Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Wait wait, wait, wait wait, um, we
Speaker 1: have to talk about our TV show. That's right. We
Speaker 1: have a television show that's coming out on our beloved
Speaker 1: science channel UM. January nineteen at ten pm follows the
Speaker 1: premiere of Idiot Abroad Season three UM, and after Idiot
Speaker 1: Abroad at ten pm Eastern Standard Time will be the
Speaker 1: world debut of Stuff you Should Know, the TV show.
Speaker 1: Not one new episode, but two new episodes back to back,
Speaker 1: ten o'clock and ten thirty. That's right, Saturday night, January nineteenth.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be pretty neat. What are we doing? What
Speaker 1: are the people gonna see? Are they gonna see a
Speaker 1: game show, which we've been asked. Are they going to
Speaker 1: see a a reality show which we've been asked, No, Josh,
Speaker 1: They're seeing a scripted TV show that features the real
Speaker 1: us playing ourselves along with actors on a set that
Speaker 1: we recreated of our office. It's basically an office comedy
Speaker 1: about our lives as podcasters, featuring the podcasting itself and
Speaker 1: real knowledge and factual stuff. So we think it's a
Speaker 1: good combination of fun and humor and facts and uh,
Speaker 1: we think you'll like it. Yeah, we hope you'll like it.
Speaker 1: Um that's January nineteenth, Saturday, ten pm. Uh the world premiere.
Speaker 1: And uh, don't forget to check out Idiot Abroad season
Speaker 1: three absolutely premier before. Very funny show. And for those
Speaker 1: of you clamoring that you don't have TV or cable, you,
Speaker 1: if you have a computer device, can watch this on iTunes.
Speaker 1: Now you're going to be able to purchase these, I
Speaker 1: believe the day after each episode is released and go
Speaker 1: to iTunes, buy it for bucket and watch it on
Speaker 1: your laptop. Nice and Science Channel is so cool they're
Speaker 1: making the first episode available for free. Yeah, that's pretty
Speaker 1: awesome on iTunes, just to get your hooked. So we
Speaker 1: appreciate the support. And now on with the episode, sir, Yes, hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles
Speaker 1: w Chuck Bryant and that stuff. You should know. Two
Speaker 1: of us together, the anatomically Correct Doll Models version. I
Speaker 1: guess I called myself a doll model once in a while,
Speaker 1: a little perk, you know, very looking very kin like
Speaker 1: these days. Sure, um, hey man, not magic your akin, No,
Speaker 1: we'll get to that. Like shavedkin. UM. So, I know
Speaker 1: you know this, but I'll tell you again. Back when
Speaker 1: I was a little pup, I had this series of
Speaker 1: books that were very, very significant in my life, the
Speaker 1: Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. I would get one for Christmas
Speaker 1: every year and I would like go through it and
Speaker 1: first hour I had it and my legs would be
Speaker 1: numb in the bathroom. When you first got these, I
Speaker 1: think I started I was about twelve. I love that
Speaker 1: your parents knew that you were just a sponge for
Speaker 1: information even at that age. Yeah, I don't remember how
Speaker 1: I first came about it, but like I think somebody
Speaker 1: got it for him and they were blown away at
Speaker 1: how much I liked that. Um And it really helped
Speaker 1: shape me in many many ways and the way I
Speaker 1: understand things, the way I look at things like this
Speaker 1: general knowledge. I've had some right, some wrong, but like
Speaker 1: it's been a big deal what you do in the
Speaker 1: bathroom reading. UM. So, this this episode is kind of
Speaker 1: special to me because all this material we're doing, how
Speaker 1: Barbie Doll works, almost all the materials from Uncle John's
Speaker 1: Bathroom Reader. They got in touch with us and gave
Speaker 1: us everything they have M Barbie, and we compiled it
Speaker 1: into this podcast, and we actually have a special guest later,
Speaker 1: the founder of the Bathroom Reader Institute, Gordon Jovna, is
Speaker 1: going to be joining us on this to talk about
Speaker 1: Barbie two. Very excited and they're also kind enough to
Speaker 1: give us hats and I think shirts as well. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they listened to us, and we found out they listened.
Speaker 1: I was like, you were kidding, Like the circle of
Speaker 1: life is complete, Like we hear from Mad Magazine, Archie comics,
Speaker 1: damn interesting, damn interesting? Have we heard from crack yet? No?
Speaker 1: We love them. They're They're the one people, the one people,
Speaker 1: the one group out there that I would like to
Speaker 1: contact us. That's it, just the one, just them. And like,
Speaker 1: very man, I've been whole enough for Obama. I know
Speaker 1: he listens. Don't even pretend Obama, just send us an email.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, you know, I remember when they released what
Speaker 1: was the contents of his iPod one year and we
Speaker 1: were both like, oh my god, we on it. We're
Speaker 1: on it, like of course we're not on it now
Speaker 1: still alright? Um oh and before we get storry, I
Speaker 1: want to give a shout out to one of our
Speaker 1: horror fiction contest entrants. Remember we said, if you publish something,
Speaker 1: let us know and we'll tell everybody. Um, Jay McMurray
Speaker 1: submitted his story The Mind Reader. It was very good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a good one. And he's got it up
Speaker 1: on Amazon dot com and you can search um Jay McMurray,
Speaker 1: m C m U R R Y and the Mind
Speaker 1: Reader and it will bring it up for you. Um.
Speaker 1: He's self published. So it's pretty awesome. Awesome, So way
Speaker 1: to go, Jay, thanks for letting us know. Uh so, Barbie, Yes,
Speaker 1: it all started with a lady named Ruth Marianna who
Speaker 1: eventually became Ruth Handler. She grew up but I guess
Speaker 1: kind of poor in Denver, Colorado. Uh yeah, Well her
Speaker 1: mom was ill, and I have the feeling that it
Speaker 1: was just her mom. Yeah, so she ended up having
Speaker 1: to go live with her sister at a fairly young age. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um, at a young age as well, met her husband,
Speaker 1: be Elliott, and they moved to California, as New Leo
Speaker 1: EDGs did in the nineteen thirties with you know, prosperous
Speaker 1: land out their opportunity and they had a very long
Speaker 1: lasting marriage and business partnership years for de great it
Speaker 1: is great. Um. Elliott turned out to have a knack
Speaker 1: for creating giftwear, specifically to start picture frames, wouldn't picture frames?
Speaker 1: And Ruth turned out to have a knack for marketing
Speaker 1: and merchandizing them. That's right. And uh they together for Mattel,
Speaker 1: which sounds familiar, I imagine. Yeah, well with Harold Mattson.
Speaker 1: That's where the matt came from. Nice and the l
Speaker 1: was Elliott, very nice. That's nice. And uh they also
Speaker 1: had a couple of kids named Barbie and Kent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you have it. We should just end it right
Speaker 1: there the end. That's how Barbie works. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: That was a nice little factoid. Well. I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that I think is interesting about Barbie
Speaker 1: is that the Barbie doll was directly inspired by Barbie
Speaker 1: handler Ruth's daughter, Um Barbie used to play with Barbie,
Speaker 1: the real girl used to play with dolls. She had
Speaker 1: like her little baby dolls, and she had, um, you know,
Speaker 1: little girl dolls or whatever, because that's all that was available.
Speaker 1: But she also played with paper doll and these paper
Speaker 1: dolls were kind of fashion dolls, so they were older,
Speaker 1: mature women, and they had different outfits and apparently Barbie
Speaker 1: was just crazy for him. So Ruth went to her
Speaker 1: colleagues at Mattel and said, we need to come up
Speaker 1: with a three dimensional doll that you can change outfit.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a huge hit. And all of
Speaker 1: the male suits poop poo did it's a boo boo,
Speaker 1: Sit down, get me some coffee, lady exactly. And UM
Speaker 1: she was like, all right, well fine, I'll see you
Speaker 1: all in Hell. Yeah. Well, they did poopoo it for
Speaker 1: a legitimate reason, though they said it was not possible
Speaker 1: to manufacture it. UM. I don't think it was just
Speaker 1: poopoo ing her idea, although there was probably some of
Speaker 1: that mixed in. UM. Luckily, Europe called and the handlers
Speaker 1: went on a European vacation and I think ninety six,
Speaker 1: and while they were in Looser in Switzerland, they were
Speaker 1: in some toy shop. I guess that happened to be
Speaker 1: selling a German doll called the Lily Doll. And Lily
Speaker 1: was based on a UM I guess you could call
Speaker 1: it a body comic strip. And this doll that was
Speaker 1: based on the strip was meant for men as maybe
Speaker 1: the like as a host's gift for a stag party
Speaker 1: or something like that. I get the impression you got
Speaker 1: him in shops of ill repute at the time. Did
Speaker 1: you look up Lily looks like Barbie, it looks like
Speaker 1: Marlene Dietrich. That kind of ripped it off, although I
Speaker 1: shouldn't say that because I might get sued. And we
Speaker 1: should also say, as you'll find out why in the
Speaker 1: Nazi distant future, that every time we say Barbie there
Speaker 1: is an implied registered trademark symbol following it. All rights
Speaker 1: to Mattel. We claim zero rights or copyrights on Barbie
Speaker 1: or her products. Right. So Lily was a prototype and um,
Speaker 1: you know, she was a grown up lady that you
Speaker 1: could change the clothes on. And she was like, you
Speaker 1: know what, this is what we've been wanting, this is
Speaker 1: what I've been waiting for. It's possible to manufacture these,
Speaker 1: and I want to make Barbies at Mattel because a
Speaker 1: woman has choices. In the fact that you can change
Speaker 1: your clothes proves it, right. It took a little convincing,
Speaker 1: but she got Mattel. The other guys at Mattel on board. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they resisted because the of the large breasts on the doll. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they basically said, no, mom's gonna buy a doll with
Speaker 1: breast for her daughter. Remember, there is nothing like this
Speaker 1: out there at the time, at least in America and
Speaker 1: even in Europe. The one doll that was like this
Speaker 1: that Barbie was based on was based on a sexy
Speaker 1: comic strip exactly, so it wasn't for little girls. So
Speaker 1: this is a really revolutionary idea for a handler would
Speaker 1: be like, no, no, Well they'll get past it, Like,
Speaker 1: this is what we need to do. Got Mattel on
Speaker 1: board and debuted this thing at the Toy Fair in
Speaker 1: New York City in nineteen nine and a zebra stripe
Speaker 1: striped bathing suit. Yes, very alluring, I guess, and her
Speaker 1: eyes were cast to the side. She can never meet
Speaker 1: your gaze, which as a sidebar, no, like it will
Speaker 1: never meet your gaze. The only way for no, the
Speaker 1: only way for eyes in a painting or on a
Speaker 1: doll to meet you is for them to already be
Speaker 1: painted looking ahead. If they're painted looking to the side,
Speaker 1: they'll never meet you. Well, unless you turn the doll
Speaker 1: to the sun. I'm telling you. You try you try it.
Speaker 1: You've told the story about the painting. Let's still disagree.
Speaker 1: So in the Shinto religion, um anything that has eyes,
Speaker 1: including a doll, can capture your spirit. So in Japan
Speaker 1: a lot of dolls are made with sideways looks so
Speaker 1: you can't look them in the eye. And every year
Speaker 1: and you keep your spirit at the right at the
Speaker 1: Meiji Shrine in Japan, they have a doll burning celebration
Speaker 1: where they burned unused, an unwanted dolls so that they
Speaker 1: can't get anybody. That's an environmental nightmare. So Barbie debuts
Speaker 1: in nine right, yes, they she goes to Sears because
Speaker 1: they sold tons of Mattel products at the time. Sea
Speaker 1: said this thing is too sexy. No one's gonna buy them.
Speaker 1: It's too sexy. So uh, Mattel turned out to be
Speaker 1: smarty Pants though, because five years later Barbie was a
Speaker 1: million dollar dollar I guess because of all the internet
Speaker 1: orders that they were getting, well the little kids. Finally
Speaker 1: some stores said yes, okay, we'll take them, and little
Speaker 1: Kids sold them. In that first year, Chuck, they sold
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty thousand of these things, and they
Speaker 1: were selling them for three bucks apiece, which I looked
Speaker 1: at three and two thousand eleven dollars. So there was
Speaker 1: a substantial amount of sales for the first year, so
Speaker 1: Rick Handler was proven right pretty much out of the gate. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is true. Um, the cool end of Ruth story
Speaker 1: actually not so cool because she died of cancer. But
Speaker 1: she um eventually got breast cancer, and when she was
Speaker 1: unable to find a breast prosthesis that she thought was
Speaker 1: was good enough, she said, you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make my own and I'm going to form a company
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna call it Nearly Me. And they manufactured
Speaker 1: breasts prosthesises for cancer survivors. Pretty cool. She sadly lost
Speaker 1: her battle, but I think she was like in her
Speaker 1: late eighties or mid eighties, and even after the Handlers
Speaker 1: were basically forced out of Mattel after some questionable earnings
Speaker 1: reports in the late seventies early eighties, she's still regarded
Speaker 1: like this titan of the toy industry, legend of this
Speaker 1: woman who like helped build Mattel from scratch and like
Speaker 1: made it what it is today. And I think Elliott
Speaker 1: just passed away last year. He lived into his nineties.
Speaker 1: So we have a few stats here, Uh, New Barbie
Speaker 1: All today sells approximately every three seconds. See just sold
Speaker 1: one another just sold one. Uh. It is a one
Speaker 1: point five billion dollar business for Mattel and the average
Speaker 1: girl from three to six has twelve of these. That
Speaker 1: is mind boggling. Number One Barbie from uh and called
Speaker 1: you about twenty seven grand these days, and uh what else?
Speaker 1: The best selling Barbie of all time was the totally
Speaker 1: hair Barbie who had hair from head to toe. It
Speaker 1: strikes me as strange. That's the best selling Barbie of
Speaker 1: all time. I looked it up. It's it's for guys
Speaker 1: like us. You look at this thing and say, wow,
Speaker 1: what a redneck doll like? Has anyone been into the
Speaker 1: Crystal Gale look since with the seventies? But I think
Speaker 1: little girls uh enjoyed like styling the hair, all that
Speaker 1: hair and all the hair that you could do all
Speaker 1: these interesting things with. So Barbie herself, if you want
Speaker 1: to know a little bit of a backstory, if anyone
Speaker 1: ever asks you, Barbie's full name, Barbie the doll, Yes,
Speaker 1: not the daughter. We're no longer talking about the doll. Now,
Speaker 1: we're talking about Barbie the doll in this weird fake history,
Speaker 1: and it's strange. It's a little weird. Yeah, that's why
Speaker 1: we went in and then we're coming back out for
Speaker 1: a second. But Barbie's real name is Barbara Millicent Roberts
Speaker 1: apparently um, which is my aunt's name, not her middle name.
Speaker 1: But her name is Barbie Roberts Um. And she hails
Speaker 1: from not my aunt, but the Barbie doll hails from Willows, Wisconsin. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And she has friends, specifically and most notably Ken Shawn Carson,
Speaker 1: who was induced in nineteen sixty one. They're both pisces
Speaker 1: I guess, like me, I think so. And they're both
Speaker 1: early March. Well I'm mid March. Another cut office sometime
Speaker 1: in March, though, so, but they were both born in March.
Speaker 1: We'll call him pisces um. And uh, Barbie has some relatives.
Speaker 1: Her best friend is Midge, by the way, who's been
Speaker 1: introduced a couple of times pregnant and really caused controversy
Speaker 1: both times. Yeah, one time with an actual baby in
Speaker 1: the belly that you could take out in the womb. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That it was. It's looked upon and Cracked Magazine as
Speaker 1: one of the horrific toys in history. I think it
Speaker 1: was necessary and educational, Alright. What was surprising to me
Speaker 1: was that she was pregnant and it caused the second
Speaker 1: time it caused waves as recently. It's like two thousand two,
Speaker 1: two two or two thousand and six, it was fairly recent.
Speaker 1: It seems the world still has hang ups about pregnancy
Speaker 1: for some reason. Well, it's probably a single woman pregnancy,
Speaker 1: probably not just the fact that she was pregnant. I
Speaker 1: don't think any has he prompts pregnancy. Um, you've also
Speaker 1: heard a skipper she uh was a sister she was
Speaker 1: the little Sister's debuted in nineteen. Then there's Stacy, Todd
Speaker 1: and Chelsea, who are named after the handler's grandchildren. Um,
Speaker 1: and then about Ken, he's gone through some transitions over
Speaker 1: the years. Is Malibu Kenna laid back dude, Magic Iran
Speaker 1: Kin who will talk about a little more in death
Speaker 1: shall we introduced in nineteen embraced by the gay community.
Speaker 1: And um, have you seen pictures? Oh yeah, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: got a do you not look up your earring? Magic Kin?
Speaker 1: Not this personing? I did uh see through kind of
Speaker 1: a sheer purple tank mesh mesh and uh there's a
Speaker 1: matching purple jacket and a medallion. Doesn't he have like
Speaker 1: a risk like corsage or something too? I didn't see
Speaker 1: that part he looked like a gay raver. Yeah we
Speaker 1: can say that. I mean, like dead on a gay raver.
Speaker 1: I don't want to into any rabs out there. And
Speaker 1: apparently the whole um this, the fact that the gay
Speaker 1: community bought a large portion of these things, was a
Speaker 1: big surprise to Mattel and they're like, wait, we didn't
Speaker 1: mean that. So they took it off the shelves. Well,
Speaker 1: they're pretty stupid, you know, registered trademark, registered trademark. They
Speaker 1: were making big sales. Uh. There had long been joking
Speaker 1: whispers about Kin's sexuality in pop culture, so when they
Speaker 1: made this one, I think people thought, all right, they're
Speaker 1: finally giving us like the real Kin. And then for
Speaker 1: them to yanket back off the shelves, it's like come on, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well that's the kind of a thread you'll see throughout
Speaker 1: is that Mattel is very protective of Barbie's image and
Speaker 1: by proxy Kin's image as well. Um, and apparently they
Speaker 1: don't think Ken's gay. Um. Kenn and Barbie broke up once,
Speaker 1: very famously in two thousand four. Yeah, and they got
Speaker 1: well after blaming the Australian surfer showed up. They just
Speaker 1: happened to break up then, but of course, like all
Speaker 1: noted lovers in history, they got back together in Valentine's
Speaker 1: on Valentine's State two thousand eleven. And apparently Barbie was
Speaker 1: even on match dot com for a little while, and
Speaker 1: Ken designed a cupcake for her at Magnolia Bakery and
Speaker 1: posted billboards asking for Barbie's hand again and together. Of course,
Speaker 1: she's never been married again. They got back together in
Speaker 1: Valentine's State two thousand eleven. That's right. What about her jobs,
Speaker 1: Barbie's a fact totem. She has done a lot of things.
Speaker 1: Fashion model, astronaut, hundred and thirty careers totalners, been a cop,
Speaker 1: a paleontologist. McDonald's franchise e was she franchise z? Because
Speaker 1: I saw the one where she worked to the drive through?
Speaker 1: It depends, Like if you really start thinking about Barbie,
Speaker 1: she owned the place, Okay, but that's a big difference,
Speaker 1: you know, of the image you're sending out, like is
Speaker 1: she a business owner or she's slinging fries. Well, she's
Speaker 1: also owned like tons of boutiques. Again, she owned that
Speaker 1: hot dog sand like pretty much everything she works at
Speaker 1: she's owned. I I that was the impression. I had
Speaker 1: race car driver, aerobics instructor. She owned aerobics right while
Speaker 1: she did it. She had a band, Barbie and the
Speaker 1: Rockers that formed. That's right. I have not heard any songs,
Speaker 1: but I should go look that up. And then animals,
Speaker 1: she said, more than fifty pets, first of which was
Speaker 1: a horse named Dancer. She said, twenty one dogs, twelve horses,
Speaker 1: three ponies, six cats, a parrot, a champ papanda, a lion, cub,
Speaker 1: a giraffe, and a zebra. And that is it for
Speaker 1: the fake history of Barbie. Because, um, if there's one
Speaker 1: thing about Barbie, it's that she collides with society, both
Speaker 1: in academic circles and pop culture like you said, and
Speaker 1: every aspect. Barbie has her her little plastic toes dipped
Speaker 1: in some part of our society at large for tiny
Speaker 1: little plastic does um. And probably the group that she's
Speaker 1: run a foul of the most are feminists, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, this article makes a great point, like feminism
Speaker 1: and Barberly Barbarie and Barbie co evolved right about the
Speaker 1: same time in the nineteen early nineteen sixties, is when
Speaker 1: these things were going on. Yeah, um, Barbie came out
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty nine. Betty Friedan published The Feminist Mystique
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three. Right, so there they're just right there,
Speaker 1: head to head, intertwined at each other's throats for pretty
Speaker 1: much the whole time. Yeah, because, um, a feminist will
Speaker 1: point out Barbie is, her figure is ridiculous, she's wealthy,
Speaker 1: she's vapid, she's materialistic. Girls shouldn't even be playing with
Speaker 1: this thing because it sends all the wrong messages, possibly
Speaker 1: dangerous messages. Um. And there are times when Mattel's kind
Speaker 1: of made the point for feminists or just any critic
Speaker 1: of Barbie specifically ten Talk Barbie. Yeah, bad for them
Speaker 1: sometimes with the stuff because they've made some terrible mistakes
Speaker 1: a lot, I know, but you get I don't know.
Speaker 1: You just picture like an out of touch board room
Speaker 1: and they're trying to do the right thing and it
Speaker 1: just blows up in their face over and over. So, uh,
Speaker 1: Team Talk Barbie. Yeah, they recorded Uh this Barbie could
Speaker 1: talk back to you thanks to a computer microchip, and
Speaker 1: it would say four phrases, and they had two hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy phrases total, and each doll got four at
Speaker 1: random I love shopping, Let's have a pizza party, or
Speaker 1: the one percent of dolls math class is tough, which
Speaker 1: is a pretty high percentage for just one thing. So
Speaker 1: like the worst thing that Team Talk Barbie could have
Speaker 1: said ended up in the most dolls. Yeah. Uh and
Speaker 1: of course, um that perpetuated the girls are bad at
Speaker 1: math thing in the American Association of University Women said
Speaker 1: we don't like perpetuating these stereotypes. Mattel said, fine, you
Speaker 1: know what, We'll pull these and if you got one
Speaker 1: of these, uh I don't like math doll, you can
Speaker 1: send it in and get another one. But it was
Speaker 1: kind of too late, and then the best thing in
Speaker 1: history happened. Yeah, the Barbie Liberation Organization uh struck. They
Speaker 1: bought hundreds of teen talk Barbies, and they also apparently
Speaker 1: bought hundreds of talking Duke G I Joe action figures
Speaker 1: and they switched the microchips out in them. So awesome,
Speaker 1: and then they took them back. Uh. So, a lot
Speaker 1: of little girls got barbies that said things like vengeance
Speaker 1: is Mine and a lot of little boys got G I.
Speaker 1: Joe's that said things like, let's plan our dream wedding.
Speaker 1: That's pretty great. And there's actually a really excellent version
Speaker 1: of this saga that's told in a Simpsons episode Lisa
Speaker 1: versus Malibu. Stacey, Remember that got all this background based
Speaker 1: on Ruth Handler and Mattel Barbie and and this m
Speaker 1: Barbie Liberation organization. I'm glad you mentioned that that I've
Speaker 1: forgotten all about that. That's such a good Episode's a
Speaker 1: good one, Lisa, lion heart. So, uh, Mattel and Um
Speaker 1: and Ruth have always shot back or countered, maybe more politely.
Speaker 1: They're not shrinking violence when you know the feminists are
Speaker 1: on them. No, they say, you know what, Barbie was
Speaker 1: created by women. Barbie has always had you know, jobs
Speaker 1: sometimes male traditional male jobs. Yeah, they say, she she
Speaker 1: she breaks the plastic ceiling. Yeah, like she was day night,
Speaker 1: day to night CEO Barbie, UM, Barbie for President, astronaut
Speaker 1: Barbie UM. And they basically said, you know what, she's
Speaker 1: never been married, she never had kids. Barbie is a feminist, right,
Speaker 1: although I bet a lot of feminists would argue back,
Speaker 1: and they have been for years. Well yeah, but some
Speaker 1: feminists also actually grudgingly support Barbie as a champion of
Speaker 1: women's right. So there's this one article I read by
Speaker 1: by Deb Moore Hennicky. It's called rethinking Barbie. And she
Speaker 1: points out that quote Kendall's come in several outfits, but
Speaker 1: really he's just there. If Barbie happens to want to
Speaker 1: go on a date, she does not stand around waiting
Speaker 1: for Ken to show up, or she needs someone to
Speaker 1: go shopping with her to help her pick up friends
Speaker 1: for that, And the next sentence she basically said, like
Speaker 1: she goes shopping with her friends, she basically does whatever
Speaker 1: she wants, you know. Um, so she's no, she's no
Speaker 1: lackey for Ken. And they'll also point out that, you
Speaker 1: know what, before we came along, it was just like
Speaker 1: baby dolls, and all it said was here you can
Speaker 1: only be a mother to a child or have a
Speaker 1: little imaginary best friend, little girl doll. There were no
Speaker 1: adult dolls that had adult jobs and thinking like adult jobs.
Speaker 1: But know yeah, and even from the outset me um,
Speaker 1: Ruth Handler created Barbie with the idea that little girls
Speaker 1: could use this older doll to imagine themselves in their
Speaker 1: life and maybe hopefully make a better path for themselves. Um,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of been a point of Barbie all along.
Speaker 1: And there's actually There's this one study out of Washington
Speaker 1: and Lee in two thousand ten that supported that that
Speaker 1: down that when the groups of little girls were showing
Speaker 1: a Barbie doll getting into, um, the outfit of like
Speaker 1: a male dominated occupation, like firefighter, they tended to report
Speaker 1: that they could grow up to be a firefighter too. So,
Speaker 1: I mean there is support for that very much. Um.
Speaker 1: But still there's a lot of easy shots that one
Speaker 1: can take a Mattel is, you know, basically making Barbie
Speaker 1: a sexualized doll. Yeah, but I mean since the very
Speaker 1: beginning until yesterday, this has been going on, and it's
Speaker 1: just one of those lifelong battles. Mattel is never gonna
Speaker 1: back down, and I'm sure the feminist probably won't either.
Speaker 1: Studies aside, everyone has their opinion on Barbie. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point about Barbie. I
Speaker 1: feel like she is a giant mirror for society, everything
Speaker 1: that's wrong with it, everything that's right with it it
Speaker 1: depending on how you look at Barbie, and on a
Speaker 1: much more micro cosmic level, depending on how an individual
Speaker 1: little girl plays with Barbie, she can be a you know,
Speaker 1: a tool for aspiration or something that teaches the girl
Speaker 1: all the wrong things. That's good point. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: So we should talk about Barbie and race because Mattel
Speaker 1: has also like made some missteps over the years when
Speaker 1: it comes to the cringe yeah, cringe worthy episode coming up. Uh.
Speaker 1: In ninety seven, they conceived of a black friend for
Speaker 1: Barbie and they called her colored Francie. I know, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how well that went over. It's hard
Speaker 1: to tell now because it sounds so ridiculous, but I
Speaker 1: don't know how it was received at the time. I
Speaker 1: couldn't find anything on that. Um, apparently not that great
Speaker 1: because Colored francis not around any longer. Well, their follow
Speaker 1: up wasn't that much better. In eight they came out
Speaker 1: with Black Barbie. That's what they called it. Yep, Black Barbie.
Speaker 1: Black Barbie. Ken came out two years later African American
Speaker 1: Ken sun Stational Malibuchan in was was was black and
Speaker 1: Um the problem was until two thousand nine, until three
Speaker 1: years ago. One of the problems, one of the problems,
Speaker 1: aside from the naming conventions, uh, is that they still
Speaker 1: use the quote unquote white dolls and just made the
Speaker 1: skin tone darker. Yeah, and they they didn't change any
Speaker 1: other aspect of the doll until three years ago when
Speaker 1: they finally, um made African American barbies Kara, Grace and Trichelle,
Speaker 1: and they had designs apparently to replicate features of real
Speaker 1: African American women. Finally, and have you seen these dolls
Speaker 1: I have? Yeah, they're great. One of them looks sort
Speaker 1: of like Beyonce. Um that one that two thousand and
Speaker 1: ten Washington Least study that we mentioned. That author also
Speaker 1: started to wonder like, how does what Barbie doesn't? How
Speaker 1: does what Barbie isn't doing? A acting little girls as well? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the point she made was, Um, if a young
Speaker 1: African American girl goes into a store and um, like,
Speaker 1: there's not a black president Barbie, right, what does that
Speaker 1: tell her? Sure, there's just the white president Barbie. That's
Speaker 1: a good point. Um Again, prepare for cringing, because, like
Speaker 1: you said, apparently Mattel's boardroom exists in a in a
Speaker 1: cultural vacuum. So uh in they got a ring and
Speaker 1: ding from Nabisco who said, hey, we need to move
Speaker 1: some Oreos, so why don't you guys make an Oreo
Speaker 1: theme Barbie? And they said, sure. Problem we should point
Speaker 1: out they've done a lot of deals with companies over
Speaker 1: the years. Yeah, so this wasn't anything bigger, Newer cook Barbie,
Speaker 1: Pepsi Barbie, Nascar Barbie. It seems like anytime they have
Speaker 1: a new you know, I mean I have a Barbie.
Speaker 1: Do you really know Josh Barbie? Oh I thought you
Speaker 1: meant you owned one. No, no, no, there's a yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a podcaster Barbie. Yeah. Um. So they they contracted
Speaker 1: with Nibisco and they came out with an Oreo theme
Speaker 1: Barbie and all was fine. They got a few complaints
Speaker 1: saying like this promotes junk food, but nothing big, no,
Speaker 1: big East, the usual stuff. And then they released a
Speaker 1: black version of Oreo Barbie. Yes, and that costs some
Speaker 1: controversy because, like you said, apparently their boardroom is in
Speaker 1: a vacuum and they did not realize that, Uh, that
Speaker 1: is a racial epithet, uh level leveled by black people
Speaker 1: against other black people who they feel like are being
Speaker 1: too quote unquote white. So there dark on the outside,
Speaker 1: white in the middle Oreos and Mattel wasn't aware of this.
Speaker 1: And they released an African American Barbie that said Oreo
Speaker 1: all over on the shirt and like in the purse,
Speaker 1: and uh, they are now a collector's item, of course,
Speaker 1: because they quickly were yanked from the shelves and his
Speaker 1: cracked dot com put it. They quote picked the one
Speaker 1: cookie in the universe that could ever be considered as offensive. Ever,
Speaker 1: the one cookie she could have been the Nutter Butter
Speaker 1: barbie problem. Yeah, you're right, or corrects right? Um so
Speaker 1: Mattel Also as there's a lot of stuff that they do, right,
Speaker 1: Like in that case, they didn't mean to offend anybody.
Speaker 1: It was just a horrible mistake. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: they released an African American barbie and they released a
Speaker 1: white barbie. Right. Um. They do the same with with
Speaker 1: multi ethnic barbies from around the world. They've been releasing
Speaker 1: them forever. And like it's great because you know, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a place called Spain. A little girl says, like
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. It's good for that. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, it's like the clothes they dressed them
Speaker 1: up in are beyond stereotypical. Like Native American barbie, the
Speaker 1: Dutch barbie looks like the Swiss miss Girl. Um. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, it probably is. Um. And then
Speaker 1: Vitan Ken from Mexico in nine four. He's wearing a sombrero.
Speaker 1: It's just agonizing. Sometimes they're trying to just miss the
Speaker 1: mark once in a while. Yeah, I get the feeling
Speaker 1: that the boardroom is not only in a vacuum, but
Speaker 1: it's a lot of like old white people making these decisions.
Speaker 1: Um okay. So I would say probably the most controversial
Speaker 1: aspect of Barbie always from the outset, before she was
Speaker 1: even created, because her body. Yeah, that's what kept her
Speaker 1: from being created in the first place. As we mentioned,
Speaker 1: the uh Mattel CEO said, you can't release at all
Speaker 1: with big breast. I'm glad you finally got that out.
Speaker 1: Just like didn't even know how to say that, but
Speaker 1: that's what they said. And since then, Barbie's figure has
Speaker 1: been notoriously called out is unsupportable, fake, um, not realistic,
Speaker 1: and at worst, like really bad for these little girls
Speaker 1: in their body image and what they think they're supposed
Speaker 1: to look like, like a tool of body dysmorphic disorder. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's like it's not even possible to look that way,
Speaker 1: they say it depending okay. So what's very interesting, I think, Chuck,
Speaker 1: is that this design of her body was actually a
Speaker 1: design decision made by her designers, who were all women,
Speaker 1: career women's successful career women um to allow her to
Speaker 1: wear miniature versions of real like fashion clothes, so like
Speaker 1: her crazy hips and small waist, they were designed like
Speaker 1: that so that she could she could wear these clothes
Speaker 1: that gathered at the waist and she had breasts, so
Speaker 1: she could wear these biouses or whatever that we're like
Speaker 1: based on real clothes and designed by real designers. So
Speaker 1: it's actually a design decision, but it quickly took on
Speaker 1: its life that like, yeah, Barbies, this evil tool that
Speaker 1: spreads this um unhealthy body image to little girls. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it was the nine fifties and it was
Speaker 1: just like, you know, let's make a full figure and
Speaker 1: you know, a tiny waist and girls will love it
Speaker 1: or she looks like us? Yeah what what? This is
Speaker 1: just my personal opinion here. That's all well and good.
Speaker 1: Since then, may be, since they've taken all these steps
Speaker 1: to introduce more correct versions, maybe they should release a
Speaker 1: like realistic Barbie dump Be Barbie, a k. A normal
Speaker 1: looking person Barbie. I don't think it will ever happen.
Speaker 1: I don't think they have made changes to her figure,
Speaker 1: so she's nothing like she was when she first came out.
Speaker 1: She's not like she was. She she has changed some,
Speaker 1: but for the most part there there's not gonna be
Speaker 1: a dumpy Barbie, not if you call it that. See,
Speaker 1: that's part of the problem is looking average you called dumpy.
Speaker 1: Oh come on, man, I am definitely not part of
Speaker 1: the problem. I don't. I wouldn't call it a normal
Speaker 1: looking person dumpy Barbie. Then compared to Barbie, you would
Speaker 1: call her dumpy Barbie. I think that's definitely that's the
Speaker 1: whole zeitgeist behind this whole thing. Like if if Barbie
Speaker 1: is perfect than anything else, that's different as dumpy. Alright,
Speaker 1: well I disagree, Um well, National Organization of Women would
Speaker 1: probably disagree to. They've frequently saw. Did Barbie is a
Speaker 1: again this instrument of delivering an unhealthy body image to
Speaker 1: little girls? Yeah? And like you said, they sometimes they
Speaker 1: don't make it any easier on themselves because in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three Barbie sit upset, there was a pamphlet
Speaker 1: called how to Lose Weight, and one of the tips
Speaker 1: Barbie says, don't eat and that's it. So they Two
Speaker 1: years later there was another booklet, Barbie Slumber Party, that
Speaker 1: said there was a bathroom scale that was permanently set
Speaker 1: at a hundred and ten pounds, and that sounds like
Speaker 1: that's a little weird. The same booklet was included, Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it's weird. And even if it's not weird,
Speaker 1: and again like if you take this, the conventional idea
Speaker 1: of what's going with the thought is behind this um
Speaker 1: you they said, okay, well what is Barbie? Wait? Barbie
Speaker 1: is well, we can't make a real um scale that
Speaker 1: moves back and forth, so we're gonna set it at
Speaker 1: one ten without any thought that possibly this little girl
Speaker 1: is gonna think that if she doesn't weigh a hundred
Speaker 1: and ten, like, she's not as pretty as Barbie. Yes,
Speaker 1: it never will be, and it will always hate herself
Speaker 1: for not weighing a hundred and ten pounds. It's just
Speaker 1: these decisions made without this wider thought has kind of
Speaker 1: give him a Telli's reputation. That's right. They've done studies
Speaker 1: on this. They did one in two thousand eleven in Holland,
Speaker 1: and they said that girls who played with average sized
Speaker 1: dollars for ten minutes eight significantly more during a taste
Speaker 1: test following play than girls who played with the Barbie
Speaker 1: dolls or a thin doll like Barbie. Yeah, to be fair,
Speaker 1: And another study which I thought was pretty interesting. Well,
Speaker 1: obviously they found that promotes materialism and sexualizes play. But um,
Speaker 1: this other study found that there's more torture play and
Speaker 1: anger play involved with Barbie, Like a little girl will
Speaker 1: rip off Barbie's arms or head, and they found that
Speaker 1: they ripped off more Barbie parts than other dolls because,
Speaker 1: as one girl said, quote, she's the only one that
Speaker 1: looks perfect. Right. So this is huge, huge, massive body
Speaker 1: of work on the effect that Barbie's body has on
Speaker 1: the little girls that play with there, and more often
Speaker 1: than not, they find that it creates a poor self
Speaker 1: image body image in little girls. But interestingly, it tends
Speaker 1: to disappear in tweens. Yeah, like, um, say they're studying
Speaker 1: girls three to ten, it'll really appear in like three, four, five, six,
Speaker 1: But then like like it doesn't appear as much. It's
Speaker 1: not as prevalent. Interesting, Yeah, it is, but you you wonder, like,
Speaker 1: what's the lasting effect of those when it hits those three, four,
Speaker 1: five and six year old you know, yeah, that's true
Speaker 1: formative years. Um. There's also been a lot of studies
Speaker 1: and reports of what Barbie would look like worsh a
Speaker 1: real person, right, Yeah, they're always disturbing. So you said that, like,
Speaker 1: it's impossible look like Barbie. Not entirely, but close. South
Speaker 1: Australia University researchers calculated that a woman's chance of natural
Speaker 1: really having Barbie's figure was one in a hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised it's not more than that. I am too,
Speaker 1: But for a man to have Ken's figure, you have
Speaker 1: like a one in fifty chance. You and I are
Speaker 1: are we don't have good chances. Uh. And in Finland
Speaker 1: at their University Central Hospital, they say Barbie were life size,
Speaker 1: she would lack the seventeen to two percent body fat
Speaker 1: required for a woman to menstrate, so she's so thin
Speaker 1: she medically can't even menstrate. And the BBC did this
Speaker 1: comparison of Barbie and one of their employees named Libby,
Speaker 1: and if Libby were to keep her twenty eight inch
Speaker 1: waist but stay in step with Barbie's other proportions, she
Speaker 1: would have to be seven ft six inches tall, which
Speaker 1: again isn't impossible. The world's tallest woman is Yeow Defend,
Speaker 1: who's seven ft eight inches tall. Yeah, but she didn't
Speaker 1: look like Barbie. Uh, and then if she kept her height,
Speaker 1: if Libby kept her hype but shrank Barbie's proportioned waist,
Speaker 1: she would have a twenty inch waist, which is three
Speaker 1: inches smaller in circumference than um Victoria Beckham's waist. Who's
Speaker 1: like a bean pole beyond the beam posts. She's gotta
Speaker 1: be like one of the She's like Vampira waistwise, she's thin. Um.
Speaker 1: And did you see this Ukrainian woman? She says she
Speaker 1: hasn't had plastic surgery. She's not being truthful. Valeria Valeria
Speaker 1: Um Lucan Lucia Nova. Yeah, the quote unquote real life
Speaker 1: Barbie doll. She's a model, artist and singer supposedly, and uh,
Speaker 1: just look up a picture of her and prepare to
Speaker 1: get creeped out. She's very animate. Have you seen her friend,
Speaker 1: that's like the real life anime girl. Yeah, she photoshop
Speaker 1: se she denies it, but I saw untouched before pictures
Speaker 1: and she's clearly had plastic surgery and she doctors her photos.
Speaker 1: But um, it's creepy. She looks like a doll. She
Speaker 1: doesn't look real, she doesn't look alive. She's in the
Speaker 1: young Annie Valley. But she's a real person. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a woman named Cindy Jackson who's a brit who
Speaker 1: actually holds the record for um most plastic surgeries in
Speaker 1: a lifetime fifty two as of April two eleven. And
Speaker 1: she started undergoing those at age one after deciding that
Speaker 1: she wanted to look like Barbie back when she was six.
Speaker 1: So she moved to London and started going under the knife.
Speaker 1: I didn't see a picture of her to you. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: well she looks like she looks Barbie. Yeah. So we
Speaker 1: mentioned the litigious nature of Mattel guarding zealous league guarding
Speaker 1: Barbie's image over the years. Uh, and you have dug
Speaker 1: up via the Bathroom Reader and notable examples. Um number one.
Speaker 1: Paul Hanson in the n H San Francisco artists began
Speaker 1: selling Barbie art basically drag Queen Barbie, Tanya Harding Barbie,
Speaker 1: Exorcist Barbie having a lot of fun with it, Tanya
Speaker 1: Hardening Barbie. I guess it comes with a little minicro
Speaker 1: bar there's dumpy Barbie right there. Oh boy. Um. He
Speaker 1: sold about a hundred and fifty dollars, earned about two grand,
Speaker 1: and Mattel sued him for one point two billion dollars.
Speaker 1: This is what these corporations can do. They'll just be like,
Speaker 1: I didn't gonna sue you for nine dollars. So Hansen
Speaker 1: is like, alright, alright, alright, everybody just calmed down. How
Speaker 1: about this. I will sell my dolls only in art galleries,
Speaker 1: no more stores, just the galleries themselves, and I will
Speaker 1: donate all of the profits charity. Mattel said, no, We're
Speaker 1: going to court. Pal. So they went to court, and
Speaker 1: eventually a judge, uh just lost patients, it said, and
Speaker 1: granted a partial judgment and said against Mattel for not
Speaker 1: having a sense of humor. So a little smack on
Speaker 1: the face, but I'm sure the attorneys smugly left with
Speaker 1: their headheld high. Um. And that's kind of similar to
Speaker 1: another artist's case, Mark Napier, who's uh from New York.
Speaker 1: He's got us a website. UM that was originally called
Speaker 1: the Distorted Barbie website. UM, and it was pictures of
Speaker 1: Kate Moss, Barbie Fat and ugly Barbie Dolly parton Barbie. UM,
Speaker 1: and Mattel sent a ceason desist later apparently they were
Speaker 1: a fan of this guy or something. UM. Imagine that
Speaker 1: people trolling the world for this kind of stuff, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean they sent a ceason assist rather than suing
Speaker 1: him for a billion dollars in days, instead of just
Speaker 1: suing him. But Napier said, you know what, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to really do this, h percent. I'm gonna blur
Speaker 1: the images a little bit and then change the B
Speaker 1: and Barbie to a dollar sign. I wonder if it's
Speaker 1: still up. I haven't looked. I haven't looked either. And
Speaker 1: then there's Barbie. Barbie Bell a k. Barbara Bell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this one is a little she's at wacky. She claimed
Speaker 1: that Barbie was speaking to her. Is that right? And
Speaker 1: and started selling uh chances to channel Barbie spirit and
Speaker 1: answer personal questions via Barbie for three bucks three bucks
Speaker 1: a pop. Barbie will directly through me tell you whatever
Speaker 1: you want to know. Well, and um, Barbie sent her
Speaker 1: first message to Barbara Bell. The message was I need respect.
Speaker 1: So Bell also, this is probably what pushed her over
Speaker 1: the edge as far as Mattel is concerned. She started
Speaker 1: publishing the Barbie Channeling newsletter. So I'm Antell threatened a
Speaker 1: multimillion dollar lawsuit. Bell is like, okay, fine, that's fine.
Speaker 1: I'll shut down, but first I'm gonna make a statement. Look,
Speaker 1: she says, for three dollars, nobody's getting hurt. I don't
Speaker 1: claim to be the only voice of Barbie. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure not taking any other channeler's business. I've carved out
Speaker 1: my own niche in the market. There's seven million Barbie
Speaker 1: dolls in the world with no voice my favorite partist.
Speaker 1: I'm sure not taking any other channeler's business. Nobody else
Speaker 1: would be this crazy, is what she's saying. Um, this
Speaker 1: one turned out a little odd if you ask me. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a band called Aqua from Denmark. They recorded a
Speaker 1: song called Barbie Girl. You know this song? Right? Oh?
Speaker 1: Here it is now do you recognize it? Yes, you do.
Speaker 1: I'm a Barbie girl in a Barbie world. Is plastic.
Speaker 1: It's fantastic. Yeah. I don't know you. I don't believe you.
Speaker 1: I don't think you realize that I don't listen to radio.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that you've not heard this song. I haven't,
Speaker 1: all right, So Mattel filed suit, of course against m
Speaker 1: c A. So this is actually slugging it out with
Speaker 1: a big corporation for a change. Uh, And it ended
Speaker 1: up as a bigger battle because of that, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: because they can all afford big, high powered attorneys. So
Speaker 1: they suited Mattel. I'm sorry, m c A, m c
Speaker 1: A countered um and you know what, we're suing you,
Speaker 1: and we can even bring in expert witnesses that basically
Speaker 1: we'll testify that you based this on a little German
Speaker 1: sex doll, sex doll, but you know, sexy doll back
Speaker 1: in the day, in the nineteen fifties, And Mattel was
Speaker 1: probably like, oh, yeah, we did kind of do that.
Speaker 1: They had a really good point. They said, what Aqua
Speaker 1: was doing in the song Barbie Girl is not to
Speaker 1: make Barbie into a sex object, as Mattel alleged, but
Speaker 1: to point out that she's been one all along. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then Mattella exactly and so um. In a in
Speaker 1: an ironic twist of fate, um, they ruled this song
Speaker 1: was protected as parody and tossed out the defamation suit
Speaker 1: back at Mattel. And then in two thousand nine, Barbie
Speaker 1: actually recorded a cover version of the song and Mattel
Speaker 1: released on YouTube to promote a line of Barbie fashionistas
Speaker 1: that crazy. So they sued them for the song and
Speaker 1: then they used the song I'm Sure for free because
Speaker 1: it was a cover version sung by whoever does the
Speaker 1: Barbie songs. This one's my favorite, Paul David. I just
Speaker 1: felt bad for this guy. He Um. He was a
Speaker 1: Barbie collector, a big time Barbie collector. He was on
Speaker 1: their team. Yeah, so much so that he published the
Speaker 1: Barbie catalog um and he in the mid ninety nineties.
Speaker 1: Um wrote in one of his catalogs that if there
Speaker 1: were an ugly con test, Elizabeth and Queen Barbie would
Speaker 1: definitely win. Did you see that one? Yeah, it's Elizabeth
Speaker 1: the First. You know, it was notoriously dumpy. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was just, uh, it looked like Queen Elizabeth the First.
Speaker 1: But this guy, who they had trusted to help protect
Speaker 1: Barbie's image had written something snyde, so they brought down
Speaker 1: the hammer of God on him. Also, they point out
Speaker 1: that there were some he didn't put the registered trademark
Speaker 1: symbol next to some of the photos, which is like,
Speaker 1: if you want to give motel after you uh just
Speaker 1: put forget to put the registered trademark next to a
Speaker 1: photo of Barbie. Yeah, we should put that on our
Speaker 1: podcast title. We don't want the Barbie hammer, we don't
Speaker 1: um so Barbie sus mattel Um accuses him of copyright
Speaker 1: infringement and um. Eventually Paul David signed a settlement agreement,
Speaker 1: and as The Wall Street Journal reported, it stipulated that
Speaker 1: Barbie may only be portrayed in his catalog as wholesome, friendly,
Speaker 1: accessible and kind, caring and protective, cheerful, fun loving, talented
Speaker 1: and independent. And what did he do? He was disgusted
Speaker 1: and sold all his Barbies and I guess quit writing
Speaker 1: his catalog and that was the end of that one,
Speaker 1: Which is that's why that was so sad to me,
Speaker 1: because he was such a huge supporter of the company,
Speaker 1: like to be such a fan to go out of
Speaker 1: your way to publish a catalog and then they essentially
Speaker 1: just like squash the guy. Yeah. I remember reading this
Speaker 1: and like many years ago and thinking like, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was pretty awful. Yeah, but who knows, Maybe it's the
Speaker 1: turning point for the guy. Maybe he's like, I'm free.
Speaker 1: He walked outside and like talked to real humans. Uh
Speaker 1: what about Barbie being banned, Chuck? Yeah, like this year actually,
Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve, she was banned in Iran for
Speaker 1: destructive cultural and social consequences, and they came up with
Speaker 1: their own little doll, and girls called it ugly and fat.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find a picture of this one. I couldn't
Speaker 1: find anywhere. It doesn't like anything like Barbie. It's just
Speaker 1: a doll. Yeah, oh then maybe I did see it. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the one toy seller called Barbie worse than an American missile.
Speaker 1: But I also hear that all over Tehran, like you
Speaker 1: can still get Barbie's no problem under the counter, but
Speaker 1: for like, this is what I what I hear got
Speaker 1: you this Audi Arabia band Barbie in two thousand three,
Speaker 1: saying she was offensive to Islam and even in the
Speaker 1: States she can't get no respect. West Virginia outlaw Barbie
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, or try to with a bill
Speaker 1: deciding emotional intellectual impact she has on girls. But I
Speaker 1: doubt it that one anywhere did. It's time now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're about to talk to Gordon Jovna, the founder of
Speaker 1: the Bathroom Reader's Institute, the guy who introduced me to
Speaker 1: all this stuff, and we're gonna talk to him. What
Speaker 1: about the missteps of Barbie some even more missteps. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it tells got a great and wonderful history of it.
Speaker 1: So let's let's bring them up. So, Chuck, we're sitting
Speaker 1: here talking to the guy Gordon Jobna, the founder of
Speaker 1: the Bathroom Readers Institute and publisher of the Uncle John's
Speaker 1: Bathroom Reader series. His name's on Uncle John. No, it's Gordon.
Speaker 1: He We tried to call him Mr job Nat and
Speaker 1: he went crazy. We're great, we're fantastic, Thank you very
Speaker 1: much for joining us. We're um talking about Barbie. UM.
Speaker 1: And of course you know, we've let everybody know all
Speaker 1: the material from the episode today. This is a special
Speaker 1: one because normally we do this from how stuff works articles,
Speaker 1: but we're doing this, um from just stuff that's come
Speaker 1: out of the Bathroom Readers. UM. So so we're talking
Speaker 1: Barbie here. I feel like, UM, we've kind of done
Speaker 1: a pretty good job setting all this up. We've we've
Speaker 1: gone um into Barbie and Mattel's UM, I guess, troubled
Speaker 1: history a lot. We've kind of made it clear that
Speaker 1: Mattel is pretty good at making missteps, and um, you've
Speaker 1: you've brought along some some other examples of ways Mattel
Speaker 1: has just missed the mark a little bit. I guess
Speaker 1: you could say, with some of their their Barbie's Barbie releases. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: we we have some examples of Barbies that created controversy.
Speaker 1: I don't know that you'd call them all missteps. At
Speaker 1: least one of them. It's not a misstep, but certainly
Speaker 1: certainly a controversial. Uh So the first one I would
Speaker 1: mention is share a smile, Becky, which he'll introduced in
Speaker 1: Yeah we laughed, then then feel bad for laughing. No,
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny. They were actually originally going to
Speaker 1: call it wheelchair Barbie. Excuse me, wheelchair Becky, but they
Speaker 1: were they had an eye toward diversity. And this was
Speaker 1: a friend of Barbies who was um confined to a
Speaker 1: wheelchair for an unspecified disability. And incidentally, the wheelchair the
Speaker 1: doll came with a wheelchair, little pink wheelchair, And that
Speaker 1: was fine until um Mattel got a complaint from a
Speaker 1: seventeen year old girl from Washington named Kirsty Johnson. She
Speaker 1: complained that Barbie's dream House was not wheelchair accessible, but
Speaker 1: she had a personal interest because she was she had
Speaker 1: superbral palsy and was confined to a wheelchair herself. So then,
Speaker 1: uh She also mentioned that the dream house. Although the
Speaker 1: dream House had an elevator, was too to accommodate the wheelchair.
Speaker 1: So this thing falls into another example we pointed out
Speaker 1: earlier in the podcast. I believe that um Mattel probably
Speaker 1: trying to do the right thing here, but in the
Speaker 1: end sort of takes a ham pisted approach and doesn't
Speaker 1: cover all the angles. Yeah, and and there was my
Speaker 1: was to promise a redesign of the dream House, but
Speaker 1: instead they just dropped Becky from the Barbie line. Very
Speaker 1: set sat into that story. That is all met tell
Speaker 1: right there? What what else do you have for um?
Speaker 1: I know, totally styling Barbie kind of raised some some eyebrows.
Speaker 1: I believe it did. Uh. And this is the one
Speaker 1: that I don't know if you'd call it a misstep,
Speaker 1: but it certainly caused a scandal. They released this one
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine. I had a set of
Speaker 1: stickers that came with it that looked were like temporary tattoos.
Speaker 1: They had two sets, actually, one for the doll and
Speaker 1: that an example of that would be the heart with
Speaker 1: Ken that they've been in Ken and and they also
Speaker 1: came with a set of temporary tattoos for the girls
Speaker 1: who played with the dolls to put on themselves. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they were also impact on the package. They encouraged
Speaker 1: girls to to put them their lower back, which is
Speaker 1: what those of us, well well most people know as
Speaker 1: a tramp stand. Uh. So parents were up in arms
Speaker 1: because it did two things. It encouraged girls, uh to
Speaker 1: give each other homemade tattoos, they said, And they also
Speaker 1: said they took it was a message that it was
Speaker 1: okay for girls to do to do trampy things. And
Speaker 1: this is one of those things. I wouldn't I don't
Speaker 1: know that I would call us a misstep because they
Speaker 1: Mattel didn't agree and they left it in the in
Speaker 1: the line and it's still available. Yeah, yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: that would be kind of the definition of a misstep.
Speaker 1: If Mattel doesn't back down, then it's not a misstep. Well,
Speaker 1: which basically means does the doll cell exactly. It's a
Speaker 1: misstep if it doesn't sell breath. And can't you see
Speaker 1: little girls sitting around like, oh, we're out of our
Speaker 1: barbie temporary tattoos. Go get a sewing needle in some India, inc.
Speaker 1: Let's get let's get down to brass techs here um
Speaker 1: and we talked Gordon about Skipper already. Um. We talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about Barbies Family Circle, um, and we
Speaker 1: we mentioned Skipper, but we didn't mention the controversy that
Speaker 1: came with her, like right out of the gate, right
Speaker 1: when she was released kind of early on in the
Speaker 1: Barbie saga in ninety right. Yeah, Yeah, Skipper was Barbie's
Speaker 1: little sister, and she was introduced actually in the sixties,
Speaker 1: but the original plan was for them to uh make
Speaker 1: her a little older with each subsequent release. In the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five they introduced growing up Skipper, which was
Speaker 1: controversial almost from the very beginning because what it was
Speaker 1: was when when girls cranked her arm, she grew a
Speaker 1: quarter of an inch taller, and she sprouted breasts, and
Speaker 1: she got an hour glass figure and a tramp stand.
Speaker 1: You have to put that one on yourself. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would be curious to see just the mechanism behind this.
Speaker 1: I'd like to, I guess something. I'd like to play
Speaker 1: with one, but I would like to see how that worked.
Speaker 1: I wanted to see the doll grow. I'm interested that
Speaker 1: the safe complicated. If you want to play with it,
Speaker 1: you'd have to buy one, like on eBay and it
Speaker 1: would cost you around a hundred bucks. That's not worth
Speaker 1: it that there are YouTube videos of of the doll
Speaker 1: in action. Perfect you go, chuck, what the link to
Speaker 1: one of those? After this thing publishes? Um? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: again this isn't a misstep because as I understand it,
Speaker 1: Mattel was like, well, we'll see you all in hell
Speaker 1: because we're not taking this one off the shelves because
Speaker 1: again it's selling very well. That's that's correct. But they
Speaker 1: did phase it out. Uh. In seventy nine, they introduced
Speaker 1: super teen Skipper, which was a the breast didn't grow,
Speaker 1: but they were a little larger than the previous Skipper.
Speaker 1: And then a couple of years after that, they they
Speaker 1: made her a little bit, uh, took away a little
Speaker 1: baby fat, and and they she became hot Stuff Skipper. No,
Speaker 1: was that really what they called her? Yeah? Hot stuff Skipper. Wow. Um, So, Gordon,
Speaker 1: you and your rather started out before the Bathroom Reader. Um,
Speaker 1: you guys wrote a book about the sixties and the eighties,
Speaker 1: and you guys mentioned Barbie in that book, right, So
Speaker 1: what did you guys say? We said it was a
Speaker 1: pop culture book, very early pop culture book about the sixties.
Speaker 1: And and um we said in the introduction that Barbie
Speaker 1: was as important a cultural icon as any anything that
Speaker 1: happened in the nineteen sixties. And we were lamb based
Speaker 1: in the or Lamb bastard whatever in the in the press,
Speaker 1: in reviews for you know, like somehow putting Barbie over
Speaker 1: the war in Vietnam or civil rights right there, And
Speaker 1: we weren't. But we just felt that that this was
Speaker 1: going to be a lasting, uh cultural image and we
Speaker 1: were a little ahead on that. Laughing now exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about your books. Um, you guys are releasing
Speaker 1: the twenty five anniversary of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. Cong congratulations.
Speaker 1: That's enormous. Um, so what what what tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about this? Well, um, you know, we never
Speaker 1: thought we would be doing this for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: And I should say that the actual inspiration for doing
Speaker 1: the Bathroom Meador was my brother's idea to give credit
Speaker 1: where credit is due. But um, you know that first
Speaker 1: book was two pages long, and we are our latest one,
Speaker 1: Uncle John's Fully Loaded Bathroom Reader. We uh we made
Speaker 1: it six hundred and eight pages, so it's a it's
Speaker 1: quite a giant book that covers a zillion topics and
Speaker 1: just like any other bathroomador, only a little more so. So, um,
Speaker 1: where can everybody find the anniversary Well, all of your
Speaker 1: books where where? Where's the best place to find them? Well,
Speaker 1: hopefully your local bookstore will have Uncle John's fully loaded
Speaker 1: Bathroom Reader. Certainly the chain bookstores like Barnes and Noble
Speaker 1: will have it. Um, you can get it at Costco,
Speaker 1: Sam's Club, get it online from Amazon, or you can
Speaker 1: get it online from US at bathroom reader dot com. Cool.
Speaker 1: We'd love to have people visit us. Uh and sometimes
Speaker 1: they make suggestions of what we should be including, and
Speaker 1: that's fantastic. Hey, thank you very much for joining us. Um,
Speaker 1: you guys are doing the anniversary edition of Uncle John's
Speaker 1: Bathroom Reader. It's available pretty much anywhere you can find
Speaker 1: a book, right. Absolutely. I will be looking forward to
Speaker 1: reading it this Christmas. So thank you very much, Gordon
Speaker 1: job Now we appreciate you. Thank you, Josh, and thank
Speaker 1: you Chuck. Thanks god bye, Well Josh. That was awesome.
Speaker 1: Thanks for hooking that up man. Sorry I was a
Speaker 1: fanboy kinda No, it was great. Uh, Like whenever you
Speaker 1: can get the real people on the line, and sometimes
Speaker 1: it happens, you just gotta do it. I'm just glad,
Speaker 1: he answered. I mean like we were really running a
Speaker 1: gamble by calling him in the middle of recording. That's true. Alright,
Speaker 1: So shall we finish up with a few of them,
Speaker 1: the more odd Barbie dollas throughout the street. These aren't missteps,
Speaker 1: are just unusual. Yeah, and I'm sure there was not
Speaker 1: a marketing campaign behind any of them. There's side to
Speaker 1: Another Country or come there is Alfred Hitchcock's the Bird's
Speaker 1: Barbie and this Barbie looked like Tippy Headron from the movie,
Speaker 1: and it has three blackbirds attached to her, so they're
Speaker 1: like perpetually attacking her. Yeah, she's being attacked by blackbird Barbie. Uh.
Speaker 1: My favorite is Pooper Scooper Barbie. And I guess this
Speaker 1: is to teach girls, or I guess boys they play
Speaker 1: with dolls. We've been seeing girls the whole time. Um.
Speaker 1: It comes a little Golden Retriever named Tanner who eats
Speaker 1: and poops and really poops. And Barbie has a little
Speaker 1: shovel and pale to be a responsible dog owner and
Speaker 1: curb her dog. That's what you can inspire to do.
Speaker 1: That's right, Um, there's the McDonald's one, which we talked about.
Speaker 1: She's wearing a headset which I think threw you off.
Speaker 1: But can a franchise the work at his or her
Speaker 1: own store? Yes, taken to me. The most bizarre one
Speaker 1: of all time is I Love Lucy sa Barbie. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought again, say George Washington Barbie. It's pretty bizarre, alright.
Speaker 1: So what's I Love Lucy One? That I Love Lucy
Speaker 1: Santa Barbie is based on a specific episode of I
Speaker 1: Love Lucy from nineteen fifty six, and Barbie is dressed
Speaker 1: as Ethel Mertz, who is dressed as Santa Claus. That's
Speaker 1: the weirdest Barbie ever. She's not dressed as Santa. She's
Speaker 1: dressed as Ethel from I Love Lucy dressed to Santa.
Speaker 1: My like, my mind is mush. Yeah. I think some
Speaker 1: Mattel like employee higher up was like hammered on eggnog
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve watching this George Washington's episode and said, uh,
Speaker 1: I got a great idea, and I guess George Washington
Speaker 1: Barbie followed, actually preceded in and that's pretty much straight up.
Speaker 1: She is dressed like George Washington in his Revolutionary War uniform.
Speaker 1: That's right, except that's pink in it. There's an NBA Barbie,
Speaker 1: which doesn't seem all that weird. You can get all
Speaker 1: the different teams, right, there's never been a w NBA Barbie.
Speaker 1: That's the weird part. X Files Barbie. That's a little strange. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There was a can dressed as uh Ducovny's Fox Molder
Speaker 1: and of course Barbie dressed in a pant suit as
Speaker 1: uh Scully Goldie Horn Barbie. I loved that Goldie hawn
Speaker 1: and laughing. Yeah, that's who it's based on. Yeah, with
Speaker 1: a bikini and the tattoos. It's just sort of an
Speaker 1: iconic television figure. Yeah, I mean, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: Wildcats Goldie on that was terrible, yeah, or Ruth Buzzy Barbie,
Speaker 1: you know, um wowdcats Goldie on overboard Goldie hawnks. There
Speaker 1: was Harley Davidson. Barbie is a bike or chick from
Speaker 1: head with head to toe leather. That's right, it's weird. Um.
Speaker 1: And then there's a bunch of other just slightly noteworthy ones.
Speaker 1: French Made Barbie, Lady of the Unicorns, Barbie, civil Ward,
Speaker 1: Nurse Barbie, John Dear Barbie urbane. Yeah. I looked up
Speaker 1: urban Hipster Barbie, and I thought it was gonna be
Speaker 1: like some Brooklyn chick with Hornero glasses, and it was this.
Speaker 1: It looked more like uh, foxy brown, like black exploitation Barbie.
Speaker 1: They called it. That's what they called urban hipster, like
Speaker 1: big Afro, sort of like African American goddess. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if it was urban hipster today, it would be she
Speaker 1: would have a mustache and glasses, live in Williamsburg. There's
Speaker 1: Star Trek Barbie and Ken Barbie's dresses, Lieutenant hura Um
Speaker 1: Nascar and John Deere Barbie's bowling Champ Barbie. This one,
Speaker 1: this is one of my favorites. Barbie and Ken is
Speaker 1: the monsters. They have so much fun, those two. And
Speaker 1: then of course the Pepsi. Barbie also had the Coca
Speaker 1: Cola Barbie to do battle and the Cola Wars. Because
Speaker 1: if there's one thing Mattell doesn't want to do is
Speaker 1: to offend any segment of the American population. That's it. Man,
Speaker 1: You got anything else? No, I think In Loui of
Speaker 1: Listener Mail, we had the interview and we just want
Speaker 1: to say thanks to get into Uncle John's bathroom. Here. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for everything all these years. Appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys, and we appreciate you guys too for listening.
Speaker 1: Agreed Um. If you want to get in touch with us,
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