Happy Birthday, Barbie

TWIT would like to wish a very happy birthday to Barbie. Our favorite doll is 50 today, but she's far from being middle-aged. Of course, she's kept busy during the years, with 108 careers & and counting. She's been an Olympic athlete, a Marine Corps sergeant, Miss America, a dentist, an aerobics instructor, an astronaut and a rock star. I guess all of those careers are what's kept Barbie so youthful.

Barbie made her debut on March 9, 1959 at the International Toy Fair in New York. During her first year in stores, about 300,000 Barbies were sold at $3 a pop. If you could find one of those original Barbies today in good condition, it would cost you almost $30 grand.

I did some checking and found some more interesting Barbie trivia. Three Barbies are sold somewhere in the world every second. If you do the math, that comes to about $1.5 billion a year in sales. So in just the time it took you to read this sentence, about nine Barbies were sold.

Barbie apparently spends more time in the hair salon than most females do: her hair is made up of seven shades of blonde, weaved together to get the signature golden look. But Barbie hasn't always been a blonde. My Barbie doll, identical to the one above, is a brunette. And to my knowledge, there was never a red-headed Barbie. If there had been, I would have gladly hocked my collection of 45's to buy her.

My brunette Barbie is in excellent condition, and based on prices at collectors' websites, she's worth quite a bit. But I wouldn't sell her no matter how hard up I was for cash. Mom and Dad got her for me for Christmas when I was five years old. In addition to her being a brunette, she is also a TNT - twist and turn Barbie, with knees that bend, too. So I was able to dress her up in her cowgirl outfits and let her ride Thunderbolt, the horse that belonged to my second favorite doll Jane West. Grandma crocheted all sorts of clothes for Barbie, including a red two-piece bathing suit. Yep, Gram made Barbie a bikini. And a woman that worked with Mom made me a gorgeous lace and satin wedding gown for Barbie, including a long veil. Barbie, along with all of her clothes, is stored safely down in the basement in a watertight box. I'll get it out one day soon and put the crocheted bikini on her and take a picture for my faithful readers. Even after all of these years, she still has it going on.