the real-life Stuyvesant Hohg School). Barbie™ has an on-off romantic relationship with her beau Ken™(Ken Carson), who appeared in 1961. Like Barbie™, Ken™ shares his name with one of Ruth Handler’s children. Mattel announced in February 2004 that Barbie® and Ken® had split up, but in  2011 they were back together again.

Barbie™ has had over forty pets including cats and dogs, horses, a panda, a lion cub, and a zebra. She has owned pink conver tibles, trailers, jeeps and more. She also holds a pilot’s  license, and operates commercial airliners in addition to serving as a flight attendant. She has been, among many others, a veterinarian, an astronaut and adiplomat. Barbie’s® careers are designed to show that women can take on a variety of roles in life.

Mattel has created a range of companions for Barbie™, including Hipanic Teresa™, African American Christie™ and Steven™ (Christie’s boyfriend). For more details, see the List of Barbie’s friends and family1  List of Barbie’s friends and family2

Controversies

          

Barbie’s® poplarity ensures that her effect on the play of Western children attracts a high degree of scrutiny. The criticisms leveled at her are often based on the assumption that children consider Barbie® a role model and will attempt to emulate her.

• In September 2003 the Middle Estern country of Saudi Arabia outlawed the sale of Barbie® dolls, saying that she did not conform to the ideals of Islam.
• The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and prevention of Virtue and Prevention of Vice stated “Jewish Barbie® dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures, accessories and tools are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let us beware of her dangers and be careful.”In Middle Eastern countries there is an alternative doll called Fulla who is similar to Barbie® but is designed to be more acceptable to an Islamic market. Fulla is not made by the Mattel Corporation. In Iran, Sara and Dara Dolls are available as an alternative to Barbie®.  But they also sold in 2008 the Western Barbiecolection.
  April 28, 2008 A top Irarian judiciary official has warned against the “destructive” cultural and social consequences of importing Barbiedolls and other Western toys.

                                   

 

 Jan 16, 2012 – 11:05 AM ET  Iran is cracking down on sales of Barbie dolls, but will mass-produce model toys based on the RQ-170 Sentinel drone the country captured after it crashed within its borders.

 

• The word Barbie® has come to be used as a derogatory slang term for a girl or woman who is considered stupid, most famously in the song Barbie® Girl.  In 1992 Mattel released Teen Talk Barbie®,which spoke a number of phrases including “Will we ever have enough clothes?”, “I love shopping!”, and “Wanna have a Pizza party?” Each doll was programmed to say four out of 270 possible phrases, so that no two dolls were likely to be the same. One of these 270 phrases was “Math class is tough!” Although only about 1.5% of all the dolls sold said the phrase, it caused a public outcry.

 

Barbie’s waist widens®

• One of the most common criticisms of Barbie®
   

  Barbie’s® is that she promotes an unrealistic idea of body image for a woman, leading to a risk that women who attempt to emulate her will become anorexic. Critics have argued that for a woman to have Barbie’s® body, she would need to be 7 feet 2 inches tall, weigh 115-130 pounds, have 30 to 36 inch hips, an 18 to 23 inch waist and a 38 to 48 inch bust. Additionally, she would lack the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for a woman to menstruate. In 1997 Barbie® was redesigned and given a wider waist, with Mattel saying that this would make the doll better suited to contemporary fashion designs. A standard Barbie® doll is 11.5 inches tall, giving a height of 5 feet 9 inches at 1/6 scale.

 

• “Colored Francie®” made her debut in 1967,
• and she is sometimes described as the first Afrian American Barbie® doll. However, she was produced using the existing molds for the Caucasian Francie® doll and lacked correct ethnic features other than a dark skin. The first African American doll in the Barbie® range is usually regarded as Christie™,
• who made her debut in 1968. Black Barbie™ and Hispanic Barbie™ were launched in 1980.
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• In 1976 Barbie was placed in the “Time Capsule” American Bicentennial to be opened in 2076.

• In 1997 Mattel joined forces with Nabisco to launch a cross-promotion of Barbie® with Oreo cookies. Oreo Fun Barbie® was marketed as someone with whom little girls could play after class and share “America’s favorite cookie.” As had become the custom, Mattel manufactured both a white and a black version. Critics argued that in theAfrican American community Oreo is a derogatory term for a person like the chocolate sandwich cookie itself, meaning that the person is black on the outside and white on the inside. The doll was unsuccessful and Mattel recalled the unsold stock, making it sought after by collectors.

 

• In May 1997 Mattel introduced , a doll in a pink wheelchair. Kjersti Johnson, a 17-year-old high school student in Tacoma, Washington with cerebral palsy, pointed out that the doll would not fit into the elevator of Barbie’s® $100 Dream House. Mattel announced that it would redesign the house in the future to accommodate the doll.

• In March 2000 stories appeared in the media claiming that the hard vinyl used in vintage Barbie® dolls could leak toxic chemicals, causing danger to children playing with them. The claim was rejected as false by technical experts. A modern Barbie® doll has a body made from ABS plastic, while the head is made from soft PVC.

• In December 2005 Dr. Agnes Nairn at the University of Bath in England published research suggesting that girls often go through a stage where they hate their Barbie® dolls and subject them to a range of punishments, including decapition and placing the doll in a microwave oven. Dr. Nairn said: “It’s as though disavowing Barbie® is a rite of passage and a rejection of their past.”

Parodies and lawsuits

 

 Barbie® has often been referenced in popular culture and is frequently the target of parody. Some of these occasions include:

• In 1997 The Danish pop-dance group Aqua released a song called “Barbie® Girl”. It contained lyrics such as “You can brush my hair / Undress me everywhere” and used graphics similar to the pink Barbie logo. Mattel argued that this constituted a trademark infringement and filed a defamation lawsuit against MCA Records on Setember 11, 1997. In July 2002, Judge Alex Kozinski ruled that the song was protected as a parody under the First Amendment to be the United States Constutition. 

                                 

          See the Videoclip from the song

  

• A commercial by automobile company NISSANfeaturing dolls similar to Barbie® and Ken® was the subject of another lawsuit in 1997. In the commercial, a female doll is lured into a car by a doll resembling GI Joe to the dismay of a Ken-like doll, accompanied by Van Halen’s version of the song “You Really Got Me”. According to the makers of the commercial, the dolls’ names were Roxanne, Nick and Tad. Mattel claimed that the commercial had done “irreparable damage” to its products, but lost the copyright infringement lawsuit.

                                  

•  Saturday Night Live aired a parody of Barbie® commercials featuring the fictional “Gangsta Bitch Barbie®” doll and a “Tupac Ken®” doll.

• The Tonight Show with Jay Lenodisplayed a fictional “Barbie® Crytal Meth”Crystal Metwhich mocked how Barbie® usually has a career that is “in keeping with the times or in this case, in keeping with society’s current problems.”

• Malibu Stacy® is a parody of Barbie® in the cartoon series The Simpsons. In the 1994 episode Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy Lisa is disgusted by the “sexist drivel spouted by Malibu Stacy®”, leading her to market an alternative “Lisa Lionheart”.

                                    

In 1999 Mattel sued the Utah artist Tom Forsythe over a series of photographs called Food Chain Barbie®, which included a photograph of a Barbie® doll in a “blender”. Mattel lost the lawsuit and was ordered to pay $1.8 million in costs to Mr. Forsythe.

• In November 2002 a New York judge refused an injunction against the Britsch-based artist Susanne Pitt, who had produced a doll calledDungeon Barbie® in bondageclothing. Judge Laura Taylor Swain stated: “To the court’s knowledge, there is no Mattel line of S&M Barbie®.”

Animated films starring Barbie
Barbie (film series)
Barbie and the Rockers: Out of this World (1987) – Barbie in the Nutcracker (2001) – Barbie as Rapunzel (2002) – Barbie of Swan Lake (2003) -Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper (2004) – Barbie: Fairytopia (2005) – Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus (2005) – My Scene Goes Hollywood (2005) – Barbie: Mermaidia (2006) – The Barbie Diaries (2006) -Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses (2006) – Barbie Fairytopia: Magic of the Rainbow (2007) – Barbie as the Island Princess (2007) – Barbie Mariposa (2008) – Barbie and the Diamond Castle (2008) – Barbie in a Christmas Carol (2008) – Barbie Fairytopia: Magical Twist of Time (2009) – Barbie as the Sleeping Beauty (2009) Barbie Thumbelina (2009)-Barbie and the Three Musketeers (2009) – Barbie in a Mermaid Tale (2010) – Barbie: A Fairy Secret (2011) – Barbie: Princess Charm School (2011) – Barbie A Perfect Christmas (2011) – Barbie in A Mermaid Tale 2 (2012) – Barbie: The Princess and The Popstar (2012) Supporting character: Toy Story 2 (1999) Minor role – My Scene: Jammin’ In Jamaica (2004) – My Scene: Masquerade Madness (2004) – My Scene Goes Hollywood (2005) – Sing Along with Barbie (2010) – Toy Story 3 (2010) Minor Role Other Movies: Barbie: A Camping We Will Go (Short Film) (2011)

 

Collecting

Mattel estimates that there are well over 100,000 avid Barbie® collectors. Ninety percent are women, at an average age of 40, purchasing more than twenty Barbie® dolls each year. Forty-five percent of them spend upwards of $1500 a year. Vintage Barbie® dolls from the early years are the most valuable at auction, and while the original Barbie® sold for $3.00 in 1959, a mint boxed Barbie from 1959 sold for $4,750.00 on EBAY.COM at October 24, 2007.

On September 26,2006, a Barbie® doll set a world record at auction of 9,000 pounds sterling (US $17,000) at Christie’s in London.

 The doll was a Barbie® in Midnight Red® from 1965 and was part of a private collection of 4,000 Barbie dolls being sold by two Dutch women, Ietje Raebel and her daughter Marina.

Ingrid de Graaf a Dutch Barbie Collector, Shows  at October, 2006 a small part of her 70s Barbiedoll Collection at a Fashion Doll Convention “BARBIE IN AMSTERDAM” in Holland. 

The biggest collection of Modern Barbie dolls in Bulgaria! The collector showing his new shelves 09.05.2012.

National Barbie Doll Collectors Convention 2010

Barbie doll fans and collectors from around the world are gathering at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel (USA) for the that runs through July 24. Rare Barbie dolls, like the “number one” made in 1959, can cost thousands of dollars.

In recent years Mattel has sold a wide range of Barbie® dolls aimed specifically at collectors, including Porcelain versions and depictions of Barbie® as a range of characters from television series such as The Munsters and Star Trek. There are also collector’s edition dolls depicting Barbie® dolls with a range of different ethnic identities. In 2004 Mattel introduced the Color Tier system for its collector’s edition Barbie® dolls, ranging through pink, silver, gold and platinum depending on how many of the dolls are produced.  

Barbie celebrates her 50th anniversary in 2009, and Mattel released a new reproduction of the original 1959 Barbie doll to mark the occasion

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2011, August – Barbie Collector Doll Designer Spotlight, Featuring Bill Greening

“I’m a collector designing for other collectors,” says Bill Greening, one of the principal designers for Barbie® Collector. His roots with the iconic doll run deep, as you’ll discover in this intimate profile.

Barbie® versus occasion

 

My Scene Barbie dolls are the subject of a lawsuit

 

In June 2001MGA Entertainment launched the Bratzrange of dolls, a move that would give Barbie® her first serious competition in the fashion doll market. In 2004 sales figures showed that Bratz dolls were outselling Barbie® dolls in the United Kingdom, although Mattel maintained that in terms of the number of dolls, clothes and accessories sold, Barbie® remained the leading brand. In 2005 figures showed that sales of Barbie® dolls had fallen by 30% in theUnited States, and by 18% worldwide, with much of the drop being attributed to the popularity of Bratz dolls. 

In April 2005, MGA Entertainment filed al awsuit against Mattel, claiming that the My Scene range of Barbie® dolls for 2005 had copied the look of Bratz dolls. The lawsuit is currently pending in the court system of California.  In December 2006, Mattel sued MGA Entertainment for $500 million, alleging that Bratz creator Carter Bryant was working for Mattel when he developed the idea for Bratz.On July 17, 2008, a federal jury agreed that the Bratz line was created by Carter Bryant while he was working for Mattel. The jury also ruled that MGA and its Chief Executive Officer Isaac Larian were liable for converting Mattel property for their own use and intentionally interfering with the contractual duties owed by Bryant to Mattel.On August 26, the jury found that Mattel would have to be paid $100 million in damages.

       

Mattel is also suing MGA Entertainment and Carter Bryant, a former doll designer for Mattel, claiming that company secrets were stolen by MGA. In December 2006 Mattel issued a lawsuit against MGA Entertainment and Carter Bryant, a former doll designer for Mattel, claiming that company secrets were stolen by MGA. In August 2008, Mattel was awarded an estimated $40 million in damages after a jury in Californiaagreed that Bryant had created most of the original drawings for the Bratz dolls while he was working for Mattel in 1999 and 2000.

On December 3, 2008, U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson banned MGA from selling Bratz. He allowed the company to continue selling the dolls until the winter holiday season ended.MGA is currently appealing against the court’s ruling.  In August 2009, MGA introduced a range of dolls calledMoxie Girlz, intended as a replacement for Bratz dolls.

Barbie® product recalls

On August 14, 2007 Mattel announced a recall of more than 9 million toys made in China due to safety concerns. This included 683,000 Barbie® and Tanner® playsets due to a possible choking hazard caused by loose magnets. The toy consisted of a Barbie® doll and her dog Tanner®.

On September 5, 2007, Mattel announced the recall of a range of Barbie® doll accessories due to the presence of high levels of lead  in the paint. The chairman and CEO of Mattel, Robert Eckert, made a statement in an online video about the recall and the media coverage that it had generated. Eckert is expected to visit China, where around 65 percent of Mattel’s toys are manufactured, to see that new guidelines on toy safety are being enforced.

 

Februari 16, 2010 

 KEN TRYS TO WIN BACK BARBIE!

Further developments keep coming in the countdown to Ken’s 50th anniversary! Mattel has developed a website where you can vote as to whether Barbie should take back Ken at BarbieandKen.com.  Articles from different sources say Ken is not holding back in his quest to woo Barbie back — by Valentine’s Day. Here’s the scoop. Don’t be surprised if you see billboards in New York and Los Angeles with Ken professing his renewed love for his ladydoll, declaring “Barbie, you are the only doll for me.” Even better, ” Barbie, we may be plastic but our love is real.” Ken and Barbie fans may also have picked up on the famous exes flirting on Facebook, or noted that Ken checked in on Foursquare at the famous Magnolia Bakery in New York to get special cupcakes for his favorite girl. Ken’s thinks he’s the ultimate boyfriend but Barbie fans will have to wait a few more weeks to find out if he succeeds in his quest. (DON’T click HERE if you want it to be a surprise).

 

After you vote, check out this awesome VIDEO advertising the site as Ken sets up his profile at Match.com.  Super amazing!!

2011 May  Yes! Barbie and Ken are Together Again!