Girl Toys - Barbie Rules

I readily admit that The Flipside column is biased towards guys. With topics like Creepy Crawlers and chemistry sets, this should not be much of a surprise.

In an effort to share the spotlight, I recently spoke with five former children who shared their own experiences growing up with toys.

Dolls and board games dominated the conversations. I learned about Betsy Wetsy who had the unique talent of wetting her diapers. Thumbelina was the most lifelike and Patty Play Pal was the biggest. Then there was Chatty Kathy, the first truly talking doll who said “take me with you” and “tell me a story.” As a side note, June Foray was the voice inside the first dolls but she was better known as the voice of Rocky The Flying Squirrel.

Three of our panelists fondly remembered Mystery Date where pre-teens could imagine taking a dreamy hunk or dud to the dance. It was one game that could clear a room full of annoying boys very quickly.

Jane Bennett recalled a game called “Park and Shop” that required girls to arrange their shopping errands efficiently so they could get home on time. “Playing the game as much as I did probably explains my keen interest with organizing things.”

It was really all about Barbies, added Regina Taylor. We spent hours upon hours setting up house and playing with Barbie and her friend Midge.

“I can still see the Barbie dollhouse under our Christmas tree,” said Mary Kruse. “The furniture was attached to the house and the whole thing folded into a suitcase.”

Bennett was lucky enough to have one of the first dolls. “My father converted an old three shelf bookcase into a house and changing room for the dolls. I absolutely loved playing with it.”
“It was all about the fashion for Sandy Wittsche. “We would go to the store and buy a single outfit, then run home to pick out all the accessories that matched. It was a big event.”
“Eventually I grew too old for Barbies,” she added, “and they went into the closet for a long, long time. Years later I dug them out of my parent’s home and remembered how much I had enjoyed them.”

That led to her collection of vintage Barbie dolls and accessories that fills a display cabinet in her home. She also pulls a rare pink Barbie Christmas tree out of storage each year
“I wish I’d kept some of them,” said Taylor. My mother gave them away to my cousins and they promptly pulled the heads off the dolls.”

What made Barbie so appealing to us was her age, added Ann Carroll. “We had outgrown the baby dolls and here was a teenager doll that wore cool clothes and did the kind of things we hoped to do.”

Television advertising didn’t hurt either. The doll was among the first mass marketed toys and sold 350,000 units in the first year alone. According to the Mattel website, over $1.5 billion worth of Barbie products are sold each year.

Everyone agreed that Barbies were strictly girl territory. Unless G.I. Joe was looking for a date, there was no room for guys when the girls were “playing Barbies.”

“It didn’t really matter what we did with them when we got together,” explained Kruse. “The fun was in setting up the house and changing outfits around. Itw as a very social activity.”
Cruising the Internet world of Barbie collecting I found 11,367 different items listed on Ebay. They included such rarities as Allan (Midge’s boyfriend), the head of a 1960 Ken doll, a vintage 1958 Barbie ($495 bid) and a Japanese Midge in her wedding gown ($2,500).

Maybe us guys should have spent more time in “the pink aisle” when we were kids and less time picking out weapons for G.I. Joe.