Word: mattel
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...million advertising campaign highlighting their principal selling point: speed. The company says the battery-powered vehicles can go the equivalent of 500 m.p.h. in an adult-size automobile. Record Breakers are imported from Japan, where they are a national craze. While some analysts predict smaller U.S. sales, Mattel, Matchbox and other toy manufacturers are releasing their own superfast cars...
Toys that catch fire are another worry. Americans for Democratic Action, a Washington watchdog group, tested 18 stuffed animals and found that 13 of them, including Mattel's Baby Mickey Snuggle Pal, Paddington's 30th Anniversary bear from Eden Toys and Playskool's Big Bird, are flammable, even though they meet existing federal and industry standards. Manufacturers say they have had few complaints and would have to use toxic chemicals to make the toys fully flame-retardant...
...first introduced in 1959, store owners were dubious. Many feared she was too adult, too shapely and too different to appeal to little girls and their traditional moms. This year she is second only to Nintendo: worldwide sales will top $450 million, up more than 25% from last year. Mattel sells more than 20 million Barbie fashions a year, making it one of the world's largest retailers of women's clothing...
...feat, since 1964 was the first year she could bend her knees) and Barbie the astronaut. She apparently was completing medical school at the time, since this year she emerged as Dr. Barbie. "The toys that become classics are those that help children define themselves as they grow," says Mattel USA president Robert Sansone. "Barbie is a vehicle for rehearsing what little girls will do in later life...
...than competitive challenge. Beating the TV players is not hard, because they usually delay offering a solution in order to build up the pot. But the interactive concept may catch on. Youngsters last season could blow away TV villains in Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, and Mattel is developing six more interactive TV products. Guess the culprit on Murder, She Wrote, perhaps? Divine Alf's gag lines in advance? Nah -- too easy...