1959 First EVER Barbie Commercial
This is the first Barbie commercial that first aired during Mickey Mouse Club! Ruth Handler watched her daughter Barbara at play with paper dolls, and noticed that she often enjoyed giving them adult roles. At the time, most children’s toy dolls were representations of infants. Realizing that there could be a gap in the market, Handler suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, a co-founder of the Mattel toy company. He was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattel’s directors. During a trip to Europe in 1956 with her children Barbara and Kenneth, Ruth Handler came across a German toy doll called Bild Lilli. The adult-figured Lilli doll was like what Handler had in mind, so she purchased three of them. She gave one to her daughter and took the others back to Mattel. The Lilli doll was based on a popular character appearing in a comic strip drawn by Reinhard Beuthin for the newspaper Die Bild-Zeitung. Upon her return to the United States, Handler reworked the design of the doll (with help from engineer Jack Ryan) and the doll was given a name, Barbie, after Handler’s daughter Barbara. The doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959. This date is also used as Barbie’s official birthday. Mattel acquired the rights to the Bild Lilli doll in 1964 and production of Lilli was stopped. The first Barbie doll wore a black and white zebra striped swimsuit and signature topknot ponytail, and was available as …
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25 comments
So this means Berbie was based on the IRL Barbie Handler?
at 0:24 i have the dress on the right
And to think that our Barbie commercials today are going to look like that to people in the future.
i have the blond barbie from 1959
i have she from ebay for 1.374€
cool
If i had a time machine i think i’ll buy it becuz it looks so cute
wow 1959
at that time my country is 3rd independence lolz
Notice how the commercial zeros in on the Barbie doll dressed like a bride?? Hmmm, a little subliminal brainwashing perhaps?? Yes little girls of the early sixties…your ultimate goal in life is to get married…never forget that ^_^
I love Barbies. They rock.
I am gonna make-believe..I am ME…LOL
ten years from this do you think the made a hippie barby?
no, $3 was more like $40!
wow, i wudent have played with those dolls they looked so delicate
lol 50s barbaies r not smiling…weird
thats rly cool
I think back then $20 was like 200 or sooo much
cool .. ..
holy crap that must have been really expensive back then …
lol did yall notice how it said ONLY 3 dollars..when they say ONLY its usually high lolz (in the50’s and now) oh and I agree it does look like a horror movie
WOW !(:
DATZ COOL.
HAHA . SO ELEGANT .
NOW iiN DAYZ . IT KiiNDA .
DiiFERENT . HAHA . (:
dang.. i wish money were worth the same now as back then.. but of course that we still got as much as we do now in jobs!
omg i love this it’s cool
I wish my mom would have kept all her old barbies from the 60’s then we could display them or make a bunch of money. 3 bucks was quite a bit and I was surprised to see that they cost so much. I also had no idea the history behind barbie. Cool vid tho
I saw one of the originals on ebay for over $8000.00!
Very Creepythose were the 50’s! But hey $3.00 is a great price for a barbie comparing to the 2000’s! I wish i could build a time machine and go back to the 50’s and buy all the barbies! But now their like 25 $ each now!
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