All About Barbie, But What About G.I. Joe?

by Jo Robertson

I wanted to write a post celebrating Barbie’s fiftieth anniversary on March 9. But then I thought about the “dolls” that boys play with when they’re younger. We don’t call them “dolls,” but that’s certainly what they are.

So, Barbie and G.I. Joe.

A few years ago Dr. Big and I visited Scotland on a golfing vacation. He wanted to play the original courses of the birthplace of golf – St. Andrew, Carnoustie, and Turnberry. I wanted to tour the castles.

Among our group were two young couples, the men insanely wealthy and quite worldly, the women blonde and vacuous. I privately dubbed the women Barbie I and Barbie II and told Dr. Big they’d be killed off by the third tee in my upcoming mystery. Their conversation spun around fake boobs, manicures, and hair extensions.

Surprisingly we became friends and by the end of the trip, I confessed to them that I’d given them the names of Barbie I and Barbie II. They were immensely flattered and I saw beyond the surface of their glitz and superficiality to the warm, if somewhat self-absorbed, women beneath.

Barbie is an icon so entrenched that the story above gives you a perfect picture of these two women by simply naming them.

So to celebrate Barbie’s anniversary I thought we’d play Barbie Trivia. See how many of the questions you can get right about Barbie before you look at the pictures below or scroll down for the answers. By the way, the Barbies to the left went for $17,000 at auction. Wow! Got any mint Barbies lying around?

1. What was the first Barbie wearing?

2. Who was Barbie’s younger sister who made her debut in 1961?

3. What was the first source of controversy about Barbie? What were Barbie’s original dimensions if translated on a 1/6 scale?

4. What was the cost of the original Barbie?

5. The last question is about G.I. Joe. What does the G.I. stand for?

Here's some Barbie history:

Barbie was born in March 1959 and has wormed her way into the hearts of young girls for fifty years. I was too old for dolls when Barbie was born, so my connection with her came through my three daughters. And did they ever love Barbie! Yes, the first edition Barbies to the right were dressed in the black and white zebra-striped bathing suits.

Having seven children, our family couldn’t afford all the glitz and glamour that came with Barbie – her townhouse, her horse, her spa. Just the basics. So my girls made their own dollhouse out of a discarded appliance box and fashioned their own clothing line from scraps of fabric left in my sewing basket.

Small wonder that they also sewed their own Barbie outfits for each other to commemorate milestones in their own lives. Barbie Graduate when my oldest graduated from college, Barbie Married when my second walked down the aisle, Barbie Business when my youngest got a huge promotion at work.

The Angela Merkel Barbie to the left was the first female diplomat to be made into a Barbie.

The controversy question is a tricky one. Initially mothers were concerned about the realistic portrayal of Barbie's bustline -- a doll with breasts -- my goodness! -- but the real controversy centered around her waistline. Her waist was widened in 2000 to reflect a woman's natural figure and a belly button added. On a 1/6 scale Barbie's original dimension would've been 36-18-33; she would've been about 5'9" tall and her weight on her trademark pink scale was 110 pounds! Many wome felt that this unrealistic ideal woman would affect girls negatively.

Barbie was the brain child of Ruth Handler, co-founder of Mattel, who’d watched her own daughter play with dolls and saw that she enjoyed pretending with dolls that were more like women than babies. Handler had a hard time selling the idea of a full-figured doll to the company, but eventually prevailed.

Barbie's little sister was Skipper and the first Barbie doll cost a whopping $3!

Barbie had the grown-up doll field until Hasbro produced the G.I. Joe action figure in 1964. Joe was a 12-inch “doll” much like Barbie but designed for boys.

Does anyone remember those early action figures, which included Batman, Superman, and other heroes? My sons had several of them, and their favorite was Joker. It wasn’t until the 80’s that the 3 ¾ inch hard action dolls became popular on the heels of the Star Wars movies.

The G.I. initials stand for "galvanized iron" instead of the "government issue" that many believe. On their inventories the military referred to many of the supplies made of galvanized iron, such as trash cans, as GI.

I always wondered why G.I. Joe and Barbie didn’t hook up. Seems a natural development to me.

What’s your experience with Barbie dolls or action figures? Did you play war with your action figures or house with your Barbies? Do you think Barbies are as popular now as they were initially?