Forever Barbie Read Online Free PDF

short-term Beatle Pete Best
     was to the history of popular music.
    Elliot not only believed in the future, he believed in futuristic materials— Plexiglas, Lucite, plastic. He set up Mattel
     to manufacture plastic picture frames, which, because of wartime rationing, ironically ended up being made of wood. When the
     war ended, however, it was the Ukedoodle, a plastic ukelele, that secured Mattel's niche in the toy world. A popular jack-inthe-box
     followed, and by 1955, the company was worth $500,000.
    Although Barbie wouldn't be introduced for another four years, Mattel, in 1955, paved the way for the sort of advertising
     that would make her possible. It was a big year for child culture: Disneyland had opened in July and Walt Disney, who seemed
     to have a golden touch with the under-twelve set, was preparing to launch a TV series, The Mickey Mouse Club. No toy company had ever sponsored a series before, and ABC, Disney's network, wanted to give Mattel the chance. There was
     just one catch: ABC demanded a year-long contract that would cost Mattel its entire net worth.
    Ralph Carson, cofounder of Carson/Roberts, Mattel's advertising agency, thought the Handlers would be hesitant. He brought
     Vincent Francis, ABC's airtime salesman, to Elliot's office to make the pitch. What he failed to consider, however, was the
     Handlers' willingness to gamble.
    The presentation "took fifteen or twenty minutes," Ruth recalls, and she and Elliot were "ready to jump out of our skins with
     excitement." But before they said yes, they consulted their comptroller, Yasuo Yoshida.
    "Yas," Ruth recalls having said, "what would happen if we didn't bring much out of this? Would we go broke? And Yas's answer
     was: 'Not broke— but badly bent.' "
    "Okay," Elliot remembers telling him, "we'll try the bent."
    In Mattel's commercial, a little boy stalked an elephant with a toy called the Burp Gun; when the child fired, the film of
     the animal ran backward, causing it to appear to retreat. Kids loved the ad, and by Christmas the gun had sold out.
    The Handlers' move, however, did more than create record sales for a single product in a single year. Before advertisers could
     pitch directly to kids, selling toys had been a mom-and-pop business with a seasonal focus on Christmas. But once kids could
     actually see toys on television, selling them became not only big business but one that took place year-round.
    Ironically, in December 1955, Time magazine ran a photo of Louis Marx, founder of Louis Marx & Company, Inc., on its cover. He was king of the old-time toy industry—an
     industry that Mattel and Carson/Roberts were well on their way to making obsolete. Marx sneered at advertising. Although his
     company had had sales of $50 million in 1955, it spent a meager $312 on publicity. Mattel, by contrast, which had sales of
     $6 million, spent $500,000; it also pioneered marketing techniques that would send Marx and his ilk the way of the dinosaurs.
    IN 1993, RUTH AND ELLIOT SHARED SOME REMINISCENCES with me in their Century City penthouse. With its gray marble floor, white
     pile carpet, grand piano, and vast semicircular wet bar, the dwelling is a far cry from the furnished one-room apartment they
     shared when they were married in 1938. Their daughter, Barbara, after whom the doll was named, was born in 1941; their son
     Ken, who also gave his name to a doll, in 1944, during Elliot's year-long hitch in the U.S. Army.
    Together since they were sixteen, they have weathered things that might have daunted a lesser couple: Ruth's radical mastectomy
     in 1970; her indictment in 1978 by a federal grand jury for mail fraud, conspiracy, and making false statements to the Securities
     and Exchange Commission; and, after having pleaded no contest to the charges, her conviction, leading to a forty-one-month
     suspended sentence, a $57,000 suspended fine and 2,500 hours of community service, which she has completed. In 1975, they
     survived expulsion from the