Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel

Not being a former employee of Mattel, I'm not qualified to say how accurate or "tabloid" this tale is but it's certainly fascinating. The personalities, the successes and the mistakes are both epic and lurid, and even if taken with a degree of skepticism (and I'm not saying it should be) there's more than enough here to make for a fascinating corporate case history. My beef would be the amount of copy spent on Barbie who consumes most of the story - aside from He-Man & Polly Pockets, there's very little non-doll toy coverage to be had - a few scattered references to Hot Wheels are about it. But entertaining? You bet.

I enjoyed Toy Monster very much. Mr. Oppenheimer tells a story and informs and entertains us. I too have enjoyed a long career in the toy industry. This book is simply a fascinating expose and an a series of interesting and sometimes wild stories about Mattel. Read it if you want to get into the psyche of the toy industry and lose yourself for a couple of hours in some devilish fun. If you are wound too tight and unable to get in touch with your child-like side it may not be for you.

How many of us grew up dressing and caressing Barbie, that quintessential American household name, many having unconsciously embracing her comfortingly kitsch "style" into their real lives, while others chose girlfriends and wives based on her familiar yet taut dimensions, a new yet enigmatic standard for beauty? While exposing the behind-the-scenes of the Mattel Reich in an excrutiatingly rivetting way, "Toy Monster" leaves the reader, at its end, reeling in aghast silence, yet craving more. I became hooked on Oppenheimer some years back when a friend loaned me "Martha Stewart: Just Desserts," the tome that preceded---hence uncannily predicted---her downfall. I didn't think it could get better than that, but it does.

About: Oppenheimer is the male Kitty Kelley as he provides a surprisingly salacious account of the history of the Mattel toy company. From feuds between the coked up, bipolar, sex addicted"Father of Barbie" Jack Ryan and the founder of Mattel "Mother of Barbie" Ruth Handler to very unethical business practices and lead-filled playthings and deadly magnets in toys, if you had a rosy image of the company, it will be quite tarnished after reading this book. Pros: Very fascinating in a "I wouldn't suspect that" kind of way given that it's a toy company. I enjoyed how the workings of a corporation could be be so engaging. The tale keeps you hooked. Cons: Tabloid-like feel, not all sources cited, only selected bibliography. The book just sort of ends, with no real sum-up.

You don't have to be interested in toys to find this book fascinating. Oppenheimer's study of Mattel offers abundant insights on the habits of corporate America, on one company's stunningly successful marketing, and tales of megalomanic, wack-a-doodle management executives. "Toy Monsters" provides plenty of food for thought--"food" less dangerous than Mattel's Incredible Edibles, an allegedly "sugar-free," additive-packed snack product cooked in molds modeled on the company's successful Creepy Crawler kit. Even though I played with these toys at the homes of friends (some of whom were children of Mattel employees) as a child in the mid-'60s, as a parent it's hard to believe that America's biggest toy company once marketed items using red-hot metal to "cook," unsupervised, either foul-smelling plastic insects, or disgusting "Edibles" (based on Aunt Jemima pancake mix and food coloring) that sickened a number of diabetic children before the toy was discontinued. And unfortunately, that's not Mattel's only dangerous product: the author names several, marketed across decades. Elliot and Ruth Handler started their company in the mid-'50s with a partner who sold out relatively early on, but they became legendarily famous in 1959 with the introduction of the first incarnation of the Barbie fashion doll. The toy was based on a raunchy German sex mannequin named Bild-Lilli, displayed in a shop window and catching the eye of Ruth Handler's then-15-year-old daughter Barbara, for whom the doll was named. Less than a foot tall, Barbie boasts human-scale measurements of 39-18-34--just the feminine ideal of product manager Jack Ryan (who filed the nipples off Bild-Lilli's mold to better assuage American sensibilities). Ryan, a brilliant, unstable, bi-polar Yalie, burned through five marriages, leading a Hefneresque life while at Mattel, surgically altering several wives to more closely resemble his fantasies. One wife, said to be already stunningly beautiful, died of an anorexia-induced heart attack. Barbie's "boyfriend" was named after the Handlers' only son, Ken. Having an anatomically incorrect doll named after him while an adolescent must have been excruciating for Ken Handler, who would not allow his own children to play with the dolls. Oppenheimer handles the real-life Ken's story briefly and sensitively, noting only "another side" to marriage and parenthood in Ken's life. He died of AIDS in 1994, a story suppressed at the time as well as in his mother's autobiography. Oddly enough, shortly before Ken Handler's death, an "Earring Magic Ken" doll was released, complete with blonde highlights, purple shirt, lavender vest, charm necklace, and "diamond" earring, "giving him the look and feel of the Village People." Even nuttier--and more controversial--was the mid-'70s version of Barbie's nine-inch-high "younger sister," Skipper. "By a crank of her left arm... ["Growing Up"] Skipper sprouted little plastic breasts, her waist became slimmer...