26 Things You Didn't Know about Barbie - mental_floss List Show Ep. 335 | Mental Floss

Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to my salon. This is Mental Floss Video

And do you know it's a misconception that Barbie is from Malibu? According to an early episode of Crash Course World History

she's actually a resident of the Indus Valley civilization from thousands of years ago

But according to Mattel, she's from Willows, Wisconsin, which is a made-up town

And that's the first of many facts about Barbie I'm going to share with you today. Ruth Handler, who created the Barbie doll, was inspired by a German doll from the 50s

and 60s called Build Lily. The dolls were sold in places like tobacco shops and adult stores because they were essentially

gag gifts for events like bachelor parties. Mattel eventually acquired the rights to Build Lily, and now we have Barbies

was co-designed by an engineer and professional missile designer named Jack Ryan, who was

also married to Zsa Zsa Gabor. He was her sixth husband. Mattel Inc. was founded in 1945, but Barbie didn't debut until 1959. 351,000 of them

were sold that year. Ken was introduced two years later in 1961

Even before Barbie came to be, Mattel was the first toy company with commercials directed

toward children. Slightly off topic, but last night I told my five-year-old son I was thinking

of ordering Pizza Hut delivery for dinner and he said, you know daddy, any medium pizza

at Pizza Hut is $5.99 and I was like, what? And he said, also you can get a free brownie

Speaking of ads, years later many actresses had their first jobs in Barbie commercials

including Mila Kunis Christina Applegate and Maureen McCormick who was Marsha Brady and the Brady Bunch Barbie and Ken were named after real people Ruth children Barbara and Kenneth Handler So arguably the most famous couple of all time are named for real life siblings

Talking Barbies might seem more modern, but actually the first Barbie who talked was released in 1968

And Barbie didn't reach her peak until 1992. The best-selling Barbie so far is the Totally Hair Barbie, which had hair down to the ground

Over 10 million were sold in 1992. In 2004, it was announced that Barbie and Ken had broken up

Barbie then started dating an Australian surfer named Blaine. But in 2011, she got back together with Ken, but only after he was redesigned with more muscles

Something tells me she'd like this Australian. He's got plenty of muscle. Blaine isn't Barbie's only forgotten companion

And she's had a bunch of discarded family members, like her siblings Tootie and Todd and Chrissy, also her cousins Francie and Jazzy

How popular is Barbie? Well, two and a half times more Barbies are sold every year than babies are born in the United States

In fact, a Barbie is sold every three seconds. And now that you know how many Barbies are sold, I'm sure you can only imagine the amount of Barbie clothes that are made annually

Mattel is actually one of the biggest apparel manufacturers in the world

And Mattel employs people whose only job is to design Barbies and their looks

According to one designer, once a design has been submitted, it might only take a year until that Barbie can be found on the shelves

As you're probably aware, Barbie has been controversial at times. For instance, in 2014, the plotline of the Barbie book, I Can Be a Computer Engineer

went viral. In the book Barbie designs a computer game but requires the assistance of her male friends to actually do the coding People accused the book of being sexist for good reason and it was discontinued Another controversy In 2014 a study from Oregon State University was published which claimed that girls who play with Barbies

believe that boys have more career options than girls. In the experiment, girls between the ages of four and seven played with either some Barbies or a Mrs. Potato Head

Afterwards, they were given a list of ten careers and asked if they could have that job in the future

They were also asked if boys could have that job. Girls who played with Barbies picked fewer careers for themselves than the girls who played with Mrs. Potato Head

Although, to be fair, that might just be because Mrs. Potato Head is the greatest toy of all time

Longtime Barbie supporter and Menelfloss head writer Meredith would like me to say that she thinks that Mrs. Potato Head is literally two-faced

Meredith also wants me to mention that Barbie has had about 150 careers at this point, including astronaut, surgeon, firefighter, and many more

There have also been multiple military Barbies. She's been in the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marine Corps

And Mattel actually has the Pentagon approved Barbie's military outfits. Another career she's tried out, vlogging. She's released a few vlogs onto her very own YouTube channel

She's also an avid Instagrammer, so I guess Barbie and I have more in common than I thought

But Barbie and I also have our differences. For instance, she has her own reality show, and I promise you that I never will

It's called Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse. You'll be surprised to learn that the show centers around Barbie going through her closet and talking about fashion

Speaking of the dream house, it was announced in 2013 that Barbie would be selling her dream house in Malibu

According to Mattel the home was worth around million a bargain at Toys R Us for It was also announced that the cast of Bravo million dollar listing would be helping her sell the 8 square foot home which I just want to emphasize this is fictional Anyway that was quite the upgrade from Barbie first home which was

released in 1962. It was a small one-room apartment. She moved to a townhouse in 1974

An estimated 99% of girls in the United States between the ages of 3 and 10 own at least

one Barbie, and the average that girls aged 3 to 6 own is 12 Barbies. But a Barbie isn't

isn't just popular in the U.S. There are Barbies of around 50 nationalities that have been released

And she's also popular with PETA, believe it or not. In 2015, Mattel announced that they would discontinue SeaWorld Barbie

because of the company's questionable practices, and a spokesperson from PETA commented

Barbie has a rich history as an animal rights activist. She's actually been fur-free for her entire history

We are delighted to see that she can retain her animal-friendly image

And finally, I return to my salon to tell you more about Barbie's animal-friendly image

image, there have been two Barbies with the ability to clean up after dogs

There was the Barbie and Tanner playset, which came with the dog, Tanner, his poop, and a

pooper scooper. And there was also a Barbie potty training pup set, in which the puppies

actually peed on little newspapers