Or Barbies with seeds implanted in their skulls -- sort of like Chia pets -- that you could bury in your yard.

I'm having a capitally shitty day, and that just made it so much better.

At least according to The Simpsons, and why would a tv show lie to a person?

A real suggestion: make Barbies (and accessories) out of cellulose-based plastic, and make her clothing out of hemp.

Back in my childhood- in the dim, dark, distant days when dinosaurs roamed the earth- I have a vague memory of having a Mr-Potato-Head where you pushed the various body parts into a real potato. I reckon we could do a Barbie version of this. You could even market it as the "Body Shape Diversity Barbie"! Everything from couch-potato, through string-bean to pear-shaped. Peach. Rutabaga. Pineapple! Hmmm, I may have to go and dismember a Barbie and begin experimenting...

That if another toy company - Tonka or Hasbro, maybe - decided to try to make its products more eco-friendly, then you/Broadsheet wouldn't have mocked 'n' skewered them.

But *gasp*...if it is Mattel / Barbie?!?! How dare they try to make this evil symbol of patriarchal sexism have a little less negative environmental impact?!?! How dare they! >8-O

~sigh~ Predictable, much?

P.S. - Maybe Dove can break into the business and release their own "Campaign for Real Beauty" doll to compete with the Barbinator. It could have the hip/waist ratio and other proportions of "real" women like, say, Rosie O'Donnell or Kirstie Alley?

Marc P, while I too have only a vague memory of playing with a tuber-based Mr. Potato Head (and MRS. Potato Head; if you'd suggested there might someday be a marital-status-neutral term like Ms. for toys and women, people would have looked at you like YOUR head was a potato), I have an indelible memory of my mother screaming when she found a rotten, putrid Mr. PH that had been kicked to the back of the closet days or weeks before. My younger sister had to wait for the all-plastic version--indeed, better living through chemistry.

Couple of points--

-Getting the most use as possible out of leftover Barbie fabric is nothing new. There are vintage Barbie outfits out there that are made from the leftover fabric of earlier outfits (and many of those outfits had limited runs because that particular fabric ran out, in turn driving up the price among collectors--don't ask me how I know this.) Price guides and the like often mention a Skipper outfit that was made from the same fabric as "Gay Parisienne", for example (again, don't ask me how I know this.) Mattel is playing up the "eco-friendly" angle because it's hip and trendy right now, but it's really not anything new.

-This leads me to think that there probably WILL be some collector out there who can identify all the bits of Barbie fabric on a particular item, or at least spend unhealthy amounts of time trying to identify them.

-My other thought is this--if Mattel wanted to be really "eco-friendly", why don't they start cutting back on some of their packaging?

-And since I'm talking about packaging, Bratz dolls are much bigger offenders in that department. Your average Barbie doll usually just comes in a cardboard box with a "window"; Bratz come in these all-plastic gizmos with all of their little accessories taped all over half a dozen other plastic gizmos. Again, don't ask me how I know this.

That I do visit the Barbie website once in awhile, because I collect dolls. It's not the most socially acceptable hobby, hence the above post.

I have to admit I'd love to see a little less waste packaging on these things. They're going for the maximum visible shelf space. Since the advent of Bratz, Barbie no longer has quite the leverage they used to have, but they used to refuse to supply Barbies to chain stores that failed to devote an entire aisle to Barbie. Thus the fabulous "pink aisle" was born.

Anyway, getting one of those things out of the package is an experience that has to be lived to be believed. (How I know this is fairly complicated - one of my hobbies is miniature photography and I like to filch the dolls' stuff and give the dolls to charity.) The collector's market which demands that a doll look pretty in the package to all eternity means that these days they are practically welded in there, and the packages are more elaborate than some people's furniture. I've encountered packages that required a dremel to get into, and it's not unusual to run into machine-twisted metal twist ties which are then soldered shut with large dollops of hot glue. I want to see a doll package made out of 100% post consumer waste or something!

I collect Dawn dolls from the early 70s, but they have really cool names for their clothes like "chain 'er up" and also feature see-thru baby doll negligees that never phased my childlike mind. Stuff that would never be allowed to be sold now!

I loved my Barbies too (still have em, the kind that looked like actual women and not the big-eyed types of today meant for toddlers), and never obsessed over her figure and that my boobs weren't triple Es, and I secretly still played with Dawn and Barbie into high school.

As for the new stuff, got into collecting the Lingerie Barbie after only hearing about it due to the "outrage" over a doll meant for adult collectors.

Was into buying MyScene for myself as well a few years back, never really liked the weird looks on the Bratz dolls but I thought the MyScenes had great hair styles and fashions.

But yeah, it sucks that you can't open stuff up anymore for fear of decreased earnings 50 years from now. At least that was the goal of the lingerie Barbies until Mattel caved into pressure and stopped making them. They came in their underwear to encourage collectors to take out their dolls and "play" with them by dressing them up, not leaving them in boxes forever. In fact, you have to break the outside tissue and open the non-windowed box up if you ever want to see what the damned doll looks like. Plus, the ribbons that tied her in were meant to be easily opened and closed so as to put her back into the box if you wanted to. Oh, those Silkstone outfits are fabulous too!

I think its sad that the dolls were changed to appeal to much younger girls so that by the 2nd grade girls think they're "too old" for Barbie. Barbie brought me years of imagination and fun from 6-16. (Who am I kidding, try 42 and counting!)