![]() ![]() Although there was one male friend who had one and whose dad didn’t approve of him playing with dolls, and he would regularly confiscate it, (though oddly enough, never threw it away! He just hid it in weird areas of the house, so it became a fun daily game of ‘Find Skipper’ for my friend and I! We would find her in the linen closet, the laundry basket, under his parents’ bed, under the cushions in the sofa, in the pantry… once even in the fridge behind the milk!!! LOL ) …. ![]() She was just seen as a novelty, really, that was fun until you got bored with the whole ‘shape-shifting’ gimmick. Truth be told, I don’t remember any such controversy at all around the doll here in Australia at the time she was sold, as many of my friends had one. Many newspapers at the time ran articles about that ‘controversy’. The ‘curvy’ bit is what apparently outraged some women’s groups and parents in the United States, as she also grows a modest pair of breasts. Indeed, one of the most controversial was a doll that went through puberty with the mere flick of an arm (if only it were that easy!) Growing Up Skipper was released in 1975, and her mechanism is quite fascinating, with a soft rubbery upper torso that allows her to grow ‘slimmer, taller (three-quarters of an inch) and CURVY’. The mid 1970’s were indeed a strange time, and those times were just as strange at Mattel, where all sorts of weird and wonderful gimmicks (usually to do with some sort of sport or action movement) were foisted upon Barbie and her friends. And if watching your innocent, naive “little girl Skipper” grow up within seconds into a bosomy teenager seems a bit much, you just turn her arm all the way around clockwise and she’s cute and young again.No Skipper collection is complete without this gal IMO, as she symbolises a very interesting and unique period in Mattel history. So modest, in fact, no brassiere was included. Changing Skipper simply involves grasping her delicate wrist between the forefinger and thumb and revolving her left arm all the way around counterclockwise.Īs the arm completes its 360-degree turn, Skipper grows nearly an inch taller from the waist, develops a slightly more definable posterior, and sprouts what Rubenstein calls “a modest bustline.” “We feel it may be a trend toward reflecting reality and recognizing maturity,” Joel K Rubenstein, director of marketing for Mattel explained. Officials at Mattel Toys, which manufactures the dolls, say they recognize the doll could activate a lot of curiosity in the 4-to 10-year-olds for whom it is designed, but they believe the Growing-Up Skipper has some good effects. Now, with her flat chest expanded, her curves accentuated and height boosted, she has matured past her older but still underdeveloped sister into a young woman. The smaller, under-developed younger “sister” of the Barbie doll has advanced into puberty. Now there’s a harmless way to reverse the aging process, as often and as quickly as they want.Ī little arm twisting will change a blossoming young woman into a tree-climbing pre-adolescent, and back again - provided the young “woman” is a doll. Make her grow from a young girl to a teenager in seconds!įrom the Hutchinson News (Hutchinson, Kansas) June 16, 1975įor moms and dads, children always seem to grow up too fast. ![]() Growing up Skipper: She’s 2 dolls in 1 for twice as much fun! ![]()
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