Boomer Barbie

Mattel, Inc. hit it big in 1959 with its fashion doll, Barbie. To be clear and give credit where credit is due, Ruth Handler invented it; Mattel handled it. Ken’s appearance in 1961 launched a sort of reverse genesis story where the female gets created first. 

Barbie sold more than 350,000 units its first year, and the word units is an appropriate descriptor. Anatomically speaking, Barbie came equipped with accessories, not the necessities. Her chest vaguely suggested she was an adult doll, but that’s about it.

She sported a perky ponytail –blonde or brunette – and a smile that charmed many-a-child’s heart.

Mattel is still in the toy business, despite a childish presidential warning about future toys and tariffs, that “Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”

I don’t know of any child with so many dolls, but I do have an idea for a new line of dolls that could reignite Mattel’s business. This is only a concept – no schematics or prototypes. If Mattel wants to make a deal with me before negotiating with the president, I’m all ears.

According to census.gov, “In less than two decades, the graying of America will be inescapable: Older adults are projected to outnumber kids for the first time in U.S. history.” Children may feel overwhelmed, finding it impossible to relate to all these old people, so a relatable doll might help. My cardinal rule is the doll should not look anything like Barbie. Instead, it should resemble a comfortably older and wiser relative, with an old-fashioned surname preceded by an endearing Gramma or Gramps, like Gramma Gladys or Gramps Herman.

Each doll would be sold with basic accessories: a pair of glasses, a cane, a hearing aid and a pill box containing a month’s supply of nasty-tasting jelly beans.

Optional accessories purchased separately could reflect and perhaps enhance a child’s experience with older people. Replacement hips and knees, removable teeth, heart monitors and pacemakers, walkers, wheelchairs, and service dogs.  

All of the doll’s joints, fully articulated, should audibly click as the child manipulates the dolls’ appendages to pose, say, Gramps in his fashionably stained and tattered overstuffed reclining chair.

In keeping with tradition and to reduce the impact of ageism, the popular ponytail should be available for both. For Gramps, an optional wild-and-bushy beard, a receding hairline, or for that clean look, a bald head. Wigs and hair dye could be sold separately with the purchase of Gramma Gladys’ Beauty Salon™ or Gramps Herman’s Barber Shop ™.

Naturally, dolls in this new line ought to be manufactured with what I’m calling the Fall-Apart ™ feature: a simulated human tendency to age from the moment they emerge from their recycled packaging. To enrich the child’s experience, both silver and grey hair could gradually thin and fall out as the child repeatedly brushes it. Clothing will be a bit baggy and a bit retro to help youngsters realize that fashion goes in both directions.

It will be normal for the doll’s elastic-plastic skin to slowly stretch and sag in random areas, along with the appearance of simulated varicose veins or even temporary red splotches on the skin – primarily the hands and arms – whenever the child accidentally bumps the doll against a hard surface.

Mattel has been thinking along this line for 77 years, making Barbies to better reflect reality and the times. She started out as a 19-year-old blonde who simply changed her outfits until Mattel decided to tweak her stereotype, realizing inclusion and diversity should be part of a role model. It started by marketing dolls with slightly different body types. In 1968, the first Black Barbie emerged and many other ethnicities appeared to inform children’s awareness of cultural diversity. Eventually, a career professional appeared, Surgeon Barbie (a woman doctor in 1973) with more than 200 different jobs represented to date. In 2019, Mattel released its first Barbie with physical disabilities; the latest Barbie has type 1 diabetes, carrying her own insulin pump and glucose monitor.

My vision differs slightly from Mattel’s, to have children not overwhelmed by an older population but comforted by an avatar of their own future, holding a lifelong reminder and role model to help them envision growing up. Age, not as a disability but an experience.

There will always be the likelihood that a counterfeit grumpy gramps doll will appear on the market, inappropriately trying to influence the child’s bonding experience with my Fall-Apart ™ dolls. The imposter toy will be a reckless fellow with, say, a cotton-candy hair style and a tangerine spray tan. He’ll be outfitted presidentially standing beside a cardboard cutout of the White House. Parents should be warned that neither I nor Mattel would ever consider such a doll as a role model. If you see one, don’t buy it. Even children should be afraid of this one.