In 1982, Mattel fielded a teen-pregnancy Barbie toy

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/04/24/visible-woman.html

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“Midge’s Magnetic Removable Womb”, a great title for a difficult second album.

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Midge has two husbands?

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You are confusing her with Surrogate Midge - she does not come with husbands, just a high school equivalency diploma, a giant credit card balance, and no other way out.

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Gosh, this is great. Too bad Mattel doesn’t have the stones to keep something like this out there.

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Couldn’t resist…

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This was covered in the ‘Stuff You Should Know’ podcast episode about Barbie, which I highly recommend. It seems that the makers of Barbie have a long history of trying to do something socially relevant, but making a huge mess out of it. Like in the 60’s when they introduced a black Barbie, but called her “Colored Francie” and just used the regular Barbie mold with darker skin. Or a few years ago when they put out that book where Barbie was a computer engineer, but she infected everyone’s computer with a virus and had to get some boys to fix everything.

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For comparison’s sake, a 19th-century obstetric training doll:

http://pinktentacle.com/2009/05/pregnant-dolls-from-edo-period-japan/

(Anybody know what happened to the editor/publisher of Pink Tentacle? The site went dark not long after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011. I miss the site.)

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It looks like Ken is her OB/GYN

Ouch that looks like a posterior birth on the way. Barbie had better start working on that. Lucky she has that big hole in her belly to deliver the baby through.

Even luckier is that Mattellian section birth never caught on among real women.

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She’s nine months pregnant but she’s still a B-cup?

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That seems like a much more convenient form of delivery than trying to push meat and bones through a birth canal. Much more ladylike when you don’t need to spread your legs, too.

Too bad because I already have a 12" forstner bit. That would have set me up nicely for home births.

What’s wrong (to a normal person) about a doll that is pregnant? My sister had one of those dolls, the belly sprung in to hold the baby and could launch the infant outwards at the point of birth just like in real life. The preggers belly bump attachment was also good for concealing contraband, say if barbs wanted to mule a buttload of crack and wasn’t currently using the space for a tiny freeloader.

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Midge is possibly my favourite character from Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse.

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