Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff. Lauren
Speaker 1: Vogelbaum here. On July twenty fourth of nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: a curvaceous bombshell named Lily graced the pages of a
Speaker 1: German tabloid for the first time. A character created by
Speaker 1: cartoonist rein Hard boyteen, Lily was single and in search
Speaker 1: of a rich boyfriend. I think of the character as
Speaker 1: a modern working girl version of Scarlett O'Hara from Gone
Speaker 1: with the Wind. Deprivations brought on by the Second World
Speaker 1: War had worn down her spirit, except for a determination
Speaker 1: to be amply provided for a passion. No longer motivated dating,
Speaker 1: she was simply on a quest for the wealthiest suitor.
Speaker 1: Lily was, in short, a gold digger, but with mile
Speaker 1: long legs, a generous bus line, and scant clothing. A
Speaker 1: cartoon Lily nonetheless charmed the magazine's largely male readership. Her
Speaker 1: brassy personality and pin up figure wooed men so effectively
Speaker 1: that the character was transformed into a doll in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five. The Lily Dolls, which came in seven inch
Speaker 1: and eleven inch sizes, that's seventeen and twenty seven centimeters
Speaker 1: weren't marketed to little girls. They were intended for adult men.
Speaker 1: At that time, girls played with baby dolls and prepubescent
Speaker 1: shaped fashion dolls. Lily, on the other hand, depicted a
Speaker 1: worldly woman with impossibly petite feet in black spike heels
Speaker 1: supporting a distinct hourglass frame, crimson lips puckered slightly in
Speaker 1: a flutatious pout, and big, thickly lined eyes that gazeduggestively
Speaker 1: to the side. With advertising taglines such as whether more
Speaker 1: or less naked Lily is always discreet, and a wardrobe
Speaker 1: consisting of neckliges, tiny tops, and tight pants. Lily dolls
Speaker 1: were essentially adult novelty toys. People gave them as bachelor gifts,
Speaker 1: and men drove around with Lily on their dashboards. But
Speaker 1: when an American woman named Ruth Handler spied a Lily
Speaker 1: doll in a store while vacationing in Switzerland, she didn't
Speaker 1: see it as a prurie and novelty. Instead, she thought
Speaker 1: it would be the perfect toy for her daughter, Barbara.
Speaker 1: Handler had observed Barbara and her friends playing with paper
Speaker 1: dolls that depicted teenage girls or adult women, and Handler
Speaker 1: that was their way of practicing for adulthood. Yet, aside
Speaker 1: from these two dimensional paper dolls, no other dolls available
Speaker 1: in stores portrayed the mature female body. For that reason,
Speaker 1: she bought two Lily dolls for Barbara during that Switzerland
Speaker 1: trip in nineteen fifty six and one for herself. By
Speaker 1: the time Ruth Handler encountered the Lily doll on her
Speaker 1: vacation in Switzerland, the toy company that she and her
Speaker 1: husband had founded, Mattel had started turning a prophet. The
Speaker 1: United States was in its post World War two economic
Speaker 1: boom that fueled widespread concus zumorism, and adults weren't the
Speaker 1: only shoppers who advertisers targeted a Thanks to television and
Speaker 1: the launch of shows like Howdy Duty in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: seven and The Mickey Mouse Club in nineteen fifty five,
Speaker 1: the children were a new market and source of revenue.
Speaker 1: If youngsters saw a new toy on television, they might
Speaker 1: nag their parents into buying it for them. Mattel seized
Speaker 1: upon this opportunity as a chance to expand their stake
Speaker 1: in the toy industry. With Lily as her muse. Handler
Speaker 1: convinced her husband and the all male design team at
Speaker 1: Mattel to follow her lead in filling the as of
Speaker 1: yet empty market niche for a more mature female doll.
Speaker 1: Mattel began crafting Handler's dream doll by nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 1: They kept Lily's general figure, but scrubbed off some of
Speaker 1: her makeup, relaxed her smile, and used soft vinyl instead
Speaker 1: of hard plastic to construct her. A fashion designer, Charlotte
Speaker 1: Johnson was hired to create a tasteful, yet chic wardrobe
Speaker 1: for Mattel's new doll. This was where Lily's extreme hourglass
Speaker 1: shape was a practical aesthetic bonus. Johnson was working with
Speaker 1: the same types of thick fabrics that were used in
Speaker 1: human sized garment making, so the doll's unrealistically narrow waist
Speaker 1: and large bust actually helped the tiny garments look sharp
Speaker 1: and shapely at scale, the final product standing at eleven
Speaker 1: and a half inches that's twenty nine centimeters. The debuted
Speaker 1: at the nineteen fifty nine New York Toy Fair didn't
Speaker 1: look drastically different from Lily A. Sporting a black and
Speaker 1: white striped swimsuit, open toads, toilettos, and gold hoop ear rings.
Speaker 1: It had Lily's racy curves, but a more demure style.
Speaker 1: Named in honor of Handler's daughter, Barbara, Mattel called the
Speaker 1: new doll Barbie. Everyone knows the rest of Barbie's history.
Speaker 1: She bade scores of friends and became the most popular
Speaker 1: toy in history. But Barbie didn't receive a warm welcome
Speaker 1: at that New York Toy fair, and before she hit
Speaker 1: the stores, Mattel had to figure out how to sell
Speaker 1: such a womanly doll to wary mothers. The thought of
Speaker 1: having a doll with a prominent bust sitting around the
Speaker 1: home did disturb some mothers. A Barbie's mature body seemed
Speaker 1: borderline pornographic and potentially damaging to young girl's psyches, an
Speaker 1: argument that continues disissle in today's culture. After all, if
Speaker 1: the original Barbie were person sized, her measurements would be
Speaker 1: thirty eight eighteen thirty four. In order for Mattel to
Speaker 1: popularize Barbie, the company had to advertise in a strategic
Speaker 1: way that would allay concerned mother's fears. Over the course
Speaker 1: of six months, an advertising expert by the name of
Speaker 1: Ernest Dieter studied the responses of girls and their mothers
Speaker 1: to Barbie. From his extensive research, Dieter concluded that instead
Speaker 1: of attempting to mitigate Barbie's mature qualities, Mattel should emphasize them.
Speaker 1: Barbie was well dressed and attractive. Mothers ought to consider
Speaker 1: her a tool for teaching their daughters about the importance
Speaker 1: of appearance and femininity, while some women, like my own mom,
Speaker 1: would later take Barbie to task for imparting such lessons.
Speaker 1: The advertising tactic worked in the nineteen sixties. Barbie's on
Speaker 1: and off boyfriend Ken, hit stores in nineteen sixty one. Ironically,
Speaker 1: Ken is named for Ruth Handler's son, which makes the
Speaker 1: real life Barbie and Ken and siblings. The plastic couple
Speaker 1: would go through a breakup in two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: but reconciled in twenty eleven. Mattel's first black dolls appeared
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen sixties, and other skin tones hit
Speaker 1: the shelves in the eighties. Meanwhile, the basic Barbie underwent
Speaker 1: a significant makeover in nineteen seventy one with the release
Speaker 1: of Malibu Barbie. For the first time, Barbie's eyes looked
Speaker 1: straight ahead rather than to the side like Lily's. She
Speaker 1: traded her honey brown locks for Platinum blonde and displayed
Speaker 1: an open mouthed smile. In the twenty teens, the brand
Speaker 1: released different body types for Barbie and Ken. Barbie has
Speaker 1: also moved far beyond her original career ambitions of a
Speaker 1: teen fashion model. She's held down more than two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty jobs to date, including paleontologist, astronaut McDonald's cashier, firefighter,
Speaker 1: pro tennis player, game developer, and president during her pink
Speaker 1: hued reign. Mattel estimates that an average of two Barbie's
Speaker 1: have been sold every second across the world since the
Speaker 1: first official Barbie convention in nineteen eighty. Barbie collecting has
Speaker 1: remained a robust Niche rare and limited edition dolls, such
Speaker 1: as the Dolls of the World collectibles can sell for
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars, and, of course, in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: the Barbie film, directed by Greta Gerwig, made a bit
Speaker 1: of a splash, becoming the highest grossing film of the
Speaker 1: year at some one point four billion dollars, not bad
Speaker 1: for a novelty. Today's episode is based on the article
Speaker 1: who invented the Barbie Doll and Why? On How Stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot Com, written by Kristin Conger. Brain Stuff is production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and
Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.