Do You Have Barbara Millicent Roberts Under Your Christmas Tree?

Who is Barbara Millicent Roberts?  You have known her for years but you probably don’t know her by her full name. Nor did you know she had a last name at all. 

Barbara is one of those people who go by one name. You know…like  Cher …or Madonna….or  “Formerly Known as Prince.” 

Barbara Millicent Roberts was born in 1959, but she looks like she is in her 20’s. She used to have feet that always pointed like she was wearing high heals but now she is sometimes seen with her feet flat, which people were beginning to wonder if she could physically do. 

Barbara goes by the nick name Barbie. 

image from  Pinterest

Barbie has been a household name since the late 1950’s and has not been forgotten. Barbie often takes on the last name of “Doll.”

In 1992, a Barbie doll was sold every two minutes around the globe.

Source – The Intentions Behind the Creation of Barbie by Briana Piche

Barbie Doll was born in 1959, as we know, and she has an extensive wardrobe, including the outfits and uniforms for the many jobs she has help. Barbie began as a fashion model and then as rumors have it, went back to school several times to achieve advanced degrees.

image from Pinterest

She has been seen with her head in the clouds  as a stewardess and also as a night club singer. She has worked both as a teacher and as an officer of the law, pulling over drunk drivers.

image from Pinterest

You can see a variety of Barbie’s outfits at THIS link on Flickr.

The first Barbie doll was thought up by Elliot Handler of the Mattel  Toy Company,  with the initial suggestion by his wife Ruth. Mrs. Handler thought of the idea that children would play with an adult aged doll. Prior to Barbie most girls played with baby dolls and practiced being mommies.

There was a German doll called Bild Lilli that was an adult female doll. Ruth Handler saw this doll during one of the trips her husband and she took to Germany.

The Lilli doll was based on a popular character appearing in a comic strip drawn by Reinhard Beuthin for the newspaper Die Bild-Zeitung. Lilli was a blonde bombshell, a working girl who knew what she wanted and was not above using men to get it. The Lilli doll was first sold in Germany in 1955, and although it was initially sold to adults, it became popular with children who enjoyed dressing her up in outfits that were available separately.

source – Wikipedia

They used this doll to help with their idea of how the Barbie doll should look, but came up with their own unique design. 

The Bild Lilli doll had her own comic strip where she was a sexy doll of a woman. Excuse the pun.

In the comics, Lilli was witty, irreverent… and sexually uninhibited. One strip, summarized by Lord, shows Lilli covering her naked body with a newspaper and explaining to a friend…

source – Time Magazine

Bild Lilli was a comic strip in a newspaper printed in Hamburg Germany.  The comic was for adults and began in 1952, and appeared in the newspaper called Bild-Zeitung.

One particular comic strip had the following tale of Bild Lilli meeting a police officer and being told she could not wear a two-piece bathing suit in public.

…shows Lilli in a bikini; when a policeman tells her that two-piece swimsuits are illegal, she says, “Oh, and in your opinion, which part should I take off?”

source – Time Magazine 

The full name “Barbara Millicent Roberts” appears in a series of novels about her fictional life.

Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. In a series of novels published by Random House in the 1960s, her parents’ names are given as George and Margaret Roberts from the fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin

source – Wikipedia

They bought the rights to the Bild Lilli doll in order to stop the production of that doll, which apparently they did not want to  compete with.

You can read more about the history of Barbie at THIS LINK and you will see a picture of the original Barbie.  Take note of the way her eyes are looking. You do not see dolls these days with that kind of a sexy, come-hither look. 

image from Pinterest and Flickr

Barbie dolls became terrifically popular and are sold in 150 countries.

source – Good Housekeeping Magazine 

Barbie’s appearance has been changed many times, most notably in 1971 when the doll’s eyes were adjusted to look forwards rather than having the demure sideways glance of the original model.

source – Wikipedia

Proportions of the doll have been redesigned to alter her unattainable body proportions and to make her look more realistic. The original doll had proportions that you do not see on real women. The waist is too small to go with the breasts and the hips.

image from Pinterest

Barbie’s vital statistics have been estimated at 36 inches (chest), 18 inches (waist) and 33 inches (hips). According to research by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, she would lack the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for a woman to be healthy enough to have children. 

source – Wikipedia

There is also an article that Barbie appears in, which is called “125 Women Who Changed Our World.” You can see a great picture of the original Barbie on page 14 of THIS ARTICLE printed in Good Housekeeping magazine.

I happened to come across a blog called Matisse Fashions and Dolls. She is a talented doll dress designer and you might enjoy taking a peak at her designs HERE.  If you notice my earlier posts today you will see some links to some of my favorite designs of hers. 

Even ZOMBIE killer Barbie has been spotted recently ! This is a character from the Walking Dead Series . She is Michonne.

Barbara Millicent Roberts has come a long way since 1959 and she is still getting wrapped and placed under Christmas trees all over the world !

Maybe she is under yours…

Shopping During the Holidays and Social Anxiety Order

OMG! Holy Crap! What is with these people??

They are everywhere. They are aggressive and impatient. They are rude. They are all on top of me, in front of me and behind me. I hate grocery shopping this time of year. It either gets worse every year or I get more anxiety from it every year.

It starts on the way to the store. There is traffic everywhere and many people think that their holiday errands are more important than everyone else’s. I was driving this evening on a back road with a speed limit of 30 mph.

I was going 35 and this big ass truck is practically in the backseat of my car. The brights were on , as if it isn’t bad enough when a truck is that close and their lights are high enough to be too bright to start with.

I am not going to speed up because some bully guy is driving up on top of my car. It is too dangerous to speed up. I have learned the hard way that it does not satisfy them.

They are stilled annoyed at you from driving the speed limit to start with and will still ride right up on you, You can’t slow back down if you see police or anything or if the road changes to a lower speed limit. They won’t allow you to slow down.

So then I slowed down to turn into the grocery store and he got madder and hit his gas so hard that he scared me whipping around to pass my little car. I can’t stand this kind of bullying.

Then the parking lot at the grocery store is a nightmare. People drive and walk right in front of you. You can’t even get into a parking space. People will hang their car doors open for 5 minutes to talk to someone they just happened to run into. They have one foot in their car while they are standing there blocking the open parking space.

I the store the real zoo begins. You would think these people have never been in a grocery store before. They block the aisles with their cart and don’t try to move at all to let you pass. They will stand in front of whatever food you need to get to and just stand there talking on their cell phone, while you wait.

They can see you, can’t they? Why do they think I am standing behind their cart and waiting?

God forbid you say something to them. They roll their eyes at you for interrupting their conversation. Is their cell phone conversation so important that they had to have it right in front of the frozen pizza case?

In the check-out aisle these people bring 85 coupons with expired dates and argue with the cashier, while the line backs up. Then they write a personal check, that they have not filled the paperwork out at customer service for.

They get frustrated with the poor cashier who is putting up with this for minimum wage. By the time you get to the register, the cashier is all ready to defend themselves.

On the way out, some little kid was playing with a huge orange shovel (the big ones that are for the driveway). His mother is oblivious, while he pushes the thing right towards my feet. He very nearly tripped me as I was trying to get out of the store alive.

Mom finally notices, as he almost knocks down an old woman. Mom does not stop him. She continues holding up the cashier as she talks on the cell phone while checking out her groceries.

What is the deal with people on their cell phones asking the cashier to WAIT A MINUTE while they talk on the phone? Can’t they tell the person on the cell phone to wait a minute?

Where do people’s manners go during the holidays? Maybe it is just in New Jersey. I dont know. People here are not usually considerate to begin with, and it seems to get amplified by the season.

If a car slows down to wave to me, to let me out onto the road, I have to check their licence plate to see if they are from California or some other place. It is so rare for NJ plates to ever let you out in front of them.

I don’t even go to the malls unless my kids really want to. Women turn into aggressive shopping monsters.

Merchandise is knocked onto the floors and it is left there. People actually walk over it or even step on top of it.

They will run on front of you to grab the last Monster High doll right off the shelf in front of you. Even if they saw you reaching for it. (My youngest is a big Monster High fan)

So I don’t know what I was thinking, going to the grocery store at 8pm this evening. I will go back to my midnight grocery shopping. For everything else – THANK GOD FOR AMAZON !