The Rabbit Hole
The Advocate reported yesterday that Mattel has announced a new addition to it’s Barbie Gold Label Collection. Meet Palm Beach Sugar Daddy Ken.
Apparently this is serious, though a questionable choice for a Ken doll. He’s coming out in April 2010, and you can pre-order him now for only $81.99. The first line of the product description is Head to Palm Beach with Barbie! So I guess it’s safe to assume that Ken is Barbie’s Sugar Daddy and her latest “career” is gold-digger? What a role model.
Or with his “dashing jacquard-patterned jacket with a light pink polo shirt and crisp white pants” maybe Barbie is his beard? It’s hard to say, but we’ve questioned his sexuality before.
Well, this isn’t the first time Mattel has made some questionable choices with Barbie and her friends. Here are five of the most controversial, questionable, and even down-right offensive Barbies dolls.
I do not find this doll to be controversial in any way, maybe a little questionable, but when this doll was released in 2002, people lost their shit.
Midge is Barbie’s friend who is married to Alan and already has a child with him. She was sold as part of the “Happy Family” collection, pregnant with her second child. This was too much for America to handle. Here’s why:
Because of the outcry of enraged and concerned parents, pregnant Midge was pulled from Wal-Mart shelves. She can still be purchased on Amazon
This doll was a poor choice. I don’t know what was going on in the meeting where this concept was pitched that everyone ended up nodding their heads and saying this was a good idea.
Besides being a career girl (she can’t hold a job to save her life) and going out on hot dates with closeted Ken, Barbie also enjoys a fulfilling home life with her dog Tanner. Tanner is a very special pet, since he eats his poop. This set comes with a box of doggie treats (which look like brown tic tacos) which you can pour into his bowl. Tanner eats them, and then by pressing his tail down, he poops them out. Barbie can then use the popper scooper to pick them up and put them in the trash can–though she might as well just put them back in his bowl because he’s going to eat them again anyway.
Yeah, it’s a little gross. Mattel did recall the dolls in 2007, because the magnets in the scooper accessory were coming lose. You can still buy the set on Amazon for about 8
Want to see the dog in action? Check out the Fail Toys Video Product Review.
Skipper is Barbie’s younger sister. Apparently she was a little too young, because in 1975 Mattel decided it was time to grow-up. “Growing Up Skipper” was released with a new special feature: if you rotated her arm she grew half an inch in height and suddenly sprouted breasts!
Obviously this was an attempt by Mattel to teach girls about the wonders of puberty. Surprisingly, people were outraged. According to Dollrefernce.com: “just about every newspaper in the U.S.A. carried a story about her, some women’s groups & a few parents wrote to complain, but with sales expected at 1 1/2 million, the doll must go on to market.” And she did.
Check out a video of her magically growing chest:
Now that Skipper’s all grown up, maybe she’d like to join her sister Barbie on a little trip to the tattoo parlor. Why a tattoo Barbie? Want to be a little edgier? Trying to be a role model like Amy Winehouse? Mid-life crisis?
With the introduction of Totally Stylin’ Tattoos Barbie in the Spring of 2009, parents were outraged. Not only did Barbie come with her own tattoos–and the ever classy tramp stamp of Ken’s name–she included tattoos for the young girls to wear as well, and a fake tattoo fun for easy application.
This one has yet to be recalled, so hurry up and grab one before they do
In 1997, Nabisco and Barbie teamed up for what they surely thought was the most amazing and lucrative cross-promotion opportunity of the decade. Take America’s favorite fashion doll and team it up with America’s most dunkable cookie and you have Oreo Barbie.
The doll was doing great, until they decided to release an African American version. Suddenly the Oreo Barbie didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.
Back in 1997, their marketing team obviously didn’t have access to Urban Dictionary to look up the term “oreo.”
Term for African Americans that the black community is generally offended with for betraying their roots usually for dating caucasion girls, dressing too white, talking too white, etc. The term is branded OREO since they are “Black on the outside, White on the inside”
So the public’s response was not so great. It sold poorly and was recalled as a result, but is now a big hit among collectors. Good job Mattel.
Children are the future. They’re also the primary market when it comes to toys (second is Star Wars nerds). Toy companies are always trying to come up with the next great idea that every kid will want, so they’ll annoy their parents into buying it.
Some toy companies just don’t know what they’re doing. They think they have a great idea, but they just don’t quite think the concept through. That’s how we end up with all of these weird and slightly disturbing toys.
I originally saw this on the news, and there has been much debate over whether or not it’s wrong. In the least, it’s a little weird. Bebé Glotón is a doll designed to teach children about breastfeeding, which is a little strange. Watch the video to see the doll in action.
Nothing like combining two great American past-times (wasting money and gluttony) to make one very informative toy. This face bank not only devours you money, it burps.
I guess we could call this “educational.” It teaches children about…well.. It’s basically a toy of a man, and when you stick a pencil in his butt, he moans and exclaims all kinds of things.
So, your kid is turning 8 and you’re having a birthday party. You want to get something inflatable and fun for the kids to burn off all that sugar energy from the cake. Bouncy castle? No, too cliche. Penis-shaped slide? Perfect.
I’m not sure what’s creepier, the baby with the moving penis that sprays you right in the face, or the father in this commercial.
The joys of technology: people can communicate instantly with loved ones across the world, information can be exchanged at the speed of light, and any idiot in his basement can take a video, bastardize and upload it to youtube for the world to see.
Luckily, there are some people who use this technology for good, and create clever and often humorous videos. Some of the most ingenious are the trailer remixes.
Basically someone takes a movie, edits the footage, dialogue, slaps on a little music, and then can completely change the movie’s plot or genre. Sometimes they’re crap, sometimes they’re okay, and sometimes they’re absolutely brilliant.
Here are the five best trailer remixes:
One of the essential, classic rom coms, what if it were a thriller with an obsessed Meg Ryan stalking the lovable Tom Hanks? This trailer dares to wonder…
Now what would happen if something did the opposite: took a scary film and turned it into a tear-jerker? Then you’d end up with a heartwarming version of The Ring.
Using the Back to the Future films, this trailer teases the touching story of a forbidden love that crosses decades.
(I promised myself I would only feature one Brokeback Mountain parody on this list, but I just have to link to Star Wars: The Empire Brokeback–the story of forbidden love between two droids, R2-D2 & 3-CPO.)
Did you ever wonder what the Charlton Heston Classic The 10 Commandments would be like if it were a teen comedy? I didn’t either, but I’m glad someone did. This remix is absolutely brilliant!
This is hands down, the best movie trailer remix I have ever seen. I have only ever seen The Shining once, and it was so disturbing that I will never watch it again. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be possible for The Shining to be a feel good movie. This video proves that anything is possible.
Now that the election is over and we’re no longer treated to Tina Fey’s spot on impersonation of Sarah Palin, the Digital Shorts are my favorite part of Saturday Night Live.
Sometimes they don’t quite make sense, but most of the time they’re hilarious, especially the shorts featuring songs created by the group The Lonely Island.
Their first studio album, Incredibad
This is the short that started it all. Although this was the second of the Digital Shorts to air on SNL, this song swept the internet like a plague in December of 2005. Enjoy the hilarity of Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell rapping about such hardcore topics as cupcakes and the Chronic (what) cles of Narnia.
Proving she’s a million times cooler than we already thought, Natalie Portman pairs up with Chris Parnell to mock her perfect and clean image in this profanity-laced rap.
(this is the uncensored version)
The next year, Andy Samberg paired up with Justin Timberlake to present this R&B parody. It was also a huge hit online after NBC posted the uncensored version on Youtube, and it went on to win the Emmy for Outstanding Original Lyrics and Music
I know some of the reactions to this short have been mixed, but I think it’s absolutely hilarious. I know premature ejaculation is a serious matter, but the heightening of the ridiculous causes builds up to the perfect crescendo of jizzing. Yeah, it’s a little immature, but it’s still funny.
(That’s the explicit version. You can watch the clean version here)
This is the latest of the shorts, which premiered this past Saturday. In this parody, the guys are joined by T-Pain to rap about their experiences on a boat. They’ve got their swim trunks and their flippy-floppies, and you just have to watch it to really experience the magnificence.
As the world anxiously awaits the historic moment of Barrack Obama’s Inauguration this Tuesday, it’s good to take a few moments to take a look back at the inaugurations of previous presidents.
Though their elections may not seem as significant as that of our nations first African American president, their entry into the White House marked the beginning of significant shifts–both good and bad–in the future of the country.
Take some time to review the speeches of our last five presidents, and then appreciate the hope and optimism for the future of our country that comes with Obama’s highly anticipated Presidency.
View the full speech here.
Edit 1/21/09:
As a bonus, here’s the video of Barack Obama’s 2009 Inaugural Address: