How Barbie Doll Works

ten o'clock and ten thirty. That's right, Saturday night, January nineteenth. It's gonna be pretty neat. What are we doing? What are the people gonna see? Are they gonna see a game show, which we've been asked. Are they going to see a a reality show which we've been asked, No, Josh, They're seeing a scripted TV show that features the real us playing ourselves along with actors on a set that

we recreated of our office. It's basically an office comedy about our lives as podcasters, featuring the podcasting itself and real knowledge and factual stuff. So we think it's a good combination of fun and humor and facts and uh, we think you'll like it. Yeah, we hope you'll like it. Um that's January nineteenth, Saturday, ten pm. Uh the world premiere. And uh, don't forget to check out Idiot Abroad season

three absolutely premier before. Very funny show. And for those of you clamoring that you don't have TV or cable, you, if you have a computer device, can watch this on iTunes. Now you're going to be able to purchase these, I believe the day after each episode is released and go to iTunes, buy it for bucket and watch it on your laptop. Nice and Science Channel is so cool they're making the first episode available for free. Yeah, that's pretty awesome on iTunes, just to get your hooked. So we

appreciate the support. And now on with the episode, sir, Yes, hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant and that stuff. You should know. Two of us together, the anatomically Correct Doll Models version. I guess I called myself a doll model once in a while, a little perk, you know, very looking very kin like these days. Sure, um, hey man, not magic your akin, No, we'll get to that. Like shavedkin. UM. So, I know

you know this, but I'll tell you again. Back when I was a little pup, I had this series of books that were very, very significant in my life, the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. I would get one for Christmas every year and I would like go through it and first hour I had it and my legs would be numb in the bathroom. When you first got these, I think I started I was about twelve. I love that your parents knew that you were just a sponge for

information even at that age. Yeah, I don't remember how I first came about it, but like I think somebody got it for him and they were blown away at how much I liked that. Um And it really helped shape me in many many ways and the way I understand things, the way I look at things like this general knowledge. I've had some right, some wrong, but like it's been a big deal what you do in the

bathroom reading. UM. So, this this episode is kind of special to me because all this material we're doing, how Barbie Doll works, almost all the materials from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. They got in touch with us and gave us everything they have M Barbie, and we compiled it into this podcast, and we actually have a special guest later, the founder of the Bathroom Reader Institute, Gordon Jovna, is going to be joining us on this to talk about

Barbie two. Very excited and they're also kind enough to give us hats and I think shirts as well. Right, yeah, because they listened to us, and we found out they listened. I was like, you were kidding, Like the circle of life is complete, Like we hear from Mad Magazine, Archie comics, damn interesting, damn interesting? Have we heard from crack yet? No? We love them. They're They're the one people, the one people, the one group out there that I would like to

contact us. That's it, just the one, just them. And like, very man, I've been whole enough for Obama. I know he listens. Don't even pretend Obama, just send us an email. Well yeah, you know, I remember when they released what was the contents of his iPod one year and we were both like, oh my god, we on it. We're on it, like of course we're not on it now still alright? Um oh and before we get storry, I want to give a shout out to one of our

horror fiction contest entrants. Remember we said, if you publish something, let us know and we'll tell everybody. Um, Jay McMurray submitted his story The Mind Reader. It was very good. Yeah, that was a good one. And he's got it up on Amazon dot com and you can search um Jay McMurray, m C m U R R Y and the Mind Reader and it will bring it up for you. Um. He's self published. So it's pretty awesome. Awesome, So way

to go, Jay, thanks for letting us know. Uh so, Barbie, Yes, it all started with a lady named Ruth Marianna who eventually became Ruth Handler. She grew up but I guess kind of poor in Denver, Colorado. Uh yeah, Well her mom was ill, and I have the feeling that it was just her mom. Yeah, so she ended up having

to go live with her sister at a fairly young age. Yeah, and um, at a young age as well, met her husband, be Elliott, and they moved to California, as New Leo EDGs did in the nineteen thirties with you know, prosperous land out their opportunity and they had a very long lasting marriage and business partnership years for de great it is great. Um. Elliott turned out to have a knack for creating giftwear, specifically to start picture frames, wouldn't picture frames?

And Ruth turned out to have a knack for marketing and merchandizing them. That's right. And uh they together for Mattel, which sounds familiar, I imagine. Yeah, well with Harold Mattson. That's where the matt came from. Nice and the l was Elliott, very nice. That's nice. And uh they also had a couple of kids named Barbie and Kent. Yeah, there you have it. We should just end it right there the end. That's how Barbie works. That's pretty cool.

That was a nice little factoid. Well. I think one of the things that I think is interesting about Barbie is that the Barbie doll was directly inspired by Barbie handler Ruth's daughter, Um Barbie used to play with Barbie, the real girl used to play with dolls. She had like her little baby dolls, and she had, um, you know, little girl dolls or whatever, because that's all that was available.

But she also played with paper doll and these paper dolls were kind of fashion dolls, so they were older, mature women, and they had different outfits and apparently Barbie was just crazy for him. So Ruth went to her colleagues at Mattel and said, we need to come up with a three dimensional doll that you can change outfit. It's going to be a huge hit. And all of the male suits poop poo did it's a boo boo,

Sit down, get me some coffee, lady exactly. And UM she was like, all right, well fine, I'll see you all in Hell. Yeah. Well, they did poopoo it for a legitimate reason, though they said it was not possible to manufacture it. UM. I don't think it was just poopoo ing her idea, although there was probably some of that mixed in. UM. Luckily, Europe called and the handlers went on a European vacation and I think ninety six, and while they were in Looser in Switzerland, they were

in some toy shop. I guess that happened to be selling a German doll called the Lily Doll. And Lily was based on a UM I guess you could call it a body comic strip. And this doll that was based on the strip was meant for men as maybe the like as a host's gift for a stag party or something like that. I get the impression you got him in shops of ill repute at the time. Did you look up Lily looks like Barbie, it looks like Marlene Dietrich. That kind of ripped it off, although I

shouldn't say that because I might get sued. And we should also say, as you'll find out why in the Nazi distant future, that every time we say Barbie there is an implied registered trademark symbol following it. All rights to Mattel. We claim zero rights or copyrights on Barbie or her products. Right. So Lily was a prototype and um, you know, she was a grown up lady that you could change the clothes on. And she was like, you know what, this is what we've been wanting, this is

what I've been waiting for. It's possible to manufacture these, and I want to make Barbies at Mattel because a woman has choices. In the fact that you can change your clothes proves it, right. It took a little convincing, but she got Mattel. The other guys at Mattel on board. Yeah, they resisted because the of the large breasts on the doll. Yeah, they basically said, no, mom's gonna buy a doll with

breast for her daughter. Remember, there is nothing like this out there at the time, at least in America and even in Europe. The one doll that was like this that Barbie was based on was based on a sexy comic strip exactly, so it wasn't for little girls. So this is a really revolutionary idea for a handler would be like, no, no, Well they'll get past it, Like,

this is what we need to do. Got Mattel on board and debuted this thing at the Toy Fair in New York City in nineteen nine and a zebra stripe striped bathing suit. Yes, very alluring, I guess, and her eyes were cast to the side. She can never meet your gaze, which as a sidebar, no, like it will never meet your gaze. The only way for no, the only way for eyes in a painting or on a doll to meet you is for them to already be painted looking ahead. If they're painted looking to the side,

they'll never meet you. Well, unless you turn the doll to the sun. I'm telling you. You try you try it. You've told the story about the painting. Let's still disagree. So in the Shinto religion, um anything that has eyes, including a doll, can capture your spirit. So in Japan a lot of dolls are made with sideways looks so

you can't look them in the eye. And every year and you keep your spirit at the right at the Meiji Shrine in Japan, they have a doll burning celebration where they burned unused, an unwanted dolls so that they can't get anybody. That's an environmental nightmare. So Barbie debuts in nine right, yes, they she goes to Sears because they sold tons of Mattel products at the time. Sea said this thing is too sexy. No one's gonna buy them.

It's too sexy. So uh, Mattel turned out to be smarty Pants though, because five years later Barbie was a million dollar dollar I guess because of all the internet orders that they were getting, well the little kids. Finally some stores said yes, okay, we'll take them, and little Kids sold them. In that first year, Chuck, they sold three hundred and fifty thousand of these things, and they were selling them for three bucks apiece, which I looked

at three and two thousand eleven dollars. So there was a substantial amount of sales for the first year, so Rick Handler was proven right pretty much out of the gate. Yes, that is true. Um, the cool end of Ruth story actually not so cool because she died of cancer. But she um eventually got breast cancer, and when she was unable to find a breast prosthesis that she thought was was good enough, she said, you know what, I'm gonna make my own and I'm going to form a company

and I'm gonna call it Nearly Me. And they manufactured breasts prosthesises for cancer survivors. Pretty cool. She sadly lost her battle, but I think she was like in her late eighties or mid eighties, and even after the Handlers were basically forced out of Mattel after some questionable earnings reports in the late seventies early eighties, she's still regarded like this titan of the toy industry, legend of this woman who like helped build Mattel from scratch and like

made it what it is today. And I think Elliott just passed away last year. He lived into his nineties. So we have a few stats here, Uh, New Barbie All today sells approximately every three seconds. See just sold one another just sold one. Uh. It is a one point five billion dollar business for Mattel and the average girl from three to six has twelve of these. That is mind boggling. Number One Barbie from uh and called you about twenty seven grand these days, and uh what else?

The best selling Barbie of all time was the totally hair Barbie who had hair from head to toe. It strikes me as strange. That's the best selling Barbie of all time. I looked it up. It's it's for guys like us. You look at this thing and say, wow, what a redneck doll like? Has anyone been into the Crystal Gale look since with the seventies? But I think little girls uh enjoyed like styling the hair, all that hair and all the hair that you could do all

these interesting things with. So Barbie herself, if you want to know a little bit of a backstory, if anyone ever asks you, Barbie's full name, Barbie the doll, Yes, not the daughter. We're no longer talking about the doll. Now, we're talking about Barbie the doll in this weird fake history, and it's strange. It's a little weird. Yeah, that's why we went in and then we're coming back out for

a second. But Barbie's real name is Barbara Millicent Roberts apparently um, which is my aunt's name, not her middle name. But her name is Barbie Roberts Um. And she hails from not my aunt, but the Barbie doll hails from Willows, Wisconsin. Yeah. And she has friends, specifically and most notably Ken Shawn Carson, who was induced in nineteen sixty one. They're both pisces I guess, like me, I think so. And they're both

early March. Well I'm mid March. Another cut office sometime in March, though, so, but they were both born in March. We'll call him pisces um. And uh, Barbie has some relatives. Her best friend is Midge, by the way, who's been introduced a couple of times pregnant and really caused controversy both times. Yeah, one time with an actual baby in the belly that you could take out in the womb. Yeah. That it was. It's looked upon and Cracked Magazine as one of the horrific toys in history. I think it

was necessary and educational, Alright. What was surprising to me was that she was pregnant and it caused the second time it caused waves as recently. It's like two thousand two, two two or two thousand and six, it was fairly recent. It seems the world still has hang ups about pregnancy for some reason. Well, it's probably a single woman pregnancy, probably not just the fact that she was pregnant. I

don't think any has he prompts pregnancy. Um, you've also heard a skipper she uh was a sister she was the little Sister's debuted in nineteen. Then there's Stacy, Todd and Chelsea, who are named after the handler's grandchildren. Um, and then about Ken, he's gone through some transitions over the years. Is Malibu Kenna laid back dude, Magic Iran Kin who will talk about a little more in death shall we introduced in nineteen embraced by the gay community.

And um, have you seen pictures? Oh yeah, yeah, he's got a do you not look up your earring? Magic Kin? Not this personing? I did uh see through kind of a sheer purple tank mesh mesh and uh there's a matching purple jacket and a medallion. Doesn't he have like a risk like corsage or something too? I didn't see that part he looked like a gay raver. Yeah we can say that. I mean, like dead on a gay raver.

I don't want to into any rabs out there. And apparently the whole um this, the fact that the gay community bought a large portion of these things, was a big surprise to Mattel and they're like, wait, we didn't mean that. So they took it off the shelves. Well, they're pretty stupid, you know, registered trademark, registered trademark. They

were making big sales. Uh. There had long been joking whispers about Kin's sexuality in pop culture, so when they made this one, I think people thought, all right, they're finally giving us like the real Kin. And then for them to yanket back off the shelves, it's like come on, yeah, Well that's the kind of a thread you'll see throughout is that Mattel is very protective of Barbie's image and by proxy Kin's image as well. Um, and apparently they

don't think Ken's gay. Um. Kenn and Barbie broke up once, very famously in two thousand four. Yeah, and they got well after blaming the Australian surfer showed up. They just happened to break up then, but of course, like all noted lovers in history, they got back together in Valentine's on Valentine's State two thousand eleven. And apparently Barbie was even on match dot com for a little while, and Ken designed a cupcake for her at Magnolia Bakery and

posted billboards asking for Barbie's hand again and together. Of course, she's never been married again. They got back together in Valentine's State two thousand eleven. That's right. What about her jobs, Barbie's a fact totem. She has done a lot of things. Fashion model, astronaut, hundred and thirty careers totalners, been a cop, a paleontologist. McDonald's franchise e was she franchise z? Because I saw the one where she worked to the drive through?

It depends, Like if you really start thinking about Barbie, she owned the place, Okay, but that's a big difference, you know, of the image you're sending out, like is she a business owner or she's slinging fries. Well, she's also owned like tons of boutiques. Again, she owned that hot dog sand like pretty much everything she works at she's owned. I I that was the impression. I had race car driver, aerobics instructor. She owned aerobics right while she did it. She had a band, Barbie and the

Rockers that formed. That's right. I have not heard any songs, but I should go look that up. And then animals, she said, more than fifty pets, first of which was a horse named Dancer. She said, twenty one dogs, twelve horses, three ponies, six cats, a parrot, a champ papanda, a lion, cub, a giraffe, and a zebra. And that is it for

the fake history of Barbie. Because, um, if there's one thing about Barbie, it's that she collides with society, both in academic circles and pop culture like you said, and every aspect. Barbie has her her little plastic toes dipped in some part of our society at large for tiny

little plastic does um. And probably the group that she's run a foul of the most are feminists, right, Yeah, and uh, this article makes a great point, like feminism and Barberly Barbarie and Barbie co evolved right about the same time in the nineteen early nineteen sixties, is when these things were going on. Yeah, um, Barbie came out in nineteen fifty nine. Betty Friedan published The Feminist Mystique

in nineteen sixty three. Right, so there they're just right there, head to head, intertwined at each other's throats for pretty much the whole time. Yeah, because, um, a feminist will point out Barbie is, her figure is ridiculous, she's wealthy, she's vapid, she's materialistic. Girls shouldn't even be playing with this thing because it sends all the wrong messages, possibly dangerous messages. Um. And there are times when Mattel's kind of made the point for feminists or just any critic

of Barbie specifically ten Talk Barbie. Yeah, bad for them sometimes with the stuff because they've made some terrible mistakes a lot, I know, but you get I don't know. You just picture like an out of touch board room and they're trying to do the right thing and it just blows up in their face over and over. So, uh,

Team Talk Barbie. Yeah, they recorded Uh this Barbie could talk back to you thanks to a computer microchip, and it would say four phrases, and they had two hundred and seventy phrases total, and each doll got four at random I love shopping, Let's have a pizza party, or the one percent of dolls math class is tough, which is a pretty high percentage for just one thing. So like the worst thing that Team Talk Barbie could have

said ended up in the most dolls. Yeah. Uh and of course, um that perpetuated the girls are bad at math thing in the American Association of University Women said we don't like perpetuating these stereotypes. Mattel said, fine, you know what, We'll pull these and if you got one of these, uh I don't like math doll, you can send it in and get another one. But it was kind of too late, and then the best thing in

history happened. Yeah, the Barbie Liberation Organization uh struck. They bought hundreds of teen talk Barbies, and they also apparently bought hundreds of talking Duke G I Joe action figures and they switched the microchips out in them. So awesome, and then they took them back. Uh. So, a lot of little girls got barbies that said things like vengeance is Mine and a lot of little boys got G I. Joe's that said things like, let's plan our dream wedding.

That's pretty great. And there's actually a really excellent version of this saga that's told in a Simpsons episode Lisa versus Malibu. Stacey, Remember that got all this background based on Ruth Handler and Mattel Barbie and and this m Barbie Liberation organization. I'm glad you mentioned that that I've forgotten all about that. That's such a good Episode's a good one, Lisa, lion heart. So, uh, Mattel and Um and Ruth have always shot back or countered, maybe more politely.

They're not shrinking violence when you know the feminists are on them. No, they say, you know what, Barbie was created by women. Barbie has always had you know, jobs sometimes male traditional male jobs. Yeah, they say, she she she breaks the plastic ceiling. Yeah, like she was day night, day to night CEO Barbie, UM, Barbie for President, astronaut Barbie UM. And they basically said, you know what, she's

never been married, she never had kids. Barbie is a feminist, right, although I bet a lot of feminists would argue back, and they have been for years. Well yeah, but some feminists also actually grudgingly support Barbie as a champion of women's right. So there's this one article I read by by Deb Moore Hennicky. It's called rethinking Barbie. And she points out that quote Kendall's come in several outfits, but

really he's just there. If Barbie happens to want to go on a date, she does not stand around waiting for Ken to show up, or she needs someone to go shopping with her to help her pick up friends for that, And the next sentence she basically said, like she goes shopping with her friends, she basically does whatever she wants, you know. Um, so she's no, she's no

lackey for Ken. And they'll also point out that, you know what, before we came along, it was just like baby dolls, and all it said was here you can only be a mother to a child or have a little imaginary best friend, little girl doll. There were no adult dolls that had adult jobs and thinking like adult jobs. But know yeah, and even from the outset me um, Ruth Handler created Barbie with the idea that little girls could use this older doll to imagine themselves in their

life and maybe hopefully make a better path for themselves. Um, and that's kind of been a point of Barbie all along. And there's actually There's this one study out of Washington and Lee in two thousand ten that supported that that down that when the groups of little girls were showing a Barbie doll getting into, um, the outfit of like a male dominated occupation, like firefighter, they tended to report that they could grow up to be a firefighter too. So,

I mean there is support for that very much. Um. But still there's a lot of easy shots that one can take a Mattel is, you know, basically making Barbie a sexualized doll. Yeah, but I mean since the very beginning until yesterday, this has been going on, and it's just one of those lifelong battles. Mattel is never gonna back down, and I'm sure the feminist probably won't either. Studies aside, everyone has their opinion on Barbie. Yeah, And

I think that's a really good point about Barbie. I feel like she is a giant mirror for society, everything that's wrong with it, everything that's right with it it depending on how you look at Barbie, and on a much more micro cosmic level, depending on how an individual little girl plays with Barbie, she can be a you know, a tool for aspiration or something that teaches the girl

all the wrong things. That's good point. Yeah, all right, So we should talk about Barbie and race because Mattel has also like made some missteps over the years when it comes to the cringe yeah, cringe worthy episode coming up. Uh. In ninety seven, they conceived of a black friend for Barbie and they called her colored Francie. I know, Um, I'm not sure how well that went over. It's hard to tell now because it sounds so ridiculous, but I don't know how it was received at the time. I

couldn't find anything on that. Um, apparently not that great because Colored francis not around any longer. Well, their follow up wasn't that much better. In eight they came out with Black Barbie. That's what they called it. Yep, Black Barbie. Black Barbie. Ken came out two years later African American Ken sun Stational Malibuchan in was was was black and Um the problem was until two thousand nine, until three

years ago. One of the problems, one of the problems, aside from the naming conventions, uh, is that they still use the quote unquote white dolls and just made the skin tone darker. Yeah, and they they didn't change any other aspect of the doll until three years ago when they finally, um made African American barbies Kara, Grace and Trichelle, and they had designs apparently to replicate features of real African American women. Finally, and have you seen these dolls

I have? Yeah, they're great. One of them looks sort of like Beyonce. Um that one that two thousand and ten Washington Least study that we mentioned. That author also started to wonder like, how does what Barbie doesn't? How does what Barbie isn't doing? A acting little girls as well? Yeah, so the point she made was, Um, if a young African American girl goes into a store and um, like, there's not a black president Barbie, right, what does that

tell her? Sure, there's just the white president Barbie. That's a good point. Um Again, prepare for cringing, because, like you said, apparently Mattel's boardroom exists in a in a cultural vacuum. So uh in they got a ring and ding from Nabisco who said, hey, we need to move some Oreos, so why don't you guys make an Oreo theme Barbie? And they said, sure. Problem we should point out they've done a lot of deals with companies over

the years. Yeah, so this wasn't anything bigger, Newer cook Barbie, Pepsi Barbie, Nascar Barbie. It seems like anytime they have a new you know, I mean I have a Barbie. Do you really know Josh Barbie? Oh I thought you meant you owned one. No, no, no, there's a yeah, there's a podcaster Barbie. Yeah. Um. So they they contracted with Nibisco and they came out with an Oreo theme Barbie and all was fine. They got a few complaints saying like this promotes junk food, but nothing big, no,

big East, the usual stuff. And then they released a black version of Oreo Barbie. Yes, and that costs some controversy because, like you said, apparently their boardroom is in a vacuum and they did not realize that, Uh, that is a racial epithet, uh level leveled by black people against other black people who they feel like are being too quote unquote white. So there dark on the outside, white in the middle Oreos and Mattel wasn't aware of this.

And they released an African American Barbie that said Oreo all over on the shirt and like in the purse, and uh, they are now a collector's item, of course, because they quickly were yanked from the shelves and his cracked dot com put it. They quote picked the one cookie in the universe that could ever be considered as offensive. Ever, the one cookie she could have been the Nutter Butter

barbie problem. Yeah, you're right, or corrects right? Um so Mattel Also as there's a lot of stuff that they do, right, Like in that case, they didn't mean to offend anybody. It was just a horrible mistake. Um. And you know, they released an African American barbie and they released a white barbie. Right. Um. They do the same with with multi ethnic barbies from around the world. They've been releasing them forever. And like it's great because you know, oh,

there's a place called Spain. A little girl says, like that kind of thing. It's good for that. But at the same time, it's like the clothes they dressed them up in are beyond stereotypical. Like Native American barbie, the Dutch barbie looks like the Swiss miss Girl. Um. As a matter of fact, it probably is. Um. And then Vitan Ken from Mexico in nine four. He's wearing a sombrero. It's just agonizing. Sometimes they're trying to just miss the

mark once in a while. Yeah, I get the feeling that the boardroom is not only in a vacuum, but it's a lot of like old white people making these decisions. Um okay. So I would say probably the most controversial aspect of Barbie always from the outset, before she was even created, because her body. Yeah, that's what kept her from being created in the first place. As we mentioned, the uh Mattel CEO said, you can't release at all with big breast. I'm glad you finally got that out.

Just like didn't even know how to say that, but that's what they said. And since then, Barbie's figure has been notoriously called out is unsupportable, fake, um, not realistic, and at worst, like really bad for these little girls in their body image and what they think they're supposed to look like, like a tool of body dysmorphic disorder. Basically, it's like it's not even possible to look that way,

they say it depending okay. So what's very interesting, I think, Chuck, is that this design of her body was actually a design decision made by her designers, who were all women, career women's successful career women um to allow her to wear miniature versions of real like fashion clothes, so like her crazy hips and small waist, they were designed like that so that she could she could wear these clothes that gathered at the waist and she had breasts, so

she could wear these biouses or whatever that we're like based on real clothes and designed by real designers. So it's actually a design decision, but it quickly took on its life that like, yeah, Barbies, this evil tool that spreads this um unhealthy body image to little girls. Yeah. I think it was the nine fifties and it was just like, you know, let's make a full figure and you know, a tiny waist and girls will love it or she looks like us? Yeah what what? This is

just my personal opinion here. That's all well and good. Since then, may be, since they've taken all these steps to introduce more correct versions, maybe they should release a like realistic Barbie dump Be Barbie, a k. A normal looking person Barbie. I don't think it will ever happen. I don't think they have made changes to her figure, so she's nothing like she was when she first came out. She's not like she was. She she has changed some, but for the most part there there's not gonna be

a dumpy Barbie, not if you call it that. See, that's part of the problem is looking average you called dumpy. Oh come on, man, I am definitely not part of the problem. I don't. I wouldn't call it a normal looking person dumpy Barbie. Then compared to Barbie, you would call her dumpy Barbie. I think that's definitely that's the whole zeitgeist behind this whole thing. Like if if Barbie

is perfect than anything else, that's different as dumpy. Alright, well I disagree, Um well, National Organization of Women would probably disagree to. They've frequently saw. Did Barbie is a again this instrument of delivering an unhealthy body image to little girls? Yeah? And like you said, they sometimes they don't make it any easier on themselves because in the nineteen sixty three Barbie sit upset, there was a pamphlet called how to Lose Weight, and one of the tips

Barbie says, don't eat and that's it. So they Two years later there was another booklet, Barbie Slumber Party, that said there was a bathroom scale that was permanently set at a hundred and ten pounds, and that sounds like that's a little weird. The same booklet was included, Yeah, oh yeah, it's weird. And even if it's not weird, and again like if you take this, the conventional idea of what's going with the thought is behind this um

you they said, okay, well what is Barbie? Wait? Barbie is well, we can't make a real um scale that moves back and forth, so we're gonna set it at one ten without any thought that possibly this little girl is gonna think that if she doesn't weigh a hundred and ten, like, she's not as pretty as Barbie. Yes, it never will be, and it will always hate herself for not weighing a hundred and ten pounds. It's just these decisions made without this wider thought has kind of

give him a Telli's reputation. That's right. They've done studies on this. They did one in two thousand eleven in Holland, and they said that girls who played with average sized dollars for ten minutes eight significantly more during a taste test following play than girls who played with the Barbie dolls or a thin doll like Barbie. Yeah, to be fair, And another study which I thought was pretty interesting. Well,

obviously they found that promotes materialism and sexualizes play. But um, this other study found that there's more torture play and anger play involved with Barbie, Like a little girl will rip off Barbie's arms or head, and they found that they ripped off more Barbie parts than other dolls because, as one girl said, quote, she's the only one that

looks perfect. Right. So this is huge, huge, massive body of work on the effect that Barbie's body has on the little girls that play with there, and more often than not, they find that it creates a poor self image body image in little girls. But interestingly, it tends to disappear in tweens. Yeah, like, um, say they're studying girls three to ten, it'll really appear in like three, four, five, six, But then like like it doesn't appear as much. It's

not as prevalent. Interesting, Yeah, it is, but you you wonder, like, what's the lasting effect of those when it hits those three, four, five and six year old you know, yeah, that's true formative years. Um. There's also been a lot of studies and reports of what Barbie would look like worsh a real person, right, Yeah, they're always disturbing. So you said that, like,

it's impossible look like Barbie. Not entirely, but close. South Australia University researchers calculated that a woman's chance of natural really having Barbie's figure was one in a hundred thousand. I'm surprised it's not more than that. I am too, But for a man to have Ken's figure, you have like a one in fifty chance. You and I are

are we don't have good chances. Uh. And in Finland at their University Central Hospital, they say Barbie were life size, she would lack the seventeen to two percent body fat required for a woman to menstrate, so she's so thin she medically can't even menstrate. And the BBC did this comparison of Barbie and one of their employees named Libby, and if Libby were to keep her twenty eight inch waist but stay in step with Barbie's other proportions, she would have to be seven ft six inches tall, which

again isn't impossible. The world's tallest woman is Yeow Defend, who's seven ft eight inches tall. Yeah, but she didn't look like Barbie. Uh, and then if she kept her height, if Libby kept her hype but shrank Barbie's proportioned waist, she would have a twenty inch waist, which is three inches smaller in circumference than um Victoria Beckham's waist. Who's like a bean pole beyond the beam posts. She's gotta be like one of the She's like Vampira waistwise, she's thin. Um.

And did you see this Ukrainian woman? She says she hasn't had plastic surgery. She's not being truthful. Valeria Valeria Um Lucan Lucia Nova. Yeah, the quote unquote real life Barbie doll. She's a model, artist and singer supposedly, and uh, just look up a picture of her and prepare to get creeped out. She's very animate. Have you seen her friend,

that's like the real life anime girl. Yeah, she photoshop se she denies it, but I saw untouched before pictures and she's clearly had plastic surgery and she doctors her photos. But um, it's creepy. She looks like a doll. She doesn't look real, she doesn't look alive. She's in the young Annie Valley. But she's a real person. Yeah. Um, there's a woman named Cindy Jackson who's a brit who actually holds the record for um most plastic surgeries in

a lifetime fifty two as of April two eleven. And she started undergoing those at age one after deciding that she wanted to look like Barbie back when she was six. So she moved to London and started going under the knife. I didn't see a picture of her to you. Oh yeah, well she looks like she looks Barbie. Yeah. So we mentioned the litigious nature of Mattel guarding zealous league guarding Barbie's image over the years. Uh, and you have dug

up via the Bathroom Reader and notable examples. Um number one. Paul Hanson in the n H San Francisco artists began selling Barbie art basically drag Queen Barbie, Tanya Harding Barbie, Exorcist Barbie having a lot of fun with it, Tanya Hardening Barbie. I guess it comes with a little minicro bar there's dumpy Barbie right there. Oh boy. Um. He sold about a hundred and fifty dollars, earned about two grand, and Mattel sued him for one point two billion dollars.

This is what these corporations can do. They'll just be like, I didn't gonna sue you for nine dollars. So Hansen is like, alright, alright, alright, everybody just calmed down. How about this. I will sell my dolls only in art galleries, no more stores, just the galleries themselves, and I will donate all of the profits charity. Mattel said, no, We're

going to court. Pal. So they went to court, and eventually a judge, uh just lost patients, it said, and granted a partial judgment and said against Mattel for not having a sense of humor. So a little smack on the face, but I'm sure the attorneys smugly left with their headheld high. Um. And that's kind of similar to another artist's case, Mark Napier, who's uh from New York. He's got us a website. UM that was originally called the Distorted Barbie website. UM, and it was pictures of

Kate Moss, Barbie Fat and ugly Barbie Dolly parton Barbie. UM, and Mattel sent a ceason desist later apparently they were a fan of this guy or something. UM. Imagine that people trolling the world for this kind of stuff, you know. I mean they sent a ceason assist rather than suing him for a billion dollars in days, instead of just suing him. But Napier said, you know what, I'm not going to really do this, h percent. I'm gonna blur the images a little bit and then change the B

and Barbie to a dollar sign. I wonder if it's still up. I haven't looked. I haven't looked either. And then there's Barbie. Barbie Bell a k. Barbara Bell. Yeah, this one is a little she's at wacky. She claimed that Barbie was speaking to her. Is that right? And and started selling uh chances to channel Barbie spirit and answer personal questions via Barbie for three bucks three bucks a pop. Barbie will directly through me tell you whatever you want to know. Well, and um, Barbie sent her

first message to Barbara Bell. The message was I need respect. So Bell also, this is probably what pushed her over the edge as far as Mattel is concerned. She started publishing the Barbie Channeling newsletter. So I'm Antell threatened a multimillion dollar lawsuit. Bell is like, okay, fine, that's fine. I'll shut down, but first I'm gonna make a statement. Look, she says, for three dollars, nobody's getting hurt. I don't claim to be the only voice of Barbie. And I'm

sure not taking any other channeler's business. I've carved out my own niche in the market. There's seven million Barbie dolls in the world with no voice my favorite partist. I'm sure not taking any other channeler's business. Nobody else would be this crazy, is what she's saying. Um, this one turned out a little odd if you ask me. Um. There's a band called Aqua from Denmark. They recorded a song called Barbie Girl. You know this song? Right? Oh? Here it is now do you recognize it? Yes, you do.

I'm a Barbie girl in a Barbie world. Is plastic. It's fantastic. Yeah. I don't know you. I don't believe you. I don't think you realize that I don't listen to radio. I don't believe that you've not heard this song. I haven't, all right, So Mattel filed suit, of course against m c A. So this is actually slugging it out with a big corporation for a change. Uh, And it ended up as a bigger battle because of that, I'm sure, because they can all afford big, high powered attorneys. So

they suited Mattel. I'm sorry, m c A, m c A countered um and you know what, we're suing you, and we can even bring in expert witnesses that basically we'll testify that you based this on a little German sex doll, sex doll, but you know, sexy doll back in the day, in the nineteen fifties, And Mattel was probably like, oh, yeah, we did kind of do that.

They had a really good point. They said, what Aqua was doing in the song Barbie Girl is not to make Barbie into a sex object, as Mattel alleged, but to point out that she's been one all along. Yeah, and then Mattella exactly and so um. In a in an ironic twist of fate, um, they ruled this song was protected as parody and tossed out the defamation suit

back at Mattel. And then in two thousand nine, Barbie actually recorded a cover version of the song and Mattel released on YouTube to promote a line of Barbie fashionistas that crazy. So they sued them for the song and then they used the song I'm Sure for free because it was a cover version sung by whoever does the Barbie songs. This one's my favorite, Paul David. I just felt bad for this guy. He Um. He was a Barbie collector, a big time Barbie collector. He was on

their team. Yeah, so much so that he published the Barbie catalog um and he in the mid ninety nineties. Um wrote in one of his catalogs that if there were an ugly con test, Elizabeth and Queen Barbie would definitely win. Did you see that one? Yeah, it's Elizabeth the First. You know, it was notoriously dumpy. Yeah, it was just, uh, it looked like Queen Elizabeth the First. But this guy, who they had trusted to help protect Barbie's image had written something snyde, so they brought down

the hammer of God on him. Also, they point out that there were some he didn't put the registered trademark symbol next to some of the photos, which is like, if you want to give motel after you uh just put forget to put the registered trademark next to a photo of Barbie. Yeah, we should put that on our podcast title. We don't want the Barbie hammer, we don't um so Barbie sus mattel Um accuses him of copyright

infringement and um. Eventually Paul David signed a settlement agreement, and as The Wall Street Journal reported, it stipulated that Barbie may only be portrayed in his catalog as wholesome, friendly, accessible and kind, caring and protective, cheerful, fun loving, talented

and independent. And what did he do? He was disgusted and sold all his Barbies and I guess quit writing his catalog and that was the end of that one, Which is that's why that was so sad to me, because he was such a huge supporter of the company, like to be such a fan to go out of your way to publish a catalog and then they essentially just like squash the guy. Yeah. I remember reading this and like many years ago and thinking like, yeah, that was pretty awful. Yeah, but who knows, Maybe it's the

turning point for the guy. Maybe he's like, I'm free. He walked outside and like talked to real humans. Uh what about Barbie being banned, Chuck? Yeah, like this year actually, in two thousand twelve, she was banned in Iran for destructive cultural and social consequences, and they came up with their own little doll, and girls called it ugly and fat. I couldn't find a picture of this one. I couldn't find anywhere. It doesn't like anything like Barbie. It's just

a doll. Yeah, oh then maybe I did see it. Um. Yeah, the one toy seller called Barbie worse than an American missile. But I also hear that all over Tehran, like you can still get Barbie's no problem under the counter, but for like, this is what I what I hear got you this Audi Arabia band Barbie in two thousand three, saying she was offensive to Islam and even in the States she can't get no respect. West Virginia outlaw Barbie in two thousand nine, or try to with a bill

deciding emotional intellectual impact she has on girls. But I doubt it that one anywhere did. It's time now. Yeah, we're about to talk to Gordon Jovna, the founder of the Bathroom Reader's Institute, the guy who introduced me to all this stuff, and we're gonna talk to him. What about the missteps of Barbie some even more missteps. Yeah, it tells got a great and wonderful history of it.

So let's let's bring them up. So, Chuck, we're sitting here talking to the guy Gordon Jobna, the founder of the Bathroom Readers Institute and publisher of the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader series. His name's on Uncle John. No, it's Gordon. He We tried to call him Mr job Nat and he went crazy. We're great, we're fantastic, Thank you very much for joining us. We're um talking about Barbie. UM. And of course you know, we've let everybody know all

the material from the episode today. This is a special one because normally we do this from how stuff works articles, but we're doing this, um from just stuff that's come out of the Bathroom Readers. UM. So so we're talking Barbie here. I feel like, UM, we've kind of done a pretty good job setting all this up. We've we've gone um into Barbie and Mattel's UM, I guess, troubled

history a lot. We've kind of made it clear that Mattel is pretty good at making missteps, and um, you've you've brought along some some other examples of ways Mattel has just missed the mark a little bit. I guess you could say, with some of their their Barbie's Barbie releases. Right, yeah, we we have some examples of Barbies that created controversy. I don't know that you'd call them all missteps. At least one of them. It's not a misstep, but certainly

certainly a controversial. Uh So the first one I would mention is share a smile, Becky, which he'll introduced in Yeah we laughed, then then feel bad for laughing. No, it's kind of funny. They were actually originally going to call it wheelchair Barbie. Excuse me, wheelchair Becky, but they were they had an eye toward diversity. And this was a friend of Barbies who was um confined to a

wheelchair for an unspecified disability. And incidentally, the wheelchair the doll came with a wheelchair, little pink wheelchair, And that was fine until um Mattel got a complaint from a seventeen year old girl from Washington named Kirsty Johnson. She complained that Barbie's dream House was not wheelchair accessible, but she had a personal interest because she was she had superbral palsy and was confined to a wheelchair herself. So then,

uh She also mentioned that the dream house. Although the dream House had an elevator, was too to accommodate the wheelchair. So this thing falls into another example we pointed out earlier in the podcast. I believe that um Mattel probably trying to do the right thing here, but in the end sort of takes a ham pisted approach and doesn't cover all the angles. Yeah, and and there was my was to promise a redesign of the dream House, but instead they just dropped Becky from the Barbie line. Very

set sat into that story. That is all met tell right there? What what else do you have for um? I know, totally styling Barbie kind of raised some some eyebrows. I believe it did. Uh. And this is the one that I don't know if you'd call it a misstep, but it certainly caused a scandal. They released this one in two thousand and nine. I had a set of stickers that came with it that looked were like temporary tattoos.

They had two sets, actually, one for the doll and that an example of that would be the heart with Ken that they've been in Ken and and they also came with a set of temporary tattoos for the girls who played with the dolls to put on themselves. Uh. And they were also impact on the package. They encouraged girls to to put them their lower back, which is what those of us, well well most people know as a tramp stand. Uh. So parents were up in arms

because it did two things. It encouraged girls, uh to give each other homemade tattoos, they said, And they also said they took it was a message that it was okay for girls to do to do trampy things. And this is one of those things. I wouldn't I don't know that I would call us a misstep because they Mattel didn't agree and they left it in the in the line and it's still available. Yeah, yeah, I guess that would be kind of the definition of a misstep.

If Mattel doesn't back down, then it's not a misstep. Well, which basically means does the doll cell exactly. It's a misstep if it doesn't sell breath. And can't you see little girls sitting around like, oh, we're out of our barbie temporary tattoos. Go get a sewing needle in some India, inc. Let's get let's get down to brass techs here um

and we talked Gordon about Skipper already. Um. We talked a little bit about Barbies Family Circle, um, and we we mentioned Skipper, but we didn't mention the controversy that came with her, like right out of the gate, right when she was released kind of early on in the Barbie saga in ninety right. Yeah, Yeah, Skipper was Barbie's little sister, and she was introduced actually in the sixties, but the original plan was for them to uh make

her a little older with each subsequent release. In the nineteen seventy five they introduced growing up Skipper, which was controversial almost from the very beginning because what it was was when when girls cranked her arm, she grew a quarter of an inch taller, and she sprouted breasts, and she got an hour glass figure and a tramp stand. You have to put that one on yourself. Yeah, I would be curious to see just the mechanism behind this.

I'd like to, I guess something. I'd like to play with one, but I would like to see how that worked. I wanted to see the doll grow. I'm interested that the safe complicated. If you want to play with it, you'd have to buy one, like on eBay and it would cost you around a hundred bucks. That's not worth it that there are YouTube videos of of the doll in action. Perfect you go, chuck, what the link to

one of those? After this thing publishes? Um? Yeah, but again this isn't a misstep because as I understand it, Mattel was like, well, we'll see you all in hell because we're not taking this one off the shelves because again it's selling very well. That's that's correct. But they did phase it out. Uh. In seventy nine, they introduced super teen Skipper, which was a the breast didn't grow, but they were a little larger than the previous Skipper.

And then a couple of years after that, they they made her a little bit, uh, took away a little baby fat, and and they she became hot Stuff Skipper. No, was that really what they called her? Yeah? Hot stuff Skipper. Wow. Um, So, Gordon, you and your rather started out before the Bathroom Reader. Um, you guys wrote a book about the sixties and the eighties, and you guys mentioned Barbie in that book, right, So

what did you guys say? We said it was a pop culture book, very early pop culture book about the sixties. And and um we said in the introduction that Barbie was as important a cultural icon as any anything that happened in the nineteen sixties. And we were lamb based in the or Lamb bastard whatever in the in the press, in reviews for you know, like somehow putting Barbie over the war in Vietnam or civil rights right there, And

we weren't. But we just felt that that this was going to be a lasting, uh cultural image and we were a little ahead on that. Laughing now exactly. Well, let's talk about your books. Um, you guys are releasing the twenty five anniversary of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. Cong congratulations. That's enormous. Um, so what what what tell us a little bit about this? Well, um, you know, we never thought we would be doing this for twenty five years.

And I should say that the actual inspiration for doing the Bathroom Meador was my brother's idea to give credit where credit is due. But um, you know that first book was two pages long, and we are our latest one, Uncle John's Fully Loaded Bathroom Reader. We uh we made it six hundred and eight pages, so it's a it's quite a giant book that covers a zillion topics and just like any other bathroomador, only a little more so. So, um, where can everybody find the anniversary Well, all of your

books where where? Where's the best place to find them? Well, hopefully your local bookstore will have Uncle John's fully loaded Bathroom Reader. Certainly the chain bookstores like Barnes and Noble will have it. Um, you can get it at Costco, Sam's Club, get it online from Amazon, or you can get it online from US at bathroom reader dot com. Cool. We'd love to have people visit us. Uh and sometimes they make suggestions of what we should be including, and

that's fantastic. Hey, thank you very much for joining us. Um, you guys are doing the anniversary edition of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. It's available pretty much anywhere you can find a book, right. Absolutely. I will be looking forward to reading it this Christmas. So thank you very much, Gordon job Now we appreciate you. Thank you, Josh, and thank you Chuck. Thanks god bye, Well Josh. That was awesome. Thanks for hooking that up man. Sorry I was a

fanboy kinda No, it was great. Uh, Like whenever you can get the real people on the line, and sometimes it happens, you just gotta do it. I'm just glad, he answered. I mean like we were really running a gamble by calling him in the middle of recording. That's true. Alright, So shall we finish up with a few of them, the more odd Barbie dollas throughout the street. These aren't missteps, are just unusual. Yeah, and I'm sure there was not

a marketing campaign behind any of them. There's side to Another Country or come there is Alfred Hitchcock's the Bird's Barbie and this Barbie looked like Tippy Headron from the movie, and it has three blackbirds attached to her, so they're like perpetually attacking her. Yeah, she's being attacked by blackbird Barbie. Uh. My favorite is Pooper Scooper Barbie. And I guess this is to teach girls, or I guess boys they play

with dolls. We've been seeing girls the whole time. Um. It comes a little Golden Retriever named Tanner who eats and poops and really poops. And Barbie has a little shovel and pale to be a responsible dog owner and curb her dog. That's what you can inspire to do. That's right, Um, there's the McDonald's one, which we talked about. She's wearing a headset which I think threw you off. But can a franchise the work at his or her own store? Yes, taken to me. The most bizarre one

of all time is I Love Lucy sa Barbie. Oh yeah, I thought again, say George Washington Barbie. It's pretty bizarre, alright. So what's I Love Lucy One? That I Love Lucy Santa Barbie is based on a specific episode of I Love Lucy from nineteen fifty six, and Barbie is dressed as Ethel Mertz, who is dressed as Santa Claus. That's the weirdest Barbie ever. She's not dressed as Santa. She's dressed as Ethel from I Love Lucy dressed to Santa.

My like, my mind is mush. Yeah. I think some Mattel like employee higher up was like hammered on eggnog Christmas Eve watching this George Washington's episode and said, uh, I got a great idea, and I guess George Washington Barbie followed, actually preceded in and that's pretty much straight up. She is dressed like George Washington in his Revolutionary War uniform. That's right, except that's pink in it. There's an NBA Barbie,

which doesn't seem all that weird. You can get all the different teams, right, there's never been a w NBA Barbie. That's the weird part. X Files Barbie. That's a little strange. Yeah. There was a can dressed as uh Ducovny's Fox Molder and of course Barbie dressed in a pant suit as uh Scully Goldie Horn Barbie. I loved that Goldie hawn and laughing. Yeah, that's who it's based on. Yeah, with a bikini and the tattoos. It's just sort of an

iconic television figure. Yeah, I mean, what are you gonna do? Wildcats Goldie on that was terrible, yeah, or Ruth Buzzy Barbie, you know, um wowdcats Goldie on overboard Goldie hawnks. There was Harley Davidson. Barbie is a bike or chick from head with head to toe leather. That's right, it's weird. Um. And then there's a bunch of other just slightly noteworthy ones. French Made Barbie, Lady of the Unicorns, Barbie, civil Ward,

Nurse Barbie, John Dear Barbie urbane. Yeah. I looked up urban Hipster Barbie, and I thought it was gonna be like some Brooklyn chick with Hornero glasses, and it was this. It looked more like uh, foxy brown, like black exploitation Barbie. They called it. That's what they called urban hipster, like big Afro, sort of like African American goddess. Wow. Yeah, if it was urban hipster today, it would be she

would have a mustache and glasses, live in Williamsburg. There's Star Trek Barbie and Ken Barbie's dresses, Lieutenant hura Um Nascar and John Deere Barbie's bowling Champ Barbie. This one, this is one of my favorites. Barbie and Ken is the monsters. They have so much fun, those two. And then of course the Pepsi. Barbie also had the Coca Cola Barbie to do battle and the Cola Wars. Because if there's one thing Mattell doesn't want to do is

to offend any segment of the American population. That's it. Man, You got anything else? No, I think In Loui of Listener Mail, we had the interview and we just want to say thanks to get into Uncle John's bathroom. Here. Yes, thank you very much for everything all these years. Appreciate you guys, and we appreciate you guys too for listening. Agreed Um. If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at s Y s K Podcast, join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know,

or you can send us an email. Uh to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot com h