Happy Birthday Barbie!

OK – I know what you’re thinking. I have lost my mind. What in the world am I doing blogging about Barbie? I used to rip the heads off of my sister’s Barbie dolls. I much preferred sports and Legos to stupid dolls in pink dresses with matching accessories. So why on earth am I congratulating Barbie on her 47^th birthday?

OK – I know what you’re thinking. I have lost my mind. What in the world am I doing blogging about Barbie? I used to rip the heads off of my sister’s Barbie dolls. I much preferred sports and Legos to stupid dolls in pink dresses with matching accessories. So why on earth am I congratulating Barbie on her 47^th birthday?

Many of you know by now that Barbie is the hottest selling toy of all time, but Barbie almost didn’t make it into production. Long before Barbie was invented in 1959, little girls played with paper dolls – little cardboard cutouts with paper outfits. One such fan of these paper dolls was a little girl named Barbara. While watching her daughter play one day, Barbara’s mother, Ruth Handler, got an idea to create a plastic three-dimensional doll. She pitched the idea to her husband, a plastics entrepreneur, who initially turned her idea down, thinking the doll would never sell. Eventually, Ruth persuaded her husband to produce the doll and three years later, Barbie was born.

On March 9, 1959, Barbie made her public debut. Priced at $3.00, 351,000 dolls were sold the first year of production. Barbie has been the reigning Queen of the toy kingdom ever since. By 1960, Mattel was on their way to becoming a Fortune 500 company. Later, Ruth Handler paid $500,000 to become the sole sponsor of the Mickey Mouse Club — the value of the entire Mattel Company. The venture paid off and she was the first person to successfully market toys directly to children instead of their parents. (Tip for the fellows: Listen to your wives!)

Today, Barbie is still the most popular toy among girls. My two girls have a combined total of over 60 Barbie dolls and they still ask for more (spoiled – I know). There have been many faces of Barbie and though I never cared for dolls, I do salute Mattel for keeping Barbie in a positive light through all her metamorphisms. I especially like the many careers of Barbie – she has had over 80 – including a doctor, a pilot, an astronaut and my personal favorite – a rock star. I also like Olympic Barbie, Military Barbie and Barbie Goes To College. Also, her movies use strong characters that work to find solutions to their problems and never give up. So I guess Barbie’s not that bad after all. I suppose I owe my sister a Barbie or two. Hey Ericka – how about Veterinarian or Animal Rights Barbie?

Incidentally, Ruth Handler also invented a prosthetic breast called ‘Nearly Me’ in 1975 after a mastectomy left her searching for “replacement parts” and finding the current selection to be less than desirable.

Side Note: Ironically, this whole article reminds me of a Superchic[k] song called “TV Land” where they sing “Barbie’s not a role-model. She’s only make-believe. I wanna know how to live in the real world. I wanna know.” – but that’s another topic.

Nifty Barbie Trivia:

• Placed head to toe, Barbie dolls and family members sold since 1959 would circle the earth more than seven times.
• Barbie’s first career was a teenage fashion model.
• Barbie has represented 45 different nationalities.
• The military series of Barbie dolls, Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps went through approvals by the Pentagon to ensure the most realistic costumes.
• Every second, two Barbie dolls are sold somewhere in the world. (Can you say Cha-ching?)
• Barbie has had over 43 pets including 21 dogs, 12 horses, 3 ponies, 6 cats, a parrot, a chimpanzee, a panda, a lion cub, a giraffe and a zebra.
• The best selling Barbie ever was Totally Hair Barbie, with hair from the top of her head to her toes. (That just sounds scary!)
• Doll collecting is second only to stamp collecting as the most popular collecting hobby in America — Barbie is collected by women, men and children around the world.
• More than 105 million yards of fabric have gone into making Barbie and her friends’ fashions, making Mattel one the largest apparel manufacturers in the world.
• Barbie has had more than a billion pair of shoes and over one hundred new additions to her wardrobe annually. (Most of them are in my vacuum.)
• Barbie’s signature color is Barbie pink – go figure.