Word: mattel
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Barbie may not be everyone's favorite companion--detractors love to hate her plastic perfection--but the fashion doll with the impossible figure has long been the most popular girl at Mattel. The world's No. 1 toymaker, whose products range from Fisher-Price infant and preschool toys to Disney-licensed characters, gets more than one-third of its nearly $4 billion in sales from the 11 1/2-in.-tall mannequin. Now Barbie, who at age 37 has become the best-selling girls' brand ever, is poised to strut into, and perhaps change forever, the male-dominated world of multimedia software...
This month, after almost a year of buildup, Mattel is rolling out a line of seven interactive products led by three Barbie programs. Analyst John Taylor of Arcadia Investment expects Barbie to be among the top software entertainment programs this Christmas. Unlike such shoot-'em-up, beat-'em-up boy toys as Doom and Mortal Kombat, the Barbie titles are notably pacific and based on creative play. "The demand will be many times higher than Mattel thinks it will be," predicts Gary Jacobson, a senior vice president at the brokerage Jefferies & Co., who has followed Mattel for a decade...
...showing for investors, "30-year-old women were having a great time making doll clothes," says an amused analyst who was there. Also part of the rollout are a moviemaking kit called Barbie Storymaker ($29.99) and Barbie Print 'n Play ($29.99), which produces cards and stationery. For the boys, Mattel's new offering is a computer mouse in the guise of a Hot Wheels car, complete with flashing lights and revving engine...
Other companies have made more substantive changes, developing new products or modifying old ones. Hallmark now markets a "Mahogany" line of greeting cards that features black characters and sayings. And even though it enjoyed good sales with a black version of its Barbie doll, Mattel introduced Shani, whose broad facial features and slightly fuller hips more accurately reflect the way that many African Americans look...
...after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. A Nintendo video-game version of Gladiators is being readied for release this month. Topps is planning to come out with trading cards of the 10 gladiators. Newhall Merchandising Concepts, Inc., is whipping up American Gladiators Juniors vitamins for young gladiator wannabes. And Mattel is introducing a line of toys that includes miniature gladiator action figures and small-scale models of events such as the obstacle course, known as the Eliminator. In Hollywood fevered brains are at work, of course, trying to think of a way to develop an animated cartoon series...