Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, it's nineteen fifty nine, and this is the
story of a woman who pushed her all male corporate
board to let her make a doll with boobs, ran
a company that was the first to market directly to children. Yikes,
and was indicted for corporate fraud. But she was also
an amazing success story. I'm Patty Steele. Barbie creator Ruth
(00:21):
Handler changed the way kids play forever. That's next on
the backstory. Hey, I grew up with Barbie dolls and
I even paid money to see the Barbie movie back
in twenty twenty three. I'm sure you did too, but
I had no idea about the exploits of Barbie creator
(00:42):
Ruth Handler. Then backstory listener Sandra Nissinovich Spinelli from Brooklyn,
New York, Hope I pronounced your name right, messaged me
to say you gotta check this woman out. Okay, you
may have seen the Barbie movie, but if you didn't,
you certainly know about it since it took in a
mon was one and a half billion dollars at the
box office, and was nominated for eight Oscars. And maybe
(01:05):
there's a chance you had a Barbie when you were
a kid. But where did it all begin. A woman
named Ruth Handler was the creator and marketing genius behind
the original Barbie doll back in nineteen fifty nine. She
started out as a business partner with her husband, Elliot,
and another guy named Matt. They named their company Mattel
(01:26):
Matt for Matt and Elle for Elliot. They didn't include Ruth,
but that would have been a weird inclusion. How do
you do Ruth into that? They began in the nineteen
forties by making picture frames when they had a bunch
of leftover wood and plastic, which was a pretty new
substance back in the early nineteen fifties. They started making
(01:46):
doll furniture, which sold really well. Then they decided they
would make other toys, including baby dolls. Now Ruth, who
freely admitted wanting to be a career woman first, despite
being a mom to two children, wanted little girls to
be able to aspire to being other things besides a mother.
All the popular dolls in the nineteen fifties were baby
(02:09):
dolls with names like Betsy, Wetsie, Tiny Tears, and Chatty Cathy,
which was a Mattel creation. But Ruth saw her daughter Barbie. Yes,
her name was Barbie playing with paper dolls who were adults,
dressing them up and inventing stories about them. So Ruth
wanted to make a three D doll out of plastic,
(02:32):
but she ran into a problem with her own company.
The men on the board at Mattel thought the idea
of an adult doll with breasts being sold to little
girls was I don't know, kind of creepy. They said no,
but she was a tough chick, and after showing the
success in Europe of an adult female doll that sold
really well, finally she got Barbie made. In nineteen fifty nine,
(02:56):
Mattel took Barbie to a toy fair and they got,
I don't know, crickets. About half of their longtime customers
had zero interest in a doll with boobs, but for
the buyers who took a chance, the doll flew off
the shelves. Here's what lit the fire for all those
little girls who had to have a Barbie doll. Good
(03:16):
old fashioned marketing, but it was actually completely new marketing.
Like it or not. Mattel was the very first company
to market their products directly to little kids, rather than
to moms and dads who did the buying and believe me,
as a mom of three kids, there's no more intense
pressure on a parent than a kid who really really
(03:38):
wants something. You see. Years before Barbie, back in nineteen
fifty five, Mattel had taken a huge gamble. Walt Disney
himself came to them and asked them to be the
sponsors for his new TV show, The Mickey mouse Club.
He wanted five hundred thousand dollars for fifteen minutes of
airtime on the show each week. Tell was only worth
(04:01):
five hundred thousand dollars at that point, but they decided
to take the risk. Of course, The Mickey Mouse Club
was an enormous hit, so when Barbie came along, they
already had a huge audience to expose their busty doll to,
and by nineteen sixty three, Mattel had sold two million Barbies,
not to mention all the separately sold fashion stuff like dresses, shoes, hats,
(04:25):
and of course, eventually more merchandising like Barbie's Boyfriend Ken
named after Ruth's son Ken and her best friend Midge,
as well as Barbie carrs and dream houses. I mean,
imagine all those little eyes glued to their black and
white TVs for the Mickey Mouse Club, dreaming of their
Barbie dolls and how to dress them up. Ruth became
(04:47):
one of the most successful executives in the toy industry,
and in fact, the only female executive in the world
of toys. Her company went on to create toys like
hot Wheels, Matchbox, Thomas and Friends an American Girl. Not
everything she did was a success. Ruth tried to introduce
not a pregnant Barbie, but a pregnant Midge. She had
(05:10):
a magnetic detachable pregnant belly with a baby inside. Not
a success since parents thought it encouraged teen pregnancy. So
Future Midge Dolls had her dump her husband Alan and
her baby and come back single. In the nineteen seventies,
Ruth also introduced a line of Skipper dolls Barbie's Little Sister,
called Growing Up Skipper. The dolls simulated puberty. If you
(05:34):
twisted her wrist, she'd grow an inch taller, rotate her arm,
and breasts popped out from her rubber chest. Folks called
it perverted. It was discontinued, and finally, to reach disabled children,
matel put out Share a Smile Becky. She had a
pink wheelchair, but it wouldn't fit in Barbie's home or
(05:54):
her car, and Becky's long hair tangled in the wheels,
So again discontinued, and the women's movement not really thrilled
with Barbie, especially because of her measurements. The scale on
nineteen sixty five's Barbie Sleepy Time Gals slumber Party showed
her weighing one hundred and ten pounds, even though the
American female then averaged one hundred and forty. They figured
(06:18):
if Barbie was five toot six, she would measure thirty
nine eighteen for her waist and thirty three for her hips,
with a size three shoe and a body fat percentage
so low she wouldn't be able to get her period,
a symptom of anorexia. Barbie needed reinvention, but then there
was real trouble for Ruth. In nineteen seventy eight, Ruth
(06:41):
and four other Mattel employees were indicted for inflating sales
records to bump up Mattel stock. She took the fall,
but she claimed her lack of judgment was due to
her breast cancer. She was sentenced to forty one years
in prison, but that sentence was reduced. She left Tell,
paid fifty seven thousand dollars in reparations, got just five
(07:04):
years probation, and did five hundred hours of charity work
helping folks on probation re enter the job market. Meantime,
Barbie was making a comeback, but then in the nineteen nineties,
more backlash. Teen Talk Barbie's voice was programmed to say,
I love shopping, Okay, meet me at the mall? Will
(07:25):
we ever have enough clothes? Math? Class is tough? And
let's plan our dream wedding. A group called Barbie's Liberation
Organization did surgery on three hundred teen Talk Barbie's and
Gi Joe's in New York and California, switching their voice boxes.
So Barbie yelled eat lead, Cobra, attack, and vengeance is mine,
(07:49):
while tough Guy Gi Joe perd Let's plan our dream wedding.
They planted them back on store shelves with a note
that said call your local news. Mattel changed teen Tog
Barbie's chat lines. Like any great entrepreneur, Ruth had another
act in her After her breast cancer in the nineteen seventies,
(08:10):
She'd gotten a single mistectomy, which in those days were
really disfiguring, and there were no implants. Ruth said that
the operation left her feeling dewomanized. Doctor suggested she stuff
her empty bra cup with stockings, but instead she launched
a new company called nearly Me, which made comfortable prosthetic
(08:32):
breasts in thirty sizes that looked really natural. She was
in her sixties and she had a sales team of
mostly middle aged cancer survivors. She even fitted former First
Lady Betty Ford after her cancer surgery. Nobody talked openly
about breast cancer back then, but Ruth spoke out for
early detection. She even did what she called a strip
(08:55):
act for a People magazine photographer, taking her shirt off
and demonstrating similarities between the real and the fake boob.
She went on the Dick Cavic Show and asked him
to feel her up on National TV, which he, of
course did. Ruth had been a huge success creating the
first mass produced fictional doll with breasts and creating breasts
(09:17):
for real women who were cancer survivors. She loved to say,
I have lived my life revolving entirely around breasts. Ruth
Handler died in two thousand and two at the age
of eighty five. She was an amazing example of trusting
your gut. Got to thank backstory listener Sandra Nissinovich Spinelli again.
(09:51):
Hope I pronounced it right. She's from Brooklyn, New York,
and she suggested this peak into the Barbie story. Hope
you liked the Backstory with Patty Steele. I would love
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(10:13):
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(10:34):
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Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't
know you needed to know