Banner Graphic, Volume 14, Number 148, Greencastle, Putnam County, 28 February 1984 — Page 20

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February 28,1984

Barbie's 25 now and almost as numerous as living human Americans

By WILLIAM E.GEIST c. 1984 N.Y. Times NEW YORK There would seem to be no cause for undue alarm. But some time in the near future, perhaps next year, the population of Barbie Dolls will probably surpass the population of living, human

Each year, over one million American children suffer from child abuse. Over 2,000 children die from it. But what about those who survive? An abused childhood can affect a person’s entire life. Yet child abuse can be prevented. The National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse is a private charitable organization that knows how to do it. Buc we need your help We need money 3K Natjona | Committee for We need volunteers. Send us your check p reyentjon „ f Ch j, d Abuse today. Or w rite for our booklet. Help us get to the heart of the problem. Write: Prevent Child Abuse, Box 2866, Chicago, Illinois 60690 A Public Service of This Newspaper 8. The Advertising Council. E!

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Americans those made of natural materials, us. The Barbie population was about 200 million and America’s population with a threecentury head start was 235,071,793 Tuesday as Barbie’s 25th birthday was celebrated at the American International Toy

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Fair in Manhattan. The fair has attracted 12,000 buyers and 850 exhibitors from 60 nations to New York this week, fair officials said. In the office of Mattel Inc. at 2 Penn Plaza, a sterling silver Barbie fashioned by Tiffany was displayed to the gasps of

Barbie collectors and the appreciation of toy buyers and those Mattel executives who serve her. And well they might. About 20 million Barbies were sold last year, and more than that an estimated $l4O million worth are expected to be sold this year. Barbie has made Mattel the world’s largest toy company in terms of sales. Herbert Rickman, from Mayor Edward Koch’s office, proclaimed Tuesday Ken and Barbie Day in the city. Champagne toasts and proclamations of love hailed Barbie. Fans and collectors had flown in from all over the country for the event “to be with our little girl on this great occasion,” in the words of Margaret Haley, of Troy, Mich., president of the Great Lakes chapter of the Barbie Doll Collectors Club. “She means so much to us.” Ruth Cronk of New York, president of a 700-member international collectors club and editor of a monthly newsletter, said she had more than 2,000 Barbie Dolls at home, including Ken Dolls and the 45 other members of the family, friends and pets that have come out over the years. Mrs. Cronk brought an original N.R.F.B. Barbie (never removed from box) valued by collectors at about SI,OOO. “Personally,” Mrs. Cronk said, “I thought that Alan, a redhead they brought out for a

while, who used to date that little Midge they had for a while, was better for Barbie. I don’t know about Ken.” Barbie has changed over the years. The original doll had stiff hair, pale skin and heavy makeup. In later years, she wore the Jacqueline Kennedy pillbox, the long straight hair and casual clothes of the counterculture and the urban cowgirl outfits always up-to-date. Some collectors make clothes for Barbie. “I knit, crochet and sew clothes for Barbie,” Marion Kelly of Baldwin, N.Y., said. “That’s what I do.” The new line for this year features Barbie in a glamorous gown, “because glamour is back,” according to a Mattel spokesman, and in a leotard and leg warmers, “for aerobics.” Her hair is long, because young customers enjoy styling it. “We keep it fairly long,” said the spokesman, Candace Irving. “I mean Barbie keeps it fairly long. You can go a little nutty.” A buyer from North Carolina, Sam Elliott, said Barbie was “the most popular, because she is the prettiest.” “That makes sense,” he ad ded. He said some customers bought practically everything put out, including the Dream Cottage, the Dream House, the Town House, the swimming

pool, the vans ana cars and bicycles. “I have no idea where they put it,” he remarked. A 37-year-old woman recalled that her mother had finally tired of all the paraphernalia and had said: ‘“What’s next? Barbie’s Home for Unwed Mothers?”’ Accessories for 1984 include a spa with real bubbling water. Mattel says it is the largest manufacturer of female apparel albeit tiny apparel in the world, selling more than 20 million outfits a year. “Girls learn a lot from Barbie,” Miss Irving said. “That’s why we give her a helmet for riding her motorcycle and there are working seat belts in the Corvette. They learn good grooming from Barbie and they learn to be independent. She picks Ken up in her car. It is her Dream House, not his. Although millions of little girls have married Barbie and Ken, Mattel probably never will, because the little girls find marriage too confining.” Barbie has been a flight attendant for three airlines, something that has on occasion aroused protest from feminists. But Barbie was an astronaut in 1965, way before Dr. Sally K. Ride. One woman remembered throwing her Barbie out a second-story window for a “spacewalk” that year. At the time Barbie was a United Airlines flight attendant, she also bename a doctor. The best-selling outfit remains the wedding gown. Despite the hoopla over Cabbage Patch dolls, Barbie outsold them, 20 million to 2 million last year. Barbie is accustomed to fighting off pretenders to her throne. Over the years, there have been dolls of Farrah Fawcett, Cher, Wonder Woman, Diana Ross, Toni Tenille, the Bionic Woman and Princess Leia. In the age of anatomically correct dolls and dolls that dance, grow hair, roller skate, hug, become suntanned, kiss, pray, suck their thumbs, whistle, blow bubble-gum bubbles, draw pictures, burp, wet, foam at the mouth and mercifully crawl away, Barbie sells on.

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A collection of Barbie Dolls on display at the American International Toy Fair in New York City marks the 25th anniversary of the doll's introduction to the American market. About 200 million of the dolls have been manufactured. (N.Y. Times photo)

State Museum plans exhibit of Barbie dolls INDIANAPOLIS (AP) The Indiana State Museum is hoping it won’t have as much trouble coming up with Barbie dolls as Christmas shoppers had finding Cabbage Patch Kids. Dr. Lee Scott Theisen, executive director of the museum, plans a December exhibit for the 25th anniversary of the doll and is issuing a call for collectors to bring in Barbie, Ken and friends. Theisen said Friday the Barbie doll, first introduced in 1959 by Mattel Inc., has become “a social phenomenon and artifact of cultural history.” “We are working with Mattel to research the history, but we need every Barbie doll collector in the Midwest to help us locate all the dolls, costumes, accessories, cars, houses and other items associated with Barbie used in the last 25 years,” he said. A statewide “Barbie Census” will be conducted in June “to provide a cultural history background on the doll.” Especially needed are the original 1959 “Ponytail Barbie,” 1960 s “Color Magic Barbie,” 1962 "Barbie’s Dream House,” 1962 “Barbie Convertible,” 1968 “Talking Barbie,” and the 1976 “Barbie’s Classy Corvette.”

Here's to eternity GIRWOOD, Alaska (AP) - Ponce de Leon, you looked in the wrong place. Some people believe you can achieve immortality not by drinking from a fountain, but by drinking water from a glacier near here. According to Japanese folklore, drinking glacier ice water that is thousands of years: old gives you eternal life. As a result, some Japanese tourists to Alaska drive out to Portage Glacier, some 16 miles south of here, to drink the frigid water.