This Day In History... Barbie Dolls

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

On this day in 1959, the first Barbie doll goes on display at the American Toy Fair in New York City. Eleven inches tall, with a waterfall of blond hair, Barbie was the first mass-produced toy doll in the United States with adult features. The woman behind Barbie was Ruth Handler, who co-founded Mattel, Inc. with her husband in 1945. After seeing her young daughter ignore her baby dolls to play make-believe with paper dolls of adult women, Handler realized there was an important niche in the market for a toy that allowed little girls to imagine the future.

Barbie’s appearance was modeled on a doll named Lilli, based on a German comic strip character. Originally marketed as a racy gag gift to adult men in tobacco shops, the Lilli doll later became extremely popular with children. Mattel bought the rights to Lilli and made its own version, which Handler named after her daughter, Barbara.

You may be asking yourself what this has to do with our men from UNCLE.  Well...  nothing really.  But for a lot of us this doll is as much a part of our childhood as our fascination with Illya and Napoleon.  The action figures that resembled the MFU characters are probably a direct result of the popularity of Barbie, and later on, GI Joe (1964).

Is there any spark of a story here?  Who would have dated Barbie if we're living in a world of make-believe (more than usual, that is), where the action figure Solo and Kuryakin meet up with long legged Barbie.  Blonde, brunette and redheaded dolls gave girls a choice of what doll to choose, but who would our plastic crime fighters like?

I know, it's weird, but somehow ... is there a story?


But Wait! There's more...
Who in the MFU-niverse is this?  Seriously, we know her as Gervaise Ravel.

Are you getting the picture?
So, is there a story in all of this now?

Comments

[bonniejean1953.livejournal.com]

OMG I hated those dolls, and subsequently cut their hair off and painted Frito Bandito mustaches on them... then they were discarded. My parents finally got the message and stopped buying them for me.

[redqueen88.livejournal.com]

My Mom didn't like Barbie dolls and wouldn't buy them for me. She thought the figure too unrealistic to be idolized or healthy. Instead I received a Madame Alexander doll of a similar size and my mom and older sister made clothes for her from leftover scraps. A few of her outfits matched my own. My siblings and I weren't given action dolls either, but I did score an action horse with his gear (I think the gear was for a cowgirl) and an action figure of Little Joe's horse from Bonanza.

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

I think the moms and their influence must have made a difference in how we viewed the Barbie dolls. I don't remember having any issues regarding the figure that weren't overshadowed by the exquisite clothes that were being made during the early to mid 60's. After the newer versions came out the clothing was just junk compared to what I had become accustomed to.

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

Huh... I will admit to cutting off Skipper's hair. Then again, I did end up getting a cosmetology license. I loved playing Barbies though. Only one of my friends could manage it the right way though, we were a company of two and discouraged others from joining us. At one point we, as fervent Beatles fans, and both possessing dark peach fuzz haired Kens, pasted black electricians tape on their foreheads and made them instantly into George and Paul. Our respective Barbies had the right color of hair for the real life girlfriends, and we thought our British accents were spot on. It was fun magnified by a zillion.