Barbie Vs. Bratz

Barbara Millicent Roberts earns $3.3m a year. Before Barbie Dolls were "babies" designed to be cuddled, Barbie was the first adult doll, perhaps reflected that girls could have other aspirations than to become mothers. Barbie has so far tackled more than 100 careers ranging from air stewardess to paleontologist, aerobics instructor to Marine Corps sergeant. One of her latest is television chef. She has also been Italian, Parisian, British Royal, Inuit, Japanese, Korean, Jamaican and Native American.

Her clothes are designed by real designers including Armani and Calvin Klein nothing is left to chance. Psychologists interview thousands of children to ensure that Barbie keeps up to date.

The collective pout on the lips of Jade, Cloe, Yasmin and Sasha is about to become even more pronounced.

A judge in California ruled late on Wednesday that the makers of Bratz, the attitude-laden teenage dolls that exposed Barbie as a square, must immediately stop making the hit toy and recall its models from shop shelves in the new year.

The ruling sent shockwaves through toyland as the industry gears up for its busiest time of the year. In June, sales of Bratz in the US reached $3.1bn (£2.1bn) since their launch in 2001. Sales of Barbie, still America's most popular toy, fell by 15% in 2007.

The ruling comes three months after Mattel, the makers of Barbie, won a copyright case in which it argued that the Bratz concept had been developed by one of its designers. A jury agreed that Carter Bryant had come up with the original designs while at Mattel and had taken them to MGA, which launched the Bratz line in 2001. The jury awarded Mattel $10m for copyright infringement and $90m for breach of contract.

Judge Stephen Larson's ruling effectively places the Bratz brand under the control of Mattel.

"Mattel has established its exclusive rights to the Bratz drawings," Larson wrote, "and the court has found that hundreds of the MGA parties' products, including all the currently available core female fashion dolls Mattel was able to locate in the marketplace, infringe those rights."

Perhaps most troubling for fans of the Bratz extended family will be the fate of the Bratz Babyz, the Bratz Kidz, the Bratz Petz, the Bratz Boyz and the Bratz Ponyz. On her blog, Bratz girl Yasmin chose to ignore the legal fuss to focus on her busy life "with school and community stuff", and to tell her readers about her next door neighbour's new horse, Leo.

Yasmin's boss, MGA chief executive Isaac Larian, expressed surprise at the scope of the ruling and promised to appeal. "We believe ... that issuing such a broad injunction is inconsistent with the limited jury verdict and the law," he said. "MGA intends to immediately appeal the injunction."

Bratz dolls are to be allowed to remain on sale during 2009 after a judge gave a reprieve to their manufacturer. The judge did not rule out the possibility that royalties to Mattel might eventually be due

MGA Entertainment had faced having to remove the brand from shops after Barbie-maker Mattel won a landmark copyright-infringement case.

Barbie was launched in 1958 and is the best-selling fashion doll of all time. Ruth Handler is regarded as Barbies original creator who watched her daughter Barbara play with dolls and noticed she loved giving the dolls adult roles. Before then most children's dolls were infants and babies. Barbie was created as a stylish young woman doll for children.

During a trip to Germany in 1956 with her children Barbara and Kenneth, Ruth Handler stumbled across a doll called Bild Lilli that inspired her to make her own adult doll.

Once she returned to the USA she began working on the designs for her new doll with help from an engineer Jack Ryan. The doll was then named after her daughter Barbara. The Barbie Doll made its debut in 1959 at the American International Toy Fair in New York.

The very first Barbie dolls were made in Japan and around 350,000 dolls were sold in the first year.

Barbie continues to be a popular doll for girls. She also has a large adult following that grew up with her and now collect Barbie dolls as a hobby.

At their launch in June 2001 Bratz Dollz fared poorly. The following Christmas they then skyrocketed and become a huge success and 125 Million dolls were sold worldwide. In the first 5 years Bratz went on to sell 2 Billion Bratz Products. A toy analyst in 2006 indicated that Bratz had taken a 40% share of the fashion doll market, leaving Barbie with the other 60%.

Bratz have also expanded with a number of spin-offs including Lil' Bratz, Bratz Petz and Bratz Boyz. There has also been music albums, films and DVDs. The product range continues to grow and expand each year.

Bratz Babyz debuted in 2004 and came with accessories like blankets and bottles. Bratz Kidz were also introduced in 2007. These are teenage versions of the standard Bratz and are approximately 6" tall. Bratz Petz also came out in 2004 but proved unpopular and were discontinued in 2006.

Due to their age Bratz don't have the long history that Barbie does but are quickly becoming more and more popular. It will be interesting to see in time who will win the battle of Barbie Vs. Bratz. Who do you think will win? Which do you prefer? Click Here to Vote Now!

Bratz Dollz have been widely criticised as being a bad influence on young girls. This does not seem to affect their popularity, I would guess that girls still buying dolls are not at the girls-behaving badly stage anyway.

A 2007 report by the American Psychological Association Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls called Bratz dolls' miniskirts, fishnet stockings and feather boas "sexualized" and argued that the dolls' "objectified sexuality ... is limiting for adolescent girls, and even more so for the very young girls who represent the market for these dolls."

Researchers have criticized Barbie, too. The Mattel dolls represent a "distortedly thin body ideal," and girls experienced "heightened body dissatisfaction after exposure to Barbie doll images but not after exposure to ... neutral control images," according to a 2006 study out of the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom

Silkstone Barbie Dolls have become The collectible Barbie doll of recent times. A very high quality finely detailed series of dolls, also called Fashion Model Barbie Dolls (FMBC) and Lingerie Model Barbie Dolls.

The Silkstone dolls were first introduced in year 2000 with the release of the first in series The Lingerie Barbie®, Lunch at the Club%u2122 Fashion, and the Delphine%u2122 Barbie®. What sets these dolls apart from the standard line of Barbies is the fine detailing and unique material used to make the dolls. The dolls are made from a hard vinyl that gives the look of a very expensive porcelain finish.

The dolls were the first collectible Barbie dolls to truly evoke the vintage Barbie dolls of the early 1960s in style, makeup, hair and clothing. The dolls have a devoted following, and some even are still released wearing lingerie in spite of a controversy over their attire several years ago.

Mattel Inc will roll out new services to reinvigorate its 50-year-old Barbie brand, such as letting buyers design their own dolls online, and expects strong Barbie sales this year, the executive in charge of the brand said on Wednesday. Those would expand on concepts at Mattel's six-storey House of Barbie flagship store, due to open in Shanghai.

This opening in China shows that Barbie is fighting back even though Barbie sales have dropped 21 percent in the fourth quarter compared with an 11 percent slide in total company sales.

Barbie in an effort to show herself modern now has a Tattoo Model, these are the transfer on type tattoo that children have used forever and quickly wear and wash off. All the same some stores have been forced to remove these dolls from their shelves because it might encourage girls to get real tattoos. Silly really

The obsessive Barbie collector is at 48 just two years younger and nearly shares her birthday. She plans to celebrate Barbie's fiftieth birthday and has planned to move her own birthday by two days to hold a joint party. She would change nothing about Barbie even tough she knows that her legs are too long.

Can any Bratz collector match this, I guess they just haven't had enough time?

Barbie of course will win out in the long run but in the mean time those Bratz Dolls will give her a run for her money!

Please send me photos of your dolls to zzapper@gmail.com for publication here!

She has had 108 careers including the army.
She has 40 pets
New homes in Malibu and Shanghai
Born Barbara Millicent Roberts in fictional Willows, Wisconsin
Cameo role in Toy Story 2
Has a section of Times Square dedicated to her
She has been painted by Andy Warhol
A Barbie sized Vera Wang dress costs $15,000 in Shanghai
There are 8 million active Barbie collectors in the world

Retailers are selling Barbies for $3 this week, in honor of Barbie's 50th birthday. I did a quick online check, and sure enough retailers have Barbies that look like the ones created in 1959 selling for what they did back then - $3.

Have you gotten your $3 Barbie? Some of the forums say that each store has a limited supply and when they're gone, they're gone.

In honor of Barbie's 50th birthday on Monday, March 9, Mattel will offer special Barbie at her original 1959 price of $3. This offer is available at participating retailers. We will post when we get more information. These are both shown in today's Target and ToysRUs ads.