Mad Men Does Barbie

The New York Times reports that: “After 3 seasons, Mad Men, the television series about advertising in the 1960s, has attained a level of popular-culture cachet. And now the show will enter a realm of the pop-culture pantheon that its creator, Matthew Weiner, says has surprised even him: Mattel plans to bring out versions of Barbie and Ken styled after 4 “Mad Men” characters.  The dolls are part of a premium-price collectors’ series for adults that Mattel calls the Barbie Fashion Model Collection.  The characters are Don Draper, the show’s leading man; his wife, Betty; his colleague at the Sterling Cooper agency, Roger Sterling; and Joan Holloway, the agency’s office manager who was Roger’s mistress.  That two dolls represent a relationship outside wedlock, and Don Draper’s propensity for adultery, may be firsts for the Barbie world since the brand’s introduction 5 decades ago. But for the sake of the Barbie image, her immersion in the “Mad Men” era will go only so far: The dolls come with period accessories like hats, overcoats, pearls and padded undergarments, but no cigarettes, ashtrays, martini glasses or cocktail shakers…” Full Story