©Ty

Let’s cut right to the chase. The first and only African American Ty Girlz © are named Sasha and Malia. Ty Inc. spokeswoman Tania Lundeen says the dolls aren’t based on the Obama daughters. She says Sasha and Malia were chosen because “they are beautiful names.” Really? Check out the Social Security Administration list of 100 top Baby names for the last 10 years? They are three to four hundred down. Nothing to do with the new girls in the White House? Hmmm.

Next we hear that Michelle Obama is pissed… she thinks it’s exploitation. Well she’s right, it is. But who is being exploited? Do you think that maybe there was a little political milage gained every time those two little ‘Daddy’s Girls’ were photographed living their “normal” little fishbowl lives for the last year? I mean after all, who didn’t know about the first daughters? Color me doubtful, but I think that there was a little exploitation of the girls during the campaign as well.

Dolls have been made in the likenesses of celebrities for forever. In fact one of our stores specializes in licensed dolls, everything from Sesame Street and Dr Seuss, to Fancy Nancy and Strawberry Shortcake. If I had to guess, I’d say Shirley Temple dolls were probably the longest running celebrity doll ever. Teddy Roosevelt wouldn’t shoot a tied up helpless bear at the end of an unsuccessful hunt and Teddy Bears have been the most popular toy in America ever since. There were Chelsea Clinton dolls, and Caroline Kennedy dolls (currently selling in the $300 range on Ebay). But of course we’re talking here about licensed dolls…. my guess is that if Michelle Obama and the US Attorney General want to make a case of it, Ty would have to buckle pretty quick.

So our take? We don’t believe that out of the 1000′s of African American girl’s names available that Ty randomly picked the same two names as the first daughters. Next? Michelle… chill. Be flattered and pleased that your daughters are such great role models. Life’s too short to be pissed at Ty. Make ‘em give you royalties!

As promised, the story of how a doll saved our business.

Back in 2002, the dot.com crash had hurt our ability to give as generously to charity as we liked, and we were looking for a new ‘stream of income’ from which to rebuild our charity gifting. So Addie and I started our first eCommerce stores, one of which we called The Happy Baby Basket, and which featured various themed baby gift baskets.

We had an Irish themed basket with a stuffed Irish Setter with a four leaf clover hanging from it’s mouth; a New Jewish baby  Basket, with a Blue Teddy Bear in a kippa and the Star of David embroidered on its paw, and a basket for a newly adopted child with Ling, (shown above, wasn’t she cute?) etc. And for a year an a half we failed to sell a single basket. In fact, we couldn’t even find our site in the search engines!

So after a year and a half, we decided eCommerce wasn’t in the cards and decided to shut that portion of the business down. But since everything was already paid for, and our licenses had another 6 months to run, we decided to take the various items out of the baskets and sell them individually; to see if maybe we could recoup some of our inventory expenses at least.

So we listed all the items separately, the dolls, the silver piggy banks, the cute little 6 months custom tee shirts we had made up, etc. Now we had also been learning more about SEO and page ranks and everything else in that year and a half, and we must have done something right, because all of a sudden our Asian dolls were selling. ( Not for a lot mind you, maybe $12.95?… I don’t remember anymore).

Well, one of my favorite phrases is “you don’t learn a heck of a lot from the second kick of the mule!” and that was the case here as well. After a year and a half, something had happened, but what? So we called a few of the customers who had purchased with…”hi, this is the Happy baby Basket customer service follow up call. Thank you for your purchase… did everything go OK… and by the way, why did you buy that doll?”

And we kept hearing the same thing: ” We just came back from China with a newly adopted little girl, and we went into our local stores, and we couldn’t find Asian faced dolls. So we went online and found you!” We had found a niche market. Underserved customers with a need.

Today we have both PattycakeDoll.com and the SleepySoft.com as well as BooksAndDolls.com and MyAdoptedChild, selling Asian Baby Dolls, African American Baby Dolls and Hispanic Baby Dolls, and contributing thousands of dollars every year to children’s charities.

I’ve commented before on the Barbie vs. Bratz case, and followed it with interest, but even I was surprised with the severity of the final judgement:

If this is your first exposure to the story, let me summarize:

What was the crime? Getting paid by one company to design a doll, and then selling that doll to another company. Why is it a story? Because the Bratz dolls started beating the crap out of Barbie Dolls. What is the result? See above. But what I really want to know, now that they’ve won, is Mattel going to start selling Bratz?

Well the results are in! And The Cabbage Patch Doll auction went — Palin Beats Obama!
The Cabbage Patch Presidential and Vice-Presidential Doll Auction Results were:

Cabbage Patch Kids Vice President Candidate Sarah Palin Doll
Giving Works Item
100% of the proceeds go to Marine Toys for Tots
113 Bids Sold $19,000.00

Cabbage Patch Kids Presidential Candidate John McCain Doll
Giving Works Item
100% of the proceeds go to Marine Toys for Tots
68 Bids Sold $6,000.00

Cabbage Patch Kids Vice President Candidate Joe Biden Doll
Giving Works Item
100% of the proceeds go to Marine Toys for Tots
60 Bids Sold $3,550.01

Cabbage Patch Kids Presidential Candidate Barack Obama Doll
Giving Works Item
100% of the proceeds go to Marine Toys for Tots
96 Bids Sold $8,400.00

You know what? Everybody won with this one. God Bless America, Cabbage Patch Dolls and Ebay, and of course, the Doll bidders.

The first imported dolls in colonial America were the Fashion Dolls. The European dress makers dressed dolls in the latest fashions and sent them to America. The wealthier Americans studied the new designs and then imported the dresses they liked best; the less wealthy made their own best copies of the dresses on the fashion dolls. Obviously as fashions changed, the doll’s clothes changed as well. The Barbies of today are not all that removed from those times!

And of course the Collectible Doll industry of today needs to keep changing the sculpts and the outfits and the wigs and everything on their collectible dolls,  because the collectible doll folks don’t want a room full of the same dolls; they want the variety, and the thrill of adding the new.

But I don’t quite get the need for the baby doll manufacturers to constantly change their dolls. After all, if you give a three year old a baby doll, she will play with it for a few years ’til it’s raggedy and dirty and then she’ll want a new doll more suitable for a five year old. Meanwhile the doll manufacturer’s have churned out two whole seasons of new styles and designs. If our hypothetical family has a younger little girl, she won’t care how many millions of dollars the industry has wasted creating a fresh new look for her… she just falls in love with the doll she gets! And the process starts all over.

What makes this whole thing interesting, is that Addie and I have an e-tail store full of dolls that don’t change; and that does very well ‘thank-you-very-much,’ because they are classics. Raggedy Anns and Madeline Dolls and Cat in the Hat Dolls and Sesame Street Elmo Dolls. Our customers on that site don’t want the dolls to change! They want them to be exactly like they’ve always been.