Two In The Think Tank - 408 - The History of Barbie

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

The Barbie movie has made over $1 Billion, so we're jumping on the bandwagon and learning about the history of the doll and its journey to superstardom with Barbie expert and friend of the show, AJ from Cult Popture!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 05:50 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).You can find AJ's podcast here (the ep Jess & Dave appeared on) :https://shows.acast.com/831d9c95-c466-4be2-a66f-2c6375cf8a8c/63f05383479d500011cdb820Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodSupport the show on Apple podcasts and get bonus episodes in the app: http://apple.co/dogoon Live show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/ Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/Check out our merch: https://do-go-on-podcast.creator-spring.com/ Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present.  REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://shows.acast.com/831d9c95-c466-4be2-a66f-2c6375cf8a8c/a9fe4ae2-7bce-41e0-8eda-f59be4147027https://www.slashfilm.com/1341484/an-exhaustive-guide-to-barbie-lore/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just jumping in really quickly at the start of today's episode to tell you about some upcoming opportunities to see us live in the flesh. And you can see us live at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2024. We are doing three live podcasts on Sundays at 3.30 at Basement Comedy Club, April 7, 14 and 21. You can get tickets at dogo1pod.com. Matt, you're also doing some shows around the country. That's right. I'm doing shows with Saren Jayamana, who's been on the show before. We're going to be in Perth in January, Adelaide in February, Melbourne through the festival in April, and then Brisbane after that. I'm also doing Who Knew It's in Perth and Adelaide. Details for all that stuff at mattstuartcomedy.com.

We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On.

My name is Jess Perkins and as always I'm here with Matt Stewart. Hello Matt. Hey Jess, how's it going? It's so good to be here. And quick question for you, how good is it to be alive? Personally, I wish I was ever born. Oh my god. We are not joined by our good friend Dave Warnock.

Yes, yet again he is not shown. We do not know where he is. Yeah. And we do not wish to know. I say yet again. These episodes are coming out in a funny order. Maybe has he been here recently? He's probably been back. He was probably here last week.

I can't remember. Yeah, who knows? I don't- I'm in charge of the schedule. Don't care. Anyway- This one is- because we're pushing this episode right up the order. It's coming in hot off the presses. It's basically going out live.

Yeah, this is basically live. If you were to run down to Stupid Old Studios right now when you're listening, we're here. Yeah. Give us a wave. We're not in a room with a window, but we'll know. But we'll know you're waving. We'll know. Anyway, we are very excited to be joined by a friend of the podcast,

and you may know him from the world of podcasting. His name is Alexander Jones, a.k.a. AJ from Cult Pop Char. AJ, welcome to Do Go On. Thank you so much. It's so good to be here. I'm so excited to read you a report. Yes. I hope it's fun.

We're excited for that too because it means we haven't written a report. And also, like, you're doing all of the work with this one because you're doing the report, but also people might know or might have heard that sometimes we refer to an AJ on the podcast. That's you. You're our editor as well. Yes. Yes. I have achieved every podcast editor's dream of guesting on the podcast that's you you're our editor as well yes yes i have achieved uh every podcast editor's

dream of guesting on the podcast that he edits i have turned the parasocial relationship into a real friendship and if i can do it listeners you can do it too let's not give anyone any crazy ideas you too can do hours of paid work and eventually climb up the ladder to then do free work on the podcast. It's exciting, isn't it? Yes, it is. There'll be people out there who'll know you from your viral TikTok videos where you do all the generations. Yes. How do the generations would respond to a gay character being introduced on a sitcom?

Yeah, exactly. Oh, okay. Am I the millennial? Oh, okay. You should make your own, Matt. You're so good at it. No, no. That might have been Gen X.

Okay. A little side eye. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You did great side eye for Gen X. Thank you so much. Yes, I got... I like to say I'm mildly TikTok famous. Though these days it feels more like I used to be mildly TikTok famous. I think TikTok fame is fleeting.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's the beautiful lesson for us all to learn. So, AJ, you've been editing this show for what, maybe a year? Maybe six months maybe three weeks who knows i think my first episode i edited was the matrix with alexi and cam wow yeah that could have been a year ago when we're in sydney now so you've you've listened to this a lot you'll know and you'll be able to explain to us how this show works yes of course i could do that what an honor um so this is a a show where the three of us well the two of you and usually dave uh go away

and come up with a report and then read it uh back to the class uh with uh as you say matt dog shit riffs um i i see i'm in a tricky position here we're like i i don't think you'll have had a more uh intimately familiar with the show guest before right and i don't want to come off as like i know all the in jokes so like i i like limited myself to inside jokes writing this report because i didn't want to i didn't want to come off as a fan which i am but i also want to be like, yeah, I'm also a big podcaster as well, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, yeah, I mean, yeah, we've had friends come on the podcast who have listened to Do Go On and, you know, they kind of know some of the in-jokes and stuff, but you're paid to listen to Do Go On. I know what gets cut out. Exactly right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're intimate with cut out. Exactly right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're intimate with the dog shit riffs.

Yeah, yeah. The shittest of the dog shit riffs. The shittest of the shit. Or as you say, dog shit roffs, which I like. Did I say that? Yeah, well, I mean, that's just your accent, but I love it. Ah, yes. Probably the best accent in the world.

Whenever Australians make fun of the New Zealand accent, I never hear it. And I'm not precious. I'm not like, don't make fun of me, but I need like the fush and chups thing. Like if I can say fush and chups, then clearly I'm not saying fish and chips. It confuses me.

It confuses me. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's broken my brain a little bit. Yeah, you're right. You've got a very international accent though, Jo. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's so a very international accent, though, AJ. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you so much. It's so good to have a Kiwi on because we have a few Kiwi listeners and they have been wanting us to come over and do a show, which I'm so keen to do. But this feels like this is our first solid step across the Dutch to New Zealand. Thank you so much. I'm glad to be the midway point between you over there and coming over here.

Yeah, you're our gateway. And look, you know, because you have edited so many of these, that we usually start with a question. Yes, I have a question. And I wanted to make my mark on the show, so I thought I would try break the record for the longest question ever asked and do go on history he's gonna start the report and then we have to guess yes it's a 5 000 question um no and and i did this one to be funny but also because i am gunning

for the uh shiny golden gary for best guest um award i'm leon Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant. I'm getting eaten by a bear to try and get that award. So here we go. This is my question. Which feminist icon has had over 200 careers, including actor, artist, ballerina, cake baker, chef, circus performer, dancer, fashion designer, fashion editor, fashion model, fashion trend forecaster, film director, film producer, floral designer, game show host, interior designer, makeup artist, musician, music producer, news anchor, photographer, photojournalist, rapper, singer, stylist, a TV news camera woman, an Avon representative. Please don't guess. Please don't guess.

Please don't guess till I've finished. We've already done Oprah, AJ. We've already done Dolly Parton, AJ. Rapper, singer, stylist, TV News camera woman, Avon representative, babysitter, bake shop worker, beach snack stand worker,

business executive, cafe worker, candy or ice cream parlor worker, cashier for McDonald's and Pizza Hut, chief sustainability officer, crepe shop worker, dog day carer, entrepreneur, farmer, food truck operator, Mary Kay consultant, noodle bar worker, pet boutique owner, security, waitress, art teacher, ballet teacher, cooking teacher, English language teacher, music teacher, science teacher, sign language teacher, student teacher, animal rescuer, dentist, doctor, nurse, paramedic, pediatrician, surgeon, veterinarian, paratrooper, U.S. Air Force pilot, a Marine Corps sergeant, a Navy petty officer, a UNICEF brand ambassador, the president, the vice president canadian mountie detective firefighter judge lifeguard cop astronaut chemist game developer microbiologist renewable energy

engineer nascar driver beekeeper cat burglar cowgirl magician zookeeper superhero and tooth Zookeeper, Superhero and Tooth Fairy? Question mark. I had no idea. Completely stumped. That's a lot of jobs. That's too many jobs, I would argue. Some of them also feel just so deeply entrenched in capitalism. Avon lady. Yeah, yeah.

Diametrically opposed Korea's ideology, like UNICEF brand ambassador coming right after Navy pity officer. Yeah, interesting stuff. The way you said them so fast, it was hard to know if some of them were merged jobs as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like beekeeper, race driver. Oh, wow. Okay.

She busy. Look, I'm going to have a stab, mostly because of all the buzz that's happening at the moment in the world. The bees. The bees. Is it Barbie? It is indeed Barbie. I have somewhat become a Barbie expert in the last few years,

not on purpose, but on my podcast, Cult Popture, a couple of years ago we covered the, at the time, 37 Barbie films. It took us, the episode is 18 hours long. What? 37 Barbie films? Well, there's 42 now. We've recently caught up for the new movie. We usually- This is not the first barbie movie no

the big hit no not at all it's the 43rd one yeah yeah um wow is it a reboot uh no no and it has nothing to do with the other movies okay um yeah we usually cover film franchises on cold pop show so we've done uh everything from godzilla to Godfather to God's Not Dead. That's our brand new tagline. And yeah, there were 37 Barbie movies. So we recorded it. Fans of both our shows might remember that Jess, you and Dave guested on our 28-hour Scooby-Doo episode at the start of this year because there's 40 47 Scooby-Doo movies um yeah not all our

episodes are that long but those two are so yeah and you did make us watch all 47 Scooby-Doo movies which like it was just a bit of a piss take yeah no but you know what to your credit you did it and that's the that's the great um number eight wire ingenuity that both our lovely nations share. AJ, I think I can come clean now. I wasn't actually sick. No. I'm just not watching that many movies, mate. So what are your guys' experiences with Barbie?

Have you seen the new movie? Did you play with the dolls growing up? Yes and yes. It's a no and no for me. Haven't seen the movie yet? I yes um so no one know for me haven't seen the movie yet i'm keen to see it i just haven't had the chance but um i did give my sister i think it was a barbie present uh for christmas when when we were kids and everyone was like it's so weird and i didn't i don't don't know why it didn't seem weird to me at the time it just seemed cool not cool but interesting but anyway it was like a pregnant barbie and the the stomach could pop off and there was a baby there and then the little her name is her name is midge and she will

come up yeah she will come up and she features in the film exactly yes everyone everyone i'm like because i was eight giving my five-year-old sister or something this pregnant Barbie. And at the time, like, isn't that cool? It's like a functional Barbie. Normally they don't do anything. Yep. And I was like, that's real weird.

Au contraire, they do a lot. Oh, okay, sorry. You have just mentioned that they do quite a few things. It is so funny that you mentioned Midge, though, specifically, because she is a running joke throughout the right barbie film so you'll love that that's great yeah um i will be discussing the the new film but uh kept away from spoilers in case people such as matt haven't seen it uh but yeah what about jess did you have a barbie doll growing up i had heaps of them um i was also on my mum's side of the family, right? There's 12 grandkids, but only two of us are

girls and there's a lot of aunties. So, they loved buying us like Barbies and fun toys. Nice. I had heaps of them. I loved Barbies and I have seen the movie and I loved it. And I went with a friend of the show, Michelle Brazier. It was for her birthday. We went in a big group of friends, all of us in our mid-30s and we got to the cinema, all dressed in pink, of course, and the cinema, the foyer, filled with 13-year-olds. Nice.

I'm not good at judging the age of kids. They could have been younger but there was several birthday parties happening but mostly for tweens and then there was several birthday parties happening but mostly for tweens and then there was us a bunch of mid-30s in the back of the cinema with glasses of wine ready to watch barbie and it was an interesting experience is it kind of film that kids would like i mean yeah yeah but they would yeah yeah but it also one for everyone i think so yes yeah definitely felt like some a lot of the jokes were for us. Right.

It was one point during- That's why you were telling each other. Yes, this is for us. Swirling your wines around. They're in the wrong, we said. Nice. I went and saw it at a preview screening girls' night that Hoyts, the local Hoyts cinema, was putting on.

I was stoned out of my mind and went into a massive crowd of women dressed in pink by the time we got to the cinema there were so many people that they had to pause one of the trailers well like one of the like turn your cell phone off previews that plays before the movie and they paused it for about 30 minutes to let every to get everyone into the cinema, by the end of which I was significantly less stoned than when I had walked into the cinema. That's funny. They're not used to sold-out shows at Hoyts?

No. Is that such a rare thing that a cinema sells out? They don't know what to do. What do we do? It was packed, though, to be fair. That's what a sold-out show is, AJ. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That would happen at cinemas all the time.

It feels like you're blaming me. Uh, yes. Speaking of the cinematic experience, I did briefly consider trying to make this a Barbenheimer report and do, like, parallel it with the Oppenheimer story, but despite what the internet's telling you, there are no obvious parallels

between the most successful fashion doll in the world and the man who am become death destroyer of worlds. But there's never been two movies that are different from each other released on the same day. That's why it was significant. You're not going gonna participate in the the saw patrol like paw patrol saw 10 see that way that works better i guess as a like some as a word play or whatever yeah it's true it does it's true but no i don't think so i don't think i'm keen

whereas i'm i'm up for seeing oppenheimer and barbie i don't think i'm super keen on either of saw or snow patrol poor patrol but yes little drive by the old scottish band snow patrol they're not keen on them either not into it well uh before barbie the doll the character came along the doll industry mainly focused on baby dolls so little girls would pretend to be mothers because it was the 50s and it was important to tell young girls that they have options like do you want a girl or a boy which you can't you can't actually choose in real life anyway but in 1956 ruth handler the co-founder of mattel, the toy company, was traveling Europe with her two children, Barbara and Kenneth. That's right. They're siblings in real life.

Whoa. That's a big twist. That's Star Wars level sort of sibling twist. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. In Germany, she stumbled across something called Build Lily, B-I-L-D-L-I-L-L-I, which was not a kid's toy, but in fact a doll based off a fictional sex worker who had appeared in the German comic strip newspaper tabloid Build since 1955. Vox describes the character of Lily, or Build Lily, as a seductive and cheeky gold digger, sweet-talking wealthy men into buying her expensive gifts.

After becoming a runaway success in the comic strip, Lily dolls were manufactured and sold to men who'd hang them from their rear-view mirrors or display in their office, or whatever creepy men in the 50s did with sexy dolls. That's so interesting, isn't it? Yeah. That she's a gold-digging sex worker and they're like, going to put that in the office?

Yeah, yeah. I don't know if I understand what's going on. I mean, I love this character. Yeah, I think it's fantastic. But yeah, what a funny thing that Barbie began as a toy for men. An object of men's lust, yeah. So Ruth Handler had already been on the lookout for something like this after she'd noticed that her daughter, Barbara,

would often assign different jobs to her collection of baby dolls. And she said to her husband and fellow co-founder of Mattel, Elliot Handler, that this could be a gap in the market, that perhaps little girls would appreciate the opportunity to play with dolls that weren't babies, and Elliot was, quote, unenthusiastic about the idea. A husband in the 50s?

Yeah. It's so funny how many times an idea that's gone huge, the first people were like, I don't see it. There's no market for this like mobile phones and stuff no it's a funny little gimmick but yeah it'll never catch on he presumably became more enthusiastic however when ruth bought a few lily dolls back from germany and as is the case with a lot of great american innovators ruth flagrantly stole the lily concept and redesigned the character

into an early version of barbie naming the doll after her daughter um the first barbie dolls went on sale on march 9th 1959 which is canonically barbie's birthday and in 1961 mattel was sued by build lily's rights holder le holder Lewis and Mark's company claiming that Mattel had infringed on the patent for Build Lily's hip joint and also that Barbie was a direct take off and copy of Build Lily while also arguing that Mattel had falsely and misleadingly represented itself as having the original design Mattel counterlaimed, and the case was settled out of court in 1963. And in 1964, Mattel bought the original copyright and patent rights for the Build Lily doll for $21,600.

So as is the case for a lot of great American innovators, they bought them out. Yes! Whoa. Yes! And that would have been back then in the early 60s, that would have been A lot of cash Oh yeah

Yeah yeah Wow Do you think The right amount of cash To sell Barbie You happy with 22 grand now You're looking at

So blank like Fuck you Why the fuck Are you picking me up on this I'm just saying That's a lot of money Yeah no you're right I'm just thinking For that company They got ripped Yeah, no, you're right I'm just thinking

For that company you sell They got ripped off Yeah, but they probably didn't even realise how big Nah, Barbie was pretty big very quickly, right? Yes, that's true So they probably knew But maybe it was just like, it's a losing We've lost

They're also like, come on We came up with a sex doll That's too small to have sex with We'll take what we can get Hey, no, don't speak for every man out there. You don't know, Matt, you know. It's not all bad for Build Lily because nowadays a good condition Lily doll is an exceptionally rare collector's item. And you can find one in the Coburg Doll Museum where she is credited as the grandmother of Barbie.

So there you go. That's sick. Is that canonical? No. Canonical to real life. Maybe not to the actual Barbie. I would have loved that to be worked into the movie. No, true.

Yeah. Like they mentioned like a grandma. Barbie's German sex worker. Grandma. That'd be awesome. As for the Barbie doll, though, how did she begin? What was her first outfit? I know these are all the questions you'll be asking.

The first Barbie doll was marketed as a teenage fashion model and featured Barbie in an iconic black and white zebra-striped swimsuit. You see this outfit in the Margot Robbie movie. It's the 2001 A Space Odyssey parody, it's also the teaser trailer, she's wearing the first ever Barbie outfit in that. And also much like how Barbie is represented in the film, there was always variety as the first version of Barbie

came as a blonde or a brunette. Both kinds. Both kinds. Both kinds. Wow. The redheads on the scrap heap again. You'll have your day in the sun with Barbie, though. Don't worry. Yeah, but do we're SPF? We don't.

That's not what we want, AJ. She was also looking to the side instead of front ways, like with modern Barbies. But even in the 1960s Barbie had boobs or at least a distinct bust which would go on to infuriate parents over the years but Ruth Handler was adamant that the character needed to be portrayed as an adult or a teenager and it looks like she was right because barbie sold over 350 000 dolls in her first year alone and would go on to sell over a billion units in the following decades

a billion dolls have been a billion fuck that's and they they're all biodegradable right yeah so it's it's actually doing the earth a lot of good. Most of them are working as fertilizer right now. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What can't Barbie do? She can do anything, including biodegrade. Barbie dolls outnumber people in the United States. A doll is purchased every two minutes on average,

and Mattel estimates that there are well over 100,000 avid Barbie collectors, with 62-year-old German collector Bettina Dorfman holding the Guinness World Record for largest Barbie collection, a record she set in 2005 with only 2,500 dolls. She has since expanded to what is now estimated to be as many as 18,500 Barbie dolls. Oh, my God. She's got a big house.

I think her Barbies have a big house and she sleeps in the shed. Yeah. A little closer to home, retired paramedic Patsy Carlyle owns New Zealand's largest Barbie collection, owns New Zealand's largest Barbie collection, boasting a measly 1,600 Barbies, along with 300 loose Barbies, or freed Barbies, as she calls them, which are Barbies not in their boxes.

Oh, my God. She lives with her husband in a 1903 pink villa in Hellensville, known as the Pink Palace. But the dolls are currently on display in the Wellington Museum. Wow. Has pink always, because everyone wore pink, or a lot of people seem to wear pink to the Barbie movies. Has pink always been a colour associated with Barbie?

Yeah, I guess it's interesting, isn't it? Because her first outfit was black and white. So I guess pink must have come in very, very shortly after that one because it is definitely, maybe the box was pink because pink is definitely, inarguably, the main colour of Barbie. What I can do, though, and this is something we did when we had guests on our Barbie episode over at Cold Pop Shirt, is Jess, can you tell me what year you were born, if you don't mind? 1990.

1990. I can tell you the Barbie that came out the year you were born uh and you have quite a big deal you have the 1990 version of the barbie dream house which uh is of course uh the main accessory that would accompany barbie um the 1991 looks pretty cool it's a little mansion kind of thing. It wasn't the original Dreamhouse, though. According to House and Garden, the first Dreamhouse was released in 1962 before American women were even allowed to open bank accounts in their name. Now, Matt, when it comes to you, I know that you were born before the invention of plastic, and let alone Barbies. Yes, it makes it tricky.

I guess my closest one is the sex worker in Germany. I can tell you the Barbie that came out in 1966, your favourite year. Oh, fantastic. Which was the Colour Magic Barbie, which featured yellow hair and an equally vibrant outfit. Oh, the Carl Dittrich model, I imagine, who was famously reported and suspended for the grand final.

The blonde bombshell himself. There you go. Yeah, he'll always be associated with the 66 Premiership of the St Kilda Football Club, even though he didn't play in the game. Hey, you know how you said your accent isn't different? This is something that trips me up all the time. Kiwis say woman when they are meaning women. So, you just said then many woman do that or something like that.

Don't say I said that. That sounds like I'm generalising all women. Many woman do this So now were you saying women or woman then? I don't know, I've lost track now It's all just one word over here There's one woman and it's Jacinta Ardern Yeah, exactly

So that's what, the plural of woman is woman Yeah Because there's only one Do you have any more women? How do you say it? What about the women? Women. I mean, I'm not saying I say it right.

Right. I'm just saying you say women like I say woman. Okay, here we go. Ready? Okay. A single woman, many women. Yeah. Does that sound different?

No. Oh, okay. Sure. Does that appease you for those interested the 1993 barbie which is the year i was born is native american barbie which is uh pretty cool i guess oh that's kind of cool yeah so uh barbie does not just stop at dolls however with the character and her friends having appeared in numerous books, video games, and TV shows, and, of course,

a very famous 1997 pop song by the Danish dance pop group Aqua. Would you say Aqua or Aqua? Aqua. Okay, good. I was worried I'd get another pulled up again from the accent. I'm not having a go at all as well. You say make fun. I love it.

I love cultural differences, but I also think you've got the best accent in the world, the New Zealand accent. I love it. Thank you so much. Very much. But I also am a big fan of Barbie, the song, and Dr. Jones. Yeah, and Aqua in general.

Yeah, well, those two Aqua songs that I can recall. I think that was a ballad as well. Well, did you know that six months after the release of the song Barbie Girl by Aqua, Mattel sued them? That seems fun. Nowadays, I feel like people associate it as almost like a piece of brand ambassador, you know, like it's tied in. But it wasn't.

And Mattel argued that the song infringed on Barbie's copyright and trademarks and that the song's lyrics had ruined the reputation of Barbie in which the song's lyrics kind of like make her sound like a bimbo for lack of a better term. Something which I don't think is inherently a bad thing but mattel in the 1990s thought it was a bad thing the two parties fought in court for a number of years before it was ruled that the song constituted parody and both parties dropped their lawsuits against each other and despite this while the mattel-sanctioned 2023 live-action film does not feature the original song, there is a cover-slash-remake of the song by Nicki Minaj, iSpice and Aqua themselves included on the film's soundtrack. Ah, because I had heard that they weren't in there,

which seemed like a weird decision. I didn't realise Aqua were involved in the remake. Yeah, so there you go. Which I've heard people say is no good, but, you know. The song. It's always hard to cover a classic. Yeah, exactly right. Exactly.

Big shoes to fill. Exactly. And, yeah, I was going to make a Barbie shoes joke, but it's like I know that. Don't do it. Well, no, because I know Barbie wears shoes. Well, you can edit out this bit and just do a really good joke. Take your time. I don't think it's there. I don't think it's there. Whenever you're Well, you can edit out this bit and just do a really good joke. Take your time.

I don't think it's there. I don't think it's there. Whenever you're ready, you can do it. They're not all winners. Just chop out all this bit and then put in your really good joke about Barbie shoes. If I think of it later, I will put it. I'll do it here after we have stopped recording and I'm editing, and I'll be like, that's the joke, and I'll insert it.

Mr. Black. And then I'll find a clip of you guys laughing and put that under it as well so you'll struggle to find that good luck jess perkins notoriously a hard laugh stone face perkins um there are also of course the barbie movies as i mentioned before, 43 of them, in fact, and Barbie movies are truly my area of expertise, for better or worse. I've seen them all. The first 42 of these films are animated and all clock in at at least 61 minutes, which was our threshold when we covered them. It was like if it's over an hour, it counts. So there are purists out there that will say, like,

there was a 45-minute animated Barbie movie in the 80s. We did watch it, but not for the podcast. We only counted it for over an hour. The animated Barbie movies began in 2001 with the release of Barbie in the Nutcracker, the most recent outing, Barbie, Skipper, and the Big Babysitting Adventure, releasing earlier this year in March.

The movies were basically started because as Mattel was developing and growing across the years, they were like, oh, people aren't playing with toys anymore, but they are being placed in front of TVs to watch the same movie on repeat. So they started making these movies to tie in to the toys and they're all made for either the straight to dvd market or later for streaming uh all very cheap looking cgi animation uh very ropey in the early years um have you are you guys at all familiar with the animated barbie

movies yeah i haven't like sat down and watched them but i've i've seen enough sort of clips and so you're right the cgi is average okay i reckon you you might recognize bits and pieces of it matt like i feel like you'll recognize the style i can picture cheap cgi that's exactly yeah well that's it that's that's barbie isn't it funny that such a huge brand would cheap out on something like that? Well, I think it must be a value for money thing that they're like. Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you've seen any of those?

Like, yeah. Yeah. I've seen them. I've seen all of them. You've seen them all. It sounds like, I mean, they must have, but it sounds like they started doing a nutcracker, like a ballet, and then they've ended with a babysitter adventure.

They're not afraid to go anywhere, I'm guessing. You can be anything. That's the Barbie motto. You can nutcrack or babysit. Yeah. And anywhere in between. And within the Barbie canon, there are also sub-canons. As you said, a lot of the films are ballet

or fairy tale inspired uh with barbie characters but you've also got the fairy topia sub series you've got the mermaid tale sub series you've got the barbie and her sisters sub series and so on and so forth all of these have sisters she does she does um for the most part these films were all part of the the wider marketing campaign to sell uh the dolls for example if you bought your daughter barbie fashion fairy tale the like toy set it comes with a dvd of barbie a fashion fairy tale oh cool and and what's this in the movie barbie has a cute animal character well guess what you can buy that too you can buy a plush of it um so and it was very successful we

ended up interviewing one of the animators of um barbie some of the barbie movies as well and they talked all about like that sort of stuff as well so it's a whole institution there is there is a like a really passionate fan base for the animated barbie films really oh that's cool even though they just throw away things to try to flog dolls, they actually, people love them. Yeah. I imagine the animator you were talking to is probably fully stressed out from being overworked.

He's probably done every single one of the movies back to back. Well, they did a bunch of them in the middle, I think, and then moved on to bigger and greater things. But they actually had very nice things to say about the process. Well, that's nice. I did say, hey, obviously women can be animators too. Non-binary people can be animators too. I mean, honestly, the list goes on.

Nearly anyone can animate if they put their mind to it. There's probably an animator Barbie doll. But in this case, it was a man, wasn't it? No, it was a non-binary person. You took a risk and you picked the one that could get you in most trouble. Well, I thought that would be the funniest way to go, but not the way you played it. Jesus Christ.

If it makes you feel better, Matt, almost all of these movies were directed by men. Well, that's surprising to me. Men don't normally get those kind of gigs. I'm not going to pretend like these movies are particularly good or tell you that there's, you know, hidden value in them. Some of them, worst movies I've ever seen. But when watching them, we decided to be like open and aware to

the fact that they were not made for us. And we began to like critically analyze them from that kind of angle. So there are a couple of standout barbie movies i can recommend if you guys or any of the listeners were looking to dip a toe maybe in prep for the new movie firstly if you're a barbie movie fan this will come as no surprise but 2004's barbie princess and the pauper directed by william lau is widely considered to be the like the godfather of the the franchise. It is the fourth animated Barbie release, coming out after Barbie of Swan Lake and before Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus. It is a gender-swapped musical adaptation

of the 1881 Mark Twain novel The Prince and the Pauper, in which a young prince and a young peasant discover they look identical and swap lives to see how the other half live here it is done with a blonde barbie and a brunette barbie one whoa but other than that they look identical they look identical they're the same how the other half live this is like trading places right which one came first oh i mean, having done a podcast where we covered so many sequels, The Prince and the Pauper is a foundation of a lot of sequels.

There are so many franchises that have a Prince and the Pauper kind of sequel hidden in them somewhere. But I love that there is a movie amongst all this that is seen as being better than the rest. Oh, there's a couple. Is it good compared to movies or just good compared to barbie movies so great question and it's one of these things where it's like if you had put a disney animated film sized budget into the animation

you wouldn't have to do that much with the story or the script right um or the the songs especially which is one of the reasons this movie um is so uh beloved um there are some actually pretty catchy songs in this film including uh i am a girl like you which is sung between the two barbies when they meet each other um that's sort of the the the breakout hit from the film uh the villain in the film is played by martin short who sings a song called how can i refuse and that's a good one and i'm also quite partial to the opening song which is called free in which both barbies sing about how stifling their individual lives are and how they long to be free this is my favorite lyric in the song it says you would think that i'm so lucky that i have so many things i'm realizing that every present comes with strings oh that is good that's good right yeah

that makes you think a bit tone deaf from rich barbie singing about how tough her life is whilst poor barbie is also it's like come on yeah read the room all these gifts i get yeah just heaps by the way oh my god well firstly i don't know where to put them all yeah i've got a whole gift room yeah we're just taking up precious space and i'm having to buy another house just for gifts just to house my gifts can you believe it oh my life is hard um jeez i'm jealous and you you don't even have rooms that must be so so freeing. That must be so nice. I'd also like to mention the 13th film in the series, which is 2008's Barbie and the Diamond Castle, directed by Gino Nichelle.

This is an original story about two Barbies living together in a cottage in a fairy tale forest who set off together to find the mysterious Diamond Castle. This one is also a musical and features some more bangers like Connected and Two Voices, One Song. You mean a duet. Yeah. What a convoluted way to say it's a duet. If you heard the song, Matt, you'd get into it, though.

You wouldn't be back talking. You'd love it. You'd love it. Honestly, I can get into any music. I've realised that over the last few years doing different music podcasts. If I have an open mind to it, I can love nearly any song, I reckon. Yeah, wow. But I think that's probably true with a lot of people.

It's hard to go into it to like something that clearly isn't very good. But if you want to like it, I reckon you can. Well, I also think that when you're in the middle of watching 37 Barbie movies and the song's a little bit catchy you're like oh my god this is the greatest thing I've ever seen! Finally some quality! So Barbie and the Diamond Castle it's mainly notable in the community

for what many perceive to be an implicitly queer subtext to the film, with many believing that the two Barbies are, in fact, a pair of cottagecore lesbians. There are two male romantic interests in the film, but they are swiftly written out of the story when they are carried away by a rainbow. So... LAUGHTER

I didn't know rainbows could do that. I don't think they appear in the rest of the film either so it's widely considered to be the gay Barbie movie and very popular in the community if you're looking for a fucked up Barbie experience though you need to check out 2006's The Barbie Diaries directed by Eric Fogel which is the eighth film in the franchise

plus the first and for a long time only contemporary set uh film uh focusing on barbie attending high school and the film looks insane you guys it is some of the most cheap off-putting and upsetting animation you'll ever see widely considered to be the worst film in the series so that's the barbie diaries right i yeah i'm surprised they didn't go with more contemporary stuff i guess that dates whereas you said it in the olden days it'll never date yeah pre-date well a lot of the a lot of the early ones so like barbie and the nutcracker for example begins with barbie and her little sister in a ballet studio and she's like well have i ever told you the story about the nutcracker um but the more recent ones like the one i said before

the most recent one is barbie and and the Big Babysitting Adventure. That's a modern day story. Running out of ideas. Barbie Skipper and the Big Babysitting Adventure. It's too long a title. I'd edit that down a little bit. Just call it a duet. Agreed.

But so they must be releasing, what, two or three a year? Yeah, pretty much since 2001, yeah. I can't believe the animator had time to chat to you. Well, they didn't work for Mattel anymore, but... Oh, okay. It was... Burnt out. Yeah, yeah, obviously.

Yeah. Having seen all 42 of these films and now having seen Gretel Gerwig's 2023 film starring Margot Robbie as Barbie I can confirm that they had pretty much zero influence on the on the live action film I don't think Greta Gerwig has seen the animated Barbie movies um but in regards to my personal experience uh watching and analyzing 43 films that are so obviously not aimed at my demographic has helped me to appreciate more media not made for me uh which is pretty close to some of the themes and conversations within the 2023 live action film so it wasn't i i need to tell myself that it wasn't all for nothing

yeah yeah well you give it it's giving you something to talk to us about that's true that's true i'm kind of disappointed that greta gerwig didn't even uh like at least do a few nods to some of these obscure characters that would have been fun for the fandom to see a reference to the worst movie you've ever seen you know i think that so or or or a couple of guys being carried away by a rainbow in the background at some point i mean i've only seen them the the gretta gerwig movie once so maybe there's some hidden things in the the background that i didn't notice um but for my money the only thing the only vaguely uh you know like recognizable thing having seen all of them is that um one of the barbies is a mermaid and when she's credited in the film it refers to her as like um mermaid power

is like the name of the her toy and i've seen the movie that mermaid power is based off okay that's that's pretty good yeah i like that a live action barbie movie had obviously been on the cards for years and since uh 2009 metall had been pretty keen to get their flagship gal on the silver screen with the film and its concept being radically adjusted over the years notable names like Amy Schumer and Anne Hathaway were at times attached to play Barbie at different stages and Juno and Jennifer's body screenwriter Di Diablo Cody, as well as Wonder Woman director, Patty Jenkins, coming and going from the project. Names like that.

And then Margot Robbie was officially cast as Barbie, but also was given the role of a producer, and it was actually her who nabbed Lady Bird slash Little Woman director, Greta Gerwig, for the film. It sounds like she had a big role to play in it. I heard that she you know was direct directly dealing with aqua at one point trying to get the song involved and stuff like that yep she did way more for it than just played barbie which is awesome yeah gritty

agreed to do it upon the stipulation that her husband marriage story writer director noah bomback could write the screenplay with her i I thought you were going to say... Could be Ken. On the stipulation that he can't be involved at all, okay? I need some time away. We've worked together a lot in the past and I just need a break. I just need some greater time. Don't tell him I said this. I'm saying to him that I'm saying, please, can I have him involved? And you're saying no, okay?

No, that's much nicer, I guess. Yeah. Are you guys at all familiar with Greta Gerwig or Noah Bombeck? Not as much Noah, but I've seen Little Women and other stuff that Greta's done. I've heard of Greta Gerwig and I've heard of, yeah, I remember Little Women getting a lot of love. Yeah. But I haven't seen, I saw like the 90 the 90s version of it at the cinemas.

I remember feeling sad throughout. Okay, cool. Is it a sad movie? Yeah, it's sad in places. Parts of it, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think Beth dies.

Oh, okay. One of them dies or they all die. I love... You barely remember this movie, but you, like, remember the name of the character. Yeah, I remember having a crush on Beth when I watched it, and then she died, and I've never loved again. I think that should replace how good is it to be alive as your opening.

I've never loved again. So, well, Greta Gerwig and Noah Bombeck are both like pretty out of the box choices for the director for a barbie movie creative team um they both hail from the mumblecore film movement from the early to mid 2000s which is a subgenre of film mostly characterized by its distinct lack of budget and often like an improvised script rudimentary camera work i could list off some films but not to be the movie buff hipster you've probably never heard of them like they're they're very one of the biggest ones um francis ha is a big one um hannah takes the stairs uh squid and the whale heard of any of these yes yes i think great it's it's i've heard of squids for a while i've heard

of the name hannah hannah takes the stairs i'm picked is it like literally just her the whole like an hour and a half of her it's set in a stairwell yeah it's beautiful uh they're very small movies and and um very like i want to say like character focused and story focused but they're not even really that. It's almost just, like, there's a very loose narrative. They're basically, like, very easy to make. And that's, I think, why a lot of them got made. And they're, like, set in a day usually, right?

They're sort of, who's that actor who's sort of famous for mumblecore movies? He's in The Morning Wars. Mark Duplass. Mark Duplass, yeah. He's who I think I want to think of mumblecore. he's in um the morning wars mark duplass mark duplass yeah he he's who i think i want to think of mumblecore absolutely yeah is he in any of those movies you said yeah i think he's in oh god is he in doesn't matter francis um so sorry sorry aj pretty much the polar opposite of the popcorn blockbuster anyway that's what mumblecore is um and i personally believe that the mumblecore background is probably key to why the 2023 film is so successful and or at least why it's so weird and why its sense of humor is so strange

um it is like a character focused indie comedy in the clothes of a high budget blockbuster in a lot of ways and this meta approach to the film and to the barbie brand um is you know all through the film it it depicts uh different versions of barbie living in some kind of alternate universe named barbie land when pitching this approach to warner brothers margot robbie compared it to jurassic park and uh jokingly claimed that the film would make a billion dollars and guess guess what happened a few days ago isn't that amazing yeah after only 17 days since it premiered it is now the highest grossing film to be ever directed by one woman supplanting uh wonder woman in 2017 which made 821.8 million global at the box office and there are i think there's maybe movies that have made more than barbie that have two directors and one of them is a woman like i think frozen two

there's not that many movies that get up over a billion are there no there's a it's you know there's a billion dollar club and it's your avatars and your avengers and stars and stuff. And now Barbie, which is pretty sick. It's great. It's great. Yeah, I love that. And it's still like it's not looking like that's going to end anytime soon, I'm guessing.

I mean, I still haven't seen it. Yeah. That's another $35. There must be others like me. That's $35 right there. There you go. I don't think I've got any pink clothes To wear but I'm gonna have to get myself A pink hoodie or something

You could go as a Ken Which Ken do you think I should go? Kenny Callender the old Horse racing commentator Yeah I think you should So all this talk About Barbie guys But who is

Barbara Millicent Roberts? Her fictional biography has changed and adapted over the years, but there are plenty of traits and details that have remained consistent. Barbie is usually somewhere between 16 and 19 years old. She has lived in a few different american cities including willows wisconsin and new york new york though these days is typically depicted as living in malibu california with her parents george and margaret neither of whom have ever been issued as dolls which i thought was her sisters have but not her parents yep are they her parents names uh? Yeah, George and Margaret are the names.

I mean, sorry, the real parents' names? No, that was Ruth and Elliot. Okay, I remember that. I'll just check them if you remember. And it's interesting that she has had some really high up jobs, like president, and she's 16 to 19.'t that amazing she's done so much she's not getting my vote no offense kid you gotta get out get some life experience uh life experience have you seen her cv let's start with a degree tell you what she must be a millennial jumping around

that many jobs yeah pick one Be a master of one. It's funny that I'm sure I've heard this before, but it still doesn't feel right that Barbie is short for Barbara. Yeah. Barbie feels like its own name. Yeah. It doesn't feel like a shortening of Barbara. Well, there's also people are talking about now because the movie has been so popular that like,

is Barbara going to make a comeback? Because Barbara, i hope i'm not offending anyone here but barbara's like not a not typically a young person's name you know no some of the some of those old people names have made a big comeback in the last couple of decades like jack is a really big for like 20 something olds in australia i reckon right and that was like a you know a world war sort of name yeah true, yeah, so I think the names do make a comeback. Jack feels a bit timeless. I feel like there's always Jacks.

Right. But, like, names like Edith and, yeah, some of those really old names are coming back. So, yeah, Barbara will make a return at some point. I mean, you don't hear baby Jessicas anymore, but that'll turn around. Yeah, like at the moment, I mean, we're working towards it where, like, the baby's being born now. We're going to hear Matt and Jess like we hear Gertrude and- Yeah, 100%. Philistine.

Yeah. That's not one. Gertrude and Philistine. Philistine. Phyllis. No, no, Philistine. The old lady down the shop. you know yeah so barbie's parents they've never been dolls but they do feature a lot and well not a lot actually but they have been in

in other pieces of barbie media um barbie herself is the oldest of what is usually four roberts children although there have been more who have chillingly disappeared or been retired over the years. Oh, my God. You think they've been taken out and killed? Yes, I do. Can I have a guess at the four? At the four? It's a rotating roster, but there's four constants that you can guess, yeah.

Because there's Skipper and Stacey, but then there's four constants that you can guess yeah because there's skipper and stacy but then i but then there's one that's like is it chelsea or something like that i'm so impressed yes this is it well it is chelsea but you you paused there and that made sense because chelsea was originally named kelly kelly whoa yes i had a kelly nice Why are they changing names from Kelly to Chelsea? Well how common is the name Kelly compared to Chelsea? Maybe it's just updating the brain Oh too common Kelly I think less common

Kelly was like the youngest one Right So she was little whereas like I had a Stacey who she was a gymnast Stacey So she was a smaller doll than Barbie, but she had, she was in a little, like, gym leotard, and she came with uneven bars and little, like, clips on her wrist so she could hang from the bars and you could make her do, like, little flips and stuff.

I had no idea there were siblings. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's really interesting one was Stacey as well, because obviously the Simpsons parody is Malibu Stacey. Yeah, yeah. That's a really interesting one with Stacey as well because obviously the Simpsons parody is Malibu Stacey. Yeah, exactly. And you're saying that Barbie's now based in Malibu and her sister's named Stacey.

So I wonder how they came to that. There's the episode of the Simpsons, like, Lisa versus Malibu Stacey where she meets the creator and it's, like, a pretty direct reference to what Ruth Handler was like as well. Lisa the Lionheart. Yeah, Lisa Lionheart. Yeah, yeah. pretty direct reference to what ruth handler was was like as well right lisa the lionheart yeah lisa lionheart yeah yeah um the so skipper was first introduced in 1964 stacy first introduced in 1990 and chelsea slash callie introduced in 1995 uh though as you were sort of alluding to

there jess they're basically brunette barbie tween barbie and kid barbie like i think i because having seen them in the movies now and seeing that their personalities are pretty indistinct i think it's maybe just more like do you want to play with barbie but like a little version yeah yeah a more travel a friendly version yeah yeah um other siblings who are no longer with us include Barbie's twin siblings, Tuti and Todd, who had seamless bendy bodies with internal wires. Barbie has a cousin named Francie Fairchild, who was invented for the mod era. And another cousin, Jazzy, who was sort of like a high school, like it was like a high school toy line. And she was the main focus of that.

There's also Christine or Chrissy, Barbie's little baby sister. These are all missing, presumed dead. Presumed by me. I'm picturing the backyard of the playhouse or whatever. There's a row of shallow graves next to each other. That would be such a great toy set. Can you imagine getting the pet cemetery in the back of the barbershop? That's the kind of thing that Greta Gerwig should have been working with.

Absolutely. In the far background, just a few little mounds of dirt in the backyard. There is, of course, also one Kenneth sean carson or simply just ken uh he is barbie's on and off again boyfriend who was originally introduced in 1959 so just after the original barbie um ken uh canonically met barbie on the set of a tv commercial and like barbie has held a myriad of different jobs since he was introduced, including, no, I won't do all that. But you know, you've got astronaut, saxophonist, and most recently, beach is his job in the

2023 film. Beach? Beach. That's fun. His and Barbie's relationship has also changed over the years. While he is mostly depicted as her boyfriend he's also been her best friend uh pour one out for all the lost souls there um he's actually he's a nice guy he's a nice guy but of course she doesn't want him she wants the bad boys she wants the travers are there

other are there other boys yeah is there a travers a Trevor? There's no Trevor. Damn it. Ken and Trevor goes well together. These themes are all in the 2023 movie as well. You're going to love the movie. Feels like I'm writing it right now. He's also been her neighbour and her business partner. And in 2004, he officially became her ex. Do you guys remember this?

I remember this. remember this oh yes um it was announced by mattel that the couple had split and vice president of marketing at mattel russell aarons saying uh barbie and ken feel it's time to spend some quality time apart like other celebrity couples their hollywood romance has come to an end. Man, you must feel so ridiculous having high-level board meetings about this. We need some publicity. What can we do? Split it up. I don't want to jump the gun here, but I think it's time to split up, Arpy and Ken.

And everyone's going. Like there's a spit take. Yeah. You're crazy, Darren. There's no's no way well they won't they that's what that's what people keeping people involved well i mean there's there's still some dramatic tension here because after they broke up barbie got a new boyfriend do you guys this this might this is a bit closer closer to home for you guys, so you might- Do you remember this from 2004 at all? She dated an Australian surfer named Blaine Gordon. Blaine.

Which is what an American would name an Australian surfer, I think. Blaine. We're all surfers, absolutely. Yeah. Well, I know I am, and you are. Well, yes, but we're the- So small sample size, but I think we can extrapolate that to everyone. We are champion surfers.

But also, like, so Barbie and Ken break up after decades together, 2004. Same year she's dating somebody else? Yeah, immediately. Barbie, come on. And now both part of the same announcement, which tells you there was a little bit of overlap. Overlap, for sure. Oh, my God, Barbie, I'm so disappointed in you.

You can be anything, including a disappointment. Hey, we don't know. Maybe Ken was cool with it. That's true. We don't know what was going on behind closed doors. Behind closed doors? We don't know what these inanimate pieces of plastic with we're thinking behind the scenes yeah um yeah she dated the surfer you could buy dolls of blaine um he he

looks again he looks like what an american would depict an australian surfer is like uh but much like barbie's presumably dead siblings he was discontinued after two years when Barbie and Ken got back together in 2006. It's like, yeah, isn't that how manipulated we were? Blaine looks fucked, to be honest. That is an ugly doll. Matt's going to Google Blaine Gordon and see himself as a Barbie doll now. Blaine Gordon and see, like, himself as a Barbie doll now. I also had no idea that people had-

that they all had surnames. So Barbie's surname's what, Gordon? No, Barbie's Robbins. Barbie Robbins, yeah. Oh, yeah, he does. That's not a good doll. Big lips. Oh, my God, look at this middle part he's got going on there.

This is what I believed everyone in Australia looked like. Am I incorrect in that? He's got a middle part bowl haircut. I love it. He's got sandy from the OC level eyebrows. He's got, like, his hair's quite streaky. Like, he's got sort of, He's put blonde foils through it. You know what? Like Australian man in what year? 2004. I think this isn't far off.

It's not far off. Yeah, it's not bad. They've done their research, I reckon. And they're also right to kill him off. We did it here too. Yeah, exactly exactly we're all pretty glad that facebook wasn't quite around at that point and there's not too many photos of the era well speak for yourself i'm a bit younger than you and i have a lot of facebook statuses that i find myself deleting whenever i'm looking at my memories right at the cusp i was 17 i was 17 when facebook became a big thing so it's not the worst thing in the world, but a few 17-year-old statuses being like, oh, yeah.

I go through delete every time I get a memory of here's what you wrote 12 years ago. I'm like, I don't need to see this. Let's just delete. This could get me cancelled. Yeah. Yeah, there's that one side where you're like, oh, my God, how naive was I? But then the other side where you've just realized something that everyone does at that age and you're like all right guys i got some truth to spread here yeah and you know who's a good example what i've done but you know who's a good example

of what this looks like on a global scale is uh jayden smith because jayden smith got social media when he was like nine years old and you. And you can find, like, tweets from him from, like, 2007 where he's like, how are our eyes real if trees aren't real? Or something like that. Like, real, like, pseudo-philosophical. Who's Jaden Smith? Will Smith's son. Will Smith's son. Yeah.

Jaden. That's a modern-ish name. Yeah. Yeah, you're not getting an old man named Jaden. You know? Yeah, yeah. So there are literally hundreds of other friends, acquaintances, associates, pets, and alternative versions of Barbie herself

who have graced toy stores over the years. Each one of those characters that I've just mentioned have their own supporting cast. So, yeah's there's too many dolls to mention but i will go into a few of the more enduring non-barbie barbie dolls outside of who i've already mentioned uh which would include brooklyn barbie who is an african-american barbie introduced in 2021 and to tie into the animated film Barbie Big City Big Dreams, a film I've seen. Now, this is not just a racially diverse alternative to white Barbie, but an entirely different

character who happens to share the exact same first, middle, and surname as the OG Barbie. The pair become best friends in the film and refer to each other as Malibu and Brooklyn affectionately. Oh, cute. There is also Alan, released in 1964 and marketed as Ken's buddy, who could fit all his clothes. Alan is portrayed by Michael Cera in the new film

where it is heavily implied he is gay and absolutely in love with the Kens and this is paying off like a long-held piece of fan speculation in the Barbie collectors community. There's also Margaret Sheward or Midge, who we talked about at the start of the episode. This doll was introduced in 1963 and marketed as both Barbie's best friend

and for a time, the wife of Alan. But the two are no longer depicted as being married, curiously. He shaved off his beard. Midge is portrayed in the 2023 film by promising young woman director Emerald Fennell, which depicts the character as eternally pregnant. That feels a bit patronising. Oh, she's a promising young woman director.

She's made movies, mate. Yeah, that's true. I really need to take a step back. Where do you get off? And sorry to step up at you here, but as a feminist, I think sometimes it's important that, you know, you speak up. Yeah. Jess, sorry, please.

Sorry, I'm just interested to hear Jess's thoughts on this. No, no, well, Jess can have her turn. But I'm just saying I think it's important that women are respected and given their space to flourish and grow and you don't have to patronise them. Jess, please. No, but I agree with what Matt's saying. Jess, please.

Yeah, so in the movie she is uh yeah eternally pregnant referred to as like creepy by uh some of the mattel uh executive characters uh and in this is of course in reference to the 2003 happy family line of dolls which you uh bought your sister for as a christmas present uh matt in which uh the midge doll uh came with a removable magnetic womb, which her unborn child was placed inside. This led to some controversy over the fact that Midge was encouraging teenage pregnancy, because remember, these characters are supposed to be, like, 17. Yeah.

It's funny also, like, it's encouraging it. Oh, yeah, this is what I want to do. I want to have a removable belly. It's also, I guess, just creepy to have a utero baby you can take it on and off and so i'm like that's basically it's a fetus right yeah but when was it made until the 90s i'm starting to think maybe i bought a knockoff version that's even creepier somehow, right? I couldn't have afforded an official Barbie when I was a kid, surely. It was 2003 when this came out. Oh, wow. 2003?

Oh. No, hang on. This page I'm looking at says it came out in 63. Okay, maybe there. Oh, Midge came out in 63, but the pregnant version of her was just. Oh, right. Oh, it was earlier than that. So, I was like, or have I just made up a memory?

That has happened before, but I reckon this would have been in the mid to late 90s. Interesting. I'm going to have to message my sister later. Yeah. Actually, she'll be listening. You message me. Yeah.

Actually, she'll be listening. You message me. Demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. Pregnant Midge is far from the only controversies the Barbie brand has faced over the years. Let's do it. Let's get into Barbie controversies. In 2006, we had Tanner, who was Barbie's pet Labrador, who came with a shitting functionality in which you could feed it.

Is that what they branded it as? Yeah, yeah. You could feed it dog food, and then the dog food would come out its butt. But then the same plastic piece of dog food, you'd just feed it back to it. So it's like it's a human centipede, but a dog version. That is, and these people were worried about encouraging teen pregnancy. What are they worried about here?

Eating shit. Kids are eating their own shit. Jesus. The dog does feature in the 2023 film um kate mckinnon plays weird barbie and has a pet labrador which i believe is intended to be tanner in 1993 a line of barbie dolls were released under the name airing magic which featured several of the Barbie characters wearing earrings, including Ken, which sparked a very 1993 controversy over Ken's sexuality. Originally designed in order to make Ken cooler, the earring in the doll's left ear instead sparked a media frenzy with everyone from Jay Leno to the

New York Times commenting on Ken coming out, something which at the time was meant pejoratively, but was actually embraced by many in the gay community who quickly purchased as many of the scandalous dolls as they could. The pressure eventually led to airing Magic Ken being discontinued, but is now considered a valuable collector's item being displayed in several niche museums across America and believed to be the highest-selling Ken doll of all time. Wow.

God, that's ridiculous. How does Ken sell in comparison to Barbie? I imagine it's way lower. Yeah, it's way lower. But still, yeah, I think next to Barbie, he'll be the most popular doll. Yeah, right. I would imagine.

Even ahead of Blaine? I imagine Blaine's probably a very rare collector's item at this point as well now even ahead of kelly slash chelsea come on it's crazy what's going on um this fandom is wicked uh airing magic ken also appears in the background of the 2023 film portrayed by tom Stoughton. So he's there. You can spot Ken with an earring. In 2009, Ken had another scandal when Mattel released Sugar Daddy Ken as part of their adult-aimed Palm Beach line. Ken is depicted here in a green printed blazer, white pants,

and a tiny white dog on a pink leash named sugar making ken sugar's daddy i think is is the idea um but people were obviously uncomfortable with this and the doll was eventually discontinued in 2012 but guess who appears in the background of the 2023 film you can spot uh yeah you can spot sugar daddy ken being portrayed by would i lie to you host rob bryden in the so good oh amazing yeah that's a fun cameo yeah yeah where's the connection there where's greta greta gerwig's from america well i wonder how the rob bryden connection came about well i mean it's an an incredibly diverse cast in the film, and there's people from all over the show are in it. It's a massive cast.

I guess Margot Robbie would have more knowledge of English stuff, probably. Yeah, possibly. Growing Up Skipper was another Dicey Mattel release in 1975, featuring Barbie's younger sister Skipper, who had a twistable arm. And what do we want to guess happened when you twist the arm? Yeah, have a guess, Matt.

She's growing up. When people twist my arm, I'll have one more beer. Correct! That's what growing up Skipper did. Twist her arm. Oh, I don't know. You'll hate this. Is she going to shit? No, I don't know You'll hate this Oh, is she gonna shit?

No, she doesn't shit I write a passage for everyone growing up Yeah, it's when you know you're a woman Oh, what, her bust comes in? Oh, it does It grows out, yeah So she goes a little bit taller Do you like our phrase that there?

Yeah, it's nice An awkward old man Yeah What, her bust comes in? Her bust has come in. On the eve of her 14th birthday. She is also in the film portrayed by Hannah Kalik-Brown. So no one escapes the background cast of the Barbie film.

I love how many cameos are in this. There's a lot. Exactly. Other notable Barbie controversies include the 1992 Teen Talk Barbie, which came with pre-recorded dialogue you could hear upon pushing a button. Some of these lines included, will we ever have enough clothes? And I love shopping and want to have a pizza party,

promoting the dangerous stereotypes of women loving clothes shopping and pizza very dangerous things exactly the doll also could say math class is hard which led to criticism from the american association of university women each so how the teen talk barbie worked was there were um 270 phrases recorded but each doll was only only came with four so this meant that spread across their their sales um there were 216 million possible combinations of four word phrases and i like to think that means there was one doll that said all four of these controversial phrases. But I also agree with all of them, and I am a woman.

Yeah. What? And so I feel represented by that Barbie. Exactly, exactly. Which Barbie do you feel represented by? I love Pizza, the talking one. Oh, yeah. You do talk, don't you? Math is hard.

You do. For the listeners, I'm doing the yap, yap, yap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Simple with my hand. Yeah. And as a feminist, I think it's my right to do that. Yeah, the feminist zoned out for a bit while we're talking about female Barbie that talks.

I'm like, yeah, a bit much. Yeah. I'm just going to zone out for a little bit, come back when we're talking about something I'm interested in. Well, in October 1992, Mattel announced that Teen Talk Barbie would no longer say math class is hard and offered to swap anyone who had a math class is hard doll. Oh, my God. No, a switch over math class is great.

Yeah, in a different voice. Math class is enjoyable. Math class is- My favorite. My favorite. Math class is challenging but rewarding well according to the only guide to barbie law you will ever need which is a slash film article written earlier this year by bj colangelo which i was interviewed for

a second wave feminism group called the Barbie Liberation Organization made mainstream headlines in the 1990s after switching the voice boxes of Barbies and G.I. Joes in stores to showcase the ridiculous gender stereotypes. This meant G.I. Joe dolls were saying things like, the beach is a fun place for summer. And the Teen Talk Barbie was saying, vengeance is mine. Got to tell you, I relate more to the Teen Talk Barbie there. Yeah. Have you become somewhat of a Barbie expert in New Zealand? Like, you're being interviewed for articles. Has that happened much since you did the binge?

So, because the new movie come has come out has been the main um reason that i've been reached out to now i've been so that was from someone uh discovered the podcast and emailed us um the i was on the news in new zealand talking about barbie and that's because richard my podcast co-host uh works for the news so he was like they're wanting me to do a story on Barbie. Can I get you to say a few things and we'll credit you as a Barbie expert? Don't undercut it. Edit that bit out.

Just say you're on the news. No, it's still cool. And also my other job when I'm not editing Do Go On is I am the social media video editor for Letterboxd. And so I've done, I answered some interview questions for them and then also made a video for them as well. Letterboxd, what is that?

Some sort of a cat feces related website? Very good, very good. All right, sorry. I've been biting my tongue so much. You've said so many things funny. It's actually a New Zealand company, Letterboxd. Is it? It's global, but it's founded in New Zealand, so...

Previous guest Alexei Toliopoulos is prolific on there. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, and I know that listeners are yelling at their iPods about the irony of me making fun of how anyone talks. Yeah, do you want to give us some French again? Because I had to edit that. Parlez-vous français? And was that the three-hour 45 episode?

Was that the really long one? I think you trimmed it down to about 320-something. So you've heard over three hours of Matt's French. I think you've done enough. So usually I edit your guys' episodes like over a couple of days. That was one where it was like, clear my schedule. I need to sit down and edit a four-hour podcast.

Did you say to your secretary, clear my schedule? Yeah, schedule. Absolutely. Cancel my two o'clock. Get me some lunch. Yeah, get me some lunch. I'm going to edit my desk. And coffee, stat.

Get me some lunch. Yeah, get me some lunch. I'm going to need to eat at my desk. And coffee, stat. In 2014, Mattel received criticism over the tie-in book I Can Be a Computer Engineer, in which Barbie is depicted as being inept at computers and requiring her two male friends to help her after she infects her laptop with a virus on a USB device.

See, I think that's empowering because, you know, we hear a lot about... That's empowering for men, you know, getting asked to help our female friends. Oh, okay. So women can't be inept on the computer? It feels like you're really narrowing what a woman can be, AJ. You're right, I'm so sorry.

And that's just not what I'm about. No, fair enough. Women can be anything, including inept computers. The 1964 Barbie babysits line. This is one of the bigger foibles in the Barbie history. I can't wait till this makes it to the big screen. Maybe with Skipper involved somehow and they go on an adventure no the that's it's it's not not quite uh not quite that the doll was packaged with um

another problematic accessory a miniature book titled how to lose weight and when you turn the book over it says don't eat on the back yeah um the book reappeared again in the 1965 slumber party line which doubled down by including a pink bathroom scales permanently set at 110 pounds wait when did this come when did this come out 64 and 65 right because i thought you said at first i was picturing it in the modern day thinking that that that was a joke. No, no. But it was probably just quite sincere back then. Oh, my God. I also had to convert pounds to kilos there for a second. It's set to 49 kilos.

Oh, that's Dave Wannake's comedy weight. Isn't that what he used to say he weighed? I think he weighs more than that now. It was the low 50s, I think. Started eating. These two Barbie sets are are of course very rare collector's items now with just the tiny controversial accessories themselves fetching up to 125 each on ebay so people love it people will collect especially if something's been

cancelled people want it even more i think yeah um I bring all of this up, of course, because really Barbie's biggest and most controversial aspect has always been her potentially harmful presentation of femininity with her unrealistic body standards being criticized right from the beginning, right from 1959. It was always part of the discourse. There is now other discourse coming out in that um article that i was interviewed for um bj congealo talks about how like a lot of people feel like a lot of girls who grew up with barbie were very like adept at uh separating real life from the representation of the dolls and there are you know i just want to mention that there are some schools of thought

that the unrealistic body standard thing is a mate like a made-up um fiasco that you know parents got scared of just like dungeons and dragons and things and yeah i don't think i ever looked at barbie and went like oh i don't look like her yeah yeah yeah there's quite a few things that are unrealistic about her like how her toes are always pointing to the floor yeah whether she's wearing shoes or not. Like, come on. That was the shoe joke. People don't look like that. That was our Barbie shoe joke.

We found it. Okay. I think it's a little strategical kind of joke. According to a website I found called Wikipedia.org, which I think just mainly is just stats about Barbie. I'm not sure. I not sure to check it out um a standard barbie doll is 11.5 inches or 29 centimeters tall giving her an equivalent height of five foot nine uh in in real life that's about your heart nah taller than me barbie's vital statistics have been estimated at 36 inches or 91 centimetres in the chest, 18 inches or 46 centimetres in the waist,

and 33 inches or 84 centimetres in the hips. According to research by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, she would lack the 17 to 22% body fat required for a woman to menstruate. Wow. Well, that probably is good because she doesn't have anywhere for that to come out no actually in 1970 there was a barbie that would that can you imagine oh my god i can't i can't imagine she wouldn't surprise me that much if there's a menstruating barbie released at some point you move the arm um mattel said that the has said that the waistline of the barbie doll

was made small because the waistbands of her clothes along with the seams and snaps and zippers like they add bulk to the figure if the baseline is not unrealistically skinny which i'm back and forth on i don't know if that's a good enough uh excuse or not i think it's probably just a safe plastic it was just a numbers game yeah probably that's a good point i don't think this is inherently wrong but the rise of what has been called barbie core the barbie core aesthetic uh has certainly promoted a very specific form of womanhood which has been fueling discourse since the 60s when it comes to harmful stereotypes by 1975 ruth handler and her unenthusiastic husband and business partner were removed from their posts at mattel after an investigation

found them guilty of issuing false and misleading financial reports. Ruth's last creative decision for Barbie was being, like, have the doll's eyes look forward instead of to the side. But her original... Oh, what? Well, they initially were, like, bird heads. No, no, no. They're, like, looking up to the corner, whereas now they stare straight.

She was doing a bit of side eye. Yeah, right. She wasn't a corner, whereas now they stare straight. She was doing a bit of side eye. Yeah, right. She wasn't a bird, like, look at that. Unrealistic body standards for women. One of those lizards that is looking sideways two different directions. Right. How brutal would that be to be removed from your own company, but also it sounds like for the best.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I bring her back into the story because her original intentions for the character uh were positive and encouraged female independence which i think is interesting because when you know we can look at barbie as being more progressive now and that feels like it's maybe something that they pivoted to but from ruth handler's perspective it was always supposed to be like empowering you know as the enterprise of the doll grew and grew these mistakes and problematic elements crept their way in some were there from the start some turned up sporadically and for a long time at least in my life i feel like the conversation

around barbie really seemed to focus on everything the brand had done wrong like i feel like every conversation growing up about barbie involved this kind of thing and this is again a pivotal plot point in the 2023 movie um which i think is great that they that they're able to acknowledge that and work it into their their narratives and things like that um and i think it is important to acknowledge all these faults and understand that the societal standards and feminism looked pretty different in the 1960s to what it does now you guys do go on i imagine every almost every report you do you'll come across some like dated or you know old form of of what we considered okay um and it's less like

it's less like an excuse and more like an explanation for why things have been the way they are. I don't want to simp for a corporation like Mattel, but I do think the creative human beings at Mattel have done a really admirable job in recent years to move with the times and understand and incorporate the constructive criticism leveled at the Barbie brand. It's a brand that is continuously learning and evolving and updating, which is, I think, more than a lot of brands who have been around for that long can say. For example, Barbie had been incorporating racial diversity from fairly early on, albeit with a few fun stumbles, which we can talk about. Companion dolls Francie and christy were both depicted as

african-american debuting in 1967 and 1968 the former though was still created using the white barbie mold so it was criticized for lacking like african characteristics other than dark skin as did the 1980s black barbie where the character that's just what it's called the character was presented as a different race from the original design something which is now standard for the 1980s Black Barbie, where the character, that's just what it's called, the character was presented as a different race from the original design, something which is now standard for the dolls today, wherein the different moulds are used to make, like, more accurate depictions and not just Caucasian characters

with different skin tones. Yeah, nice. Yeah. The controversies don't stop, though, because in 1997, this is a dicey one, Mattel teamed up with Nabisco to launch the Oreo Barbie to tie into Oreos so that, quote, girls could play after class and share America's favourite cookie. Wait, so the doll was edible?

The doll's not edible, but it's like Oreo themed, I guess. Right. I'm picturing a creme centre. Well, maybe. Maybe if you cracked the barbie open, you'd find that in there. Yum. First you lick it. Then you dip it.

Mum said chocolate isn't good for dogs. Yeah, yeah. But you can have the rest of my milk. I learned a lot from that ad campaign. Mainly that chocolate isn't good for dogs. Yeah, yeah. But you can have the rest of my milk. I learned a lot from that ad campaign. Mainly that chocolate isn't good for dogs. What an important thing. Probably the most important thing Oreo has put out into the world. Yeah.

That very day, I stopped feeding chocolate to dogs. The 1997 release of Oreo Barbie was only the white white version but when the line was re-released in 2001 both a white version and a black version were created and uh critics were like hey do you know what oreo means uh in this context because uh there could be a derogatory term for someone who is uh black on the outside and white on the inside um so the that was then amended and an apology was uh swiftly delivered right black on the outside white on the inside so like yeah yeah okay that's um i'd call that a faux pas well another uh diversity faux pas happened in 1997 when mattel introduced share a smile be Becky, a doll in a pink wheelchair.

And Kirstie Johnson, a 17-year-old high school student from Tacoma, Washington, with cerebral palsy, pointed out that the doll would not fit in the elevator of the $100 Dream House that had been released. And to Mattel's credit, they went, yep, that's a fair criticism, and they redesigned the house so that uh the the uh share a smile becky could fit her wheelchair in the elevator oh wow that's cool share a smile becky's a really rustic name share a smile that's her first name her first

name share a smile beautiful name for a boy or girl share a smile share a smile um so that's like that's an example i guess of mattel actually being like yeah fair enough we screwed up here's here's here's us trying to yeah trying to fix it which i think is really disappointed in that because that goes against my sort of personal philosophy of doubling down and um we'll make it even smaller, smaller Dreamcast. That's it, off on. Well, I guess we'll just delete Share a Smile Barbie now. Is that what you want?

We were doing something good. We were trying to be nice. We're the good guys. Barbie media has also taken important steps in recent years. While the films and shows, they all show that Barbie is capable of tackling all these dozens of different high-octane careers, from superhero to spy to video game coder, some of this media has also taken progressive steps you maybe wouldn't expect to hear from the brand, including the web series Barbie Vlogs, in which a CGI Barbie discusses everything from girls apologizing when they don't need to, to there's an episode about celebrating gay dads. And there's an episode

in 2020 where Barbie talks with her African-American friend Nikki about white privilege in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protest. It's very interesting and very cool it's it's a the way that the show is done is like a mocap artist sits in front of a screen and pretends to be barbie so the vlogs there's like glitches in them there's like bloopers and and she'll stumble through words sometimes and so it's this like really open and honest conversation explaining what white privilege is um to children which i think is really cool. That's really interesting. One of them I think, I've heard Margot Robbie in interviews talking about one of those videos. I think it's the one, it's probably one of like girls saying sorry

when they don't have to and like rather than saying sorry for being late or anything like that, saying like thank you for your patience. Margot Robbie has talked about that and how she learnt a good lesson from a Barbie vlog. I think that's so funny and so nice. Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. So according to Avni Banzal, writing for Creative Salon, by 2015 Mattel had launched Barbies with 22 ethnicities, 35 skin tones, 97 hairstyles and 9 body types. 35 skin tones, 97 hairstyles, and nine body types. In general, a standard Barbie doll these days comes in four different sizes,

ranging from petite to curvy. And curvy is, to be honest, still pretty skinny. But progress is being made, and Mattel seems to be, like, at the bleeding edge of diverse representation with their dolls. So perhaps the Barbie doll will continue to fill in the gaps and represent more types of people in the future. In 2023, for example, you can buy a Barbie with a hearing aid, a bald Barbie, a Barbie with a prosthetic leg, and most recently they released a Barbie with Down syndrome.

So it really is, you know, they really are trying to put in the work and effort to not just be like paying lip service or virtue signaling, I guess, which is admirable. Which is great, but I just noticed on that list there's no 30-something year old bearded podcaster Barbie. I think there might be a podcaster Barbie though. Yeah, probably. I'm going to look it up.

I'm on the look it up. Yeah. I'm on the Mattel website. Is it accurate if it's not bearded and middle-aged? Middle-aged? I'll take all the other stereotypes for male podcasters. You let me know when you come to terms with it. I was trying to see if there was a radio Barbie. I don't think there is.

There's probably a DJ. Yeah, absolutely. AJ, I agree. We're going to live forever. So how can you be middle-aged if you're going to live forever? Yeah. I'm still a baby. The Barbie motto, as I've said a couple of times,

is you can be anything. And while her 200-plus careers certainly emphasize that, I think it's great that this message has also been pretty successfully applied to all walks of life with these different varieties of dolls. I've got a quote here from Ruth Handler's 1994 autobiography, Dream Doll, The Ruth Handler Story, which says, My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices. of barbie was that through the doll the little girl could be anything she wanted to be barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices which i think is really beautiful uh and and um as beautiful as manufacturing plastic can be as we march forward into the end of the world yes it's nice to play a little bit of a role in that too. Yeah. I have a fact here to end on that starts out what I hope Jess can say is fun

and ends grim. So that's pretty – Oh, okay. Interesting. Fun grim fact before. Ruth Handler's son, Kenneth Handler, for which Ken was named, actually grew up to be a filmmaker. He directed the 1974 film pigeon and the 1985

film delivery boys that's the fun part is that fun that's pretty fun yeah well here's the grim part uh he sadly passed away in 1994 uh ruth handler has said that her son died of a brain tumor though it was speculated for years that he actually died of aids related complications something which was apparently confirmed in 2019. Oh, wow. That's sad. Sad that she wasn't able to talk about it. That must have been really difficult.

He has a Wikipedia page, but the Barbara handler does not. So I thought that's kind of interesting. Brutal. Yeah. I think both kids hated that the dolls were named after them, didn't they? They're like, I think I've read that they were like, oh, it's so embarrassing. Yeah, I can imagine. That would have been quite a period.

Probably later you'd get over it, but yeah, imagine through your teens and stuff. Yeah. That would be a nightmare. Yeah, I'd be pretty mad if I was constantly, like, told I was the girlfriend of my sister as well. Yeah. Yeah, so that's my Barbie report. I hope you enjoyed it.

I didn't just enjoy it, AJ. I loved it. Thank you so much. I was looking up Barbies, and when you Google Barbie, like Google has all these pink stars on it, which is really fun, but also the movie has a 2.9 rating on Google. The new movie. Which isn't good, but I'm going to guess it has slightly more one-star reviews than five.

And I'm going to guess there's a recurring theme. A few recurring themes in those one-star reviews. I think the recurring theme is they haven't seen it. Yeah. No, they didn't get it what do you what do you call those campaigns review bombing or whatever smear campaigns or yeah review smear campaigns yeah yeah that's it is funny there's no i think personally there's no better way to show how much you're unbothered and don't care about something than by becoming obsessed with it and trying to tarnish its reputation. One thing as well, because I podcast in the movie space, right?

So the misogynistic internet dwelling dude is something that I come across quite a lot. And the listeners kind of look like I'm podcasting to you guys from my attic and I'm beard bespectacled, I like movies and I podcast like I fit the bill and so I come across

this kind of speech a lot and what and a lot of our listeners fit that bill as well, I think about 50% are on that side of the fence. Bespeckled. Bespeckled. Yeah.

And hate women. Yeah. And then the other half, you know, love women. Love them. And I'm one of them. I love women. Because I'm one of them. How hot are women?

How hot are women? Just personally. Yeah. Do you agree with that, AJ? I couldn't agree more. Jess and I talk about it all the time. Women are so hot. Dave doesn't quite get it. He doesn't get more. Jess and I talk about it all the time. Women are so hot. Dave doesn't quite get it.

He doesn't get it. He doesn't see it. He says, I just don't see it. But for me, it's just like- Yeah, so hot. It's as real as the air we breathe. Yeah. Oh, is gravity real?

Yes. Just as much as women are hot. Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean. Exactly. Putting it in terms that- Everyone understands. Everyone might understand. in a hot yeah exactly you know what i mean exactly putting it in terms that uh everyone everyone can one understand yeah and and i guess the the the point i'm making here is like

the if if these guys on the internet actually like engaged with the 2023 barbie movie i think it's an empowering film for men i think like the message in the film is not, like, men are evil. It's, like, look what an unequal society does to a person, you know? And that can be applicable to anyone. It's hard to get it because there's a jealousy there as well as someone who is not hot. Because how gross are men? How gross are men? Yeah, that's right.

Two sides of the same coin. But something that I often say that I agree with, and I think this Barbie movie shows that, go woke, go broke. Yeah. And I think as it crosses the billion dollar mark. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there's been no better illustration of how true that adage is. Exactly, exactly.

Sorry, AJ, before we get into everyone's favorite section of the show could we do everyone's least favorite section of the show where you let them know what about your podcast absolutely uh my podcast is called cult popshire and every fortnight we cover a different film franchise we we like to think that we treat things like stewart Little and Air Bud like other podcasts treat Star Wars and Marvel. So that's me and my buddy Richard. Jess and Dave have been on part of a 28-hour episode, if you want to search through the Scooby-Doo episode to find that. Yeah, we've been going for about seven years now, so we've done a lot of stuff.

And yeah, it's super fun, and people should come and check it out if they like. I think they should check it out. Yeah. I think they'll be there and idiot if they don't. Any crossovers with old Do Go On episodes, like Back to the Future or? Yeah, we've done. We redid Back to the Future, actually, quite recently. Awesome.

Yeah. So, we've done. What other movies have we done? Indiana Jones. Any Brendan Fraser stuff? Oh, yeah. Indiana Jones. We've done The Mummy.

Actually, yeah. We did The Mummy right before I, like, made contact with you guys about editing the Mummy. Actually, yeah, we did the Mummy right before I, like, made contact with you guys about editing the show. And I've always thought, you know, if I'd reached out a little earlier, we could have had you on the Brendan Fraser Mummy episode. What could have been? You reached out to me. It was quite a while.

We talked for ages before I could convince Dave and Jess that you were trustworthy, to be honest. They said, we don't trust those Kiwis over there. Cross the Dutch. Honestly, I took a while because I was like, how long does it take me to edit? You know, it doesn't take me that long. And now, not editing, oh, man.

The freedom, the weight off my shoulders. And I wonder if the listeners have noticed it because we used to edit our own reports and I always had the fear that we would all edit it differently so the sound would change every time. So I wonder if they've noticed that it's more consistent now. Well, hopefully. Or they've not noticed anything

or they've noticed the quality of editing has dropped off. Yeah. Well, I can share that, you know, for all the Do Go On listeners, like, you might be pretty jealous of me because I get exclusive tailor-made podcasts right at the start of all your records where you make fun of me. Yeah. No one else hears them.

We don't make fun. We don't make fun. I just tell you to go fuck yourself. Yeah. That's not making fun of you. That's giving you an instruction. That's telling you something to do. With love as well.

Yeah, with love. That's just how we communicate over here. I know it's all, oh, we're- Topsy-turvy over here. Topsy-turvy and you're all, oh, I'm polite about everything over there. Makes us sick. Yeah, fair enough. Makes me sick too.

I wish everyone was everyone needs a little bit more i called my mama the first time i saw her and that was when i was a baby see now i know i'm gonna have to bleep that out as the editor yeah can you yeah i can yeah either bleep it or cut it that felt awful i'm gonna be thinking about that for ages um so glad i don't have to edit the episodes anymore and read you any of my nonsense. Anyway, this is everyone's favorite section of the show where we get to thank some of our fantastic Patreon supporters. Without these people, this show, I don't want to overstate it, but it wouldn't exist. It wouldn't.

You can support the show in other ways, of course, telling a friend, giving us a five star review. But if you want to support it in a way with money, you can go to patreon.com. There's a bunch of different rewards on different levels. Jess, what are some of those rewards they can get? You can vote on topics. You get early access to tickets to live shows. You can be in the Facebook group, which is the friendliest corner of the internet.

Yes. friendliest corner of the internet. Yes, we actually just made a huge semi-announcement to the Patreons this week, which we're not ready to go public with yet, but if you sign up, you'll see it. Matt and I are in love. We're finally admitting it. Me replacing Dave on this episode will be a permanence change.

Yeah, so if you go to patreon.com slash digonpod, you can sign up and get involved in all that sort of stuff. If you sign up on the Sydney Scheinberg level, you get to give us a fact, a quote or a question in a section of the show we like to call Fact, Quote or Question, which I think has a jingle, goes something like this. Fact, quote or question. Ding.

He always remembers the dong. and she always remembers the sing. And the way this bit works is people on the Sidney Schoenberg level or above get to give us a fact, quote or a question or a brag or a suggestion or really whatever they like. It can be anything. And then I read them out on the show for the first time. That's just me making an excuse for stumbling over words. And the first one this week comes from Mac Noble, first time Fat Quota Questioner, and they also get to give themselves a title,

and Mac's title is Captain Mac Daddy. Love that. Which I've got to tell you, I love. Similar to Sugar Daddy Kin. Maybe Mac has a tiny white dog named Sugar. We don't know. We don't know. We'll never know. I refuse't know. We'll never know.

I refuse to ask. Or Mac in this case, probably. Good point. I'd better name for a dog, too. Yeah, Captain Mac. Oh, what a great name for a dog. Just Mac, but Sugar? No.

No, I don't like Sugar. I'm not yelling Sugar in the park. Sugar! No. If you want to get that Barbie physique, you want to be cutting out all sugar and food from your diet. And ribs. Which I don't recommend, I should say.

Don't recommend it at all. Thank you. I don't want anyone coming at me like they did Mattel, which obviously I'm a big part of that name in a way. Anyway, Captain Mac Daddy's got a fact, and the fact is sitting under the stars with a good fire Listening to you guys Is one of the loveliest things in the world

Holy shit That is a fact I reckon that's an opinion guys I'm so sorry That's an opinion I agree with But No no no I'm reading here It is a fact. It's not fact vote opinion.

No, that's not an option. That's not an option. That's the only one that's not an option. Don't share your dog shit opinion with us. But facts like this go nuts. I appreciate that, Captain MacDaddy. It is funny when occasionally one will come through that is a sincere compliment. Yeah.

It's always halfway between uncomfortable and lovely. It's the Australasian way, right? Like, that's the same with both of our nations, I think, is we're a lot less comfortable with praise than the Americas. Yes. It's something we should get better at because it's nice. Yeah, it's lovely. Thank you so much, Captain Mac.

But also it makes me sick. The next one here comes from David Loring, aka FIFO Live Show Supporter. We met David after your show at the Comedy Festival. Yep. He flew in from Tasmania just for the show and then flew straight back. Because he'd come over and seen your shows, but my show was in the second half of the festival

and he felt bad for not coming to see my show, so he flew up from Tassie, landed a couple of hours before my show, came to the show, flew home really early the next morning. What a legend. Thanks so much. David Loring, who's also got a fact writing. Hey, mates, hope you're all well. I'm well.

Yeah, I'm pretty good. Thank you. I'm a little bit cold and I'm a bit hungry. Yeah, it is lunch. Well, it's lunchtime for us, which means it's like afternoon tea time for you. Absolutely. One of my favourite New Zealandisms is what you call, I think our word for it is probably problematic these days,

but in America, I think they call them an ice cooler. Here, we call them eskies. Oh, yeah. What do you call them? Chili bins. Oh, chili bins. I love chili bins. So good.

I think we should adopt that. I agree. We take everything from New Zealand anyway, so we might as well- Yeah, Fyla, Pavlova. Yeah. Russell Crowe. Sam Neill. We might as well take chili bin as well.

I mean, the human ones, they come to us. We didn't take them. That's right. They chose us. Yeah. But the Chili Bin we'll take. The Chili Bin is ours. So, anyway, what are we talking about?

David Loring writes, hey, mates, hope you're all well. Let's take a moment to consider the humble flamingo. Yes. Yes. I think it's appropriate A famously pink animal Yeah The Barbie of birds

It is the Barbie of birds And they have side eyes Like the original Barbie Just like the original Barbie I think most people consider them to be a sort of goofy looking bird What with their one leg standing ways And association with tacky lawn ornaments Fact within a fact There are more plastic flamingo decorations in the world than there are real flamingos.

That is a grim fact. But I've recently learned that they're actually a pretty badass animal. There's a number of reasons for their badassery. badassery. They can reach speeds of 60 k's an hour in flight and can travel between five and 600 kilometers a night between different habitats or more. Holy shit. Whoa. But chief among them for me is that not only are they capable of drinking salt water due to having an inbuilt filtration system, but they can also dunk their whole head into these salt lakes when the water is nearly at boiling temperature. And given the way I will moan about getting a cup of coffee that's slightly too hot and tastes burnt as a result, I feel I now have a greater ambition to aspire to.

Dunking your whole head into the hot coffee. David, I wouldn't do that, though. No, but Jess, consider the flamingo. Yes. Okay, yes. Thank you for reminding me to take a momentess consider the flamingo yes okay yes thank you for reminding me to take a moment to consider the flamingo that does change everything yeah it does now that i've considered the flamingo i'm gonna go dunk my head in a too hot coffee yeah maybe a salty coffee a salty coffee

yes they're great facts david i didn't i love flamingos the the bar at meredith music festival my favorite place in the world, is called the Pink Flamingo. So, I've just got a really happy association when I hear the word flamingo. Flamingo. But it's even better than I realised. Yeah, I had not thought about them that much and now I feel silly for that because they seem pretty sick.

And I also love because the fact that people will normally give with flamingos is they're actually not pink. It's based on the fungi they eat or something. Probably not fungi. What? But then they are pink, aren't they? Yeah. So, I think they're naturally white, but what they drink or eat makes their feathers pink.

Right. That's sick. Something like that. Well, because the little baby ones are, like, grey. Oh, there you go. All right. Thank you very much, David. I hope that is the fact that I tacked on at the end isn't a dog shit opinion.

Because they're not allowed. They're not allowed. Oh, next one comes from Justin McCain or Mr. Justin McCain. Play's a silly game. That's a children's song from the 90s in Australia, AJ. Oh, no, no, no. Can I tell a story about that song? Yes, you may. So so we have it here as

well uh and i remember being like six years old and we had a class assignment to write like a lyric for mr clickety cane so if people if people haven't heard it we basically had to be like do something with something so it's like it's like uh what's the actual song it's like brush your teeth with orange juice so do something with something and i was trying to think of mine and i remember looking up at the like fluorescent lights in my classroom and thinking like imagine if someone painted lights like just put paint on lights and so it got to me and i was like paint the lights and they were like okay that's not enough syllables. What are you painting it with?

And I said, well, the paintbrush. And so my contribution to the song was paint the lights with a paintbrush. A very literal child. How did I grow up to be this creative? Paint the lights with a paintbrush. Yeah. That's crazy. Justin McCain, Mr. Justin McCain, aka comically stressed new dad of the podcast. Oh.

Wow. And congratulations on your new stress, Justin McCain. Yeah. You should, if, I don't know where you're from, I can't remember, but if you should really play Mr. Clickety Kane to your kids. Yeah. And change the lyrics as, you know, really clever creative people like AJ do. Yes. Just buy things in the room.

Justin McCain is offering a brag slash question writing. Hopefully by the time you read this, my wonderful wife will have brought a brand new baby into the world. My question for you all is what is your favourite childhood item? Ooh. And Justin, as I always request, has answered his own question writing, mine is the sheep blanket I got the day I was born. Oh, that's cute. Whoa.

I have a couple, probably. One is Dolly. I was very creative with naming toys. Oh, mine was teddy yeah yep everyone had a teddy i had a big ted it was accidentally put in the bin when i was a fully grown adult oh my god i i traveled around with uh with it to multiple share houses just in a in store like in a box and i, like, my eighth share house, someone accidentally chucked it.

It was in a pile of junk somehow. That's genuinely so heartbreaking. I know. It's so funny. I've carried it around for, like, decades. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Teddy, no. Teddy, no.

Teddy, no. Teddy's off on an adventure now. Yeah. That's a fully my- I'm going to be Mr Burns later in life. Yeah. Dolly was a doll that my grandma gave me that wore this, like, pretty ugly, lacy, frilly white dress and, like, a bonnet. And she gave it to me when I was maybe one,

instantly took all her clothes off and then just carried Dolly around by the foot forever. She had, like, a soft body body, but like plastic arms and legs. One of those dolls. I fucking love Dolly. Dolly. Where's Dolly now? Dolly's probably still at my parents' place somewhere in a box with all the Barbies probably.

What do you have, AJ? Well, part of the perks of living in an attic is I'd like to introduce you guys to Huddles. Huddles! My little soft toy rabbit that i got given when i was four years old yes huddles has got ears for days huddles has fallen down the back of computer desks in every flat that i've lived in and stayed there for the entire tenure like living at that flat yeah but he's still with me 30 30 years old, and I've still got Huddles by my side. Huddles.

Beautiful. Huddles, I'm so glad you had it there. Huddles looks well-loved. Oh, yeah, he's got like a bullet hole in the back of his ear. That's his ass. He'll have to take a photo with you and Huddles for the Patreon. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I also reckon you've got to get us a screenshot of you on the news

as the Barbie expert. Does it have that in the title? It says Barbie fan. Oh, I think that they could have bumped that up. Yeah, I think so too. Thank you so much, Justin McCain. Congratulations on the new year. Did Justin McCain answer?

Oh, did I not? Yeah, yes. His sheep blanket he got the day of the month. Oh, yes, sorry. Yes, yes, yes. I'm thinking I had, do you remember things called glowworms? Yeah. I love this.

It was a little sort of rubbery toy. Yeah, yeah. And Dad would hold it up to the light before I went to bed, and then it glowed. Does that even work scientifically? Well, I mean, that's how, like, glow-in-the-dark stars and stuff work. Yeah, right. So, and then I'd just have it, and it'd just sort of be this little- Little glowing-

Glowing toy. That's cute. Yeah, that was sick. Oh, right. So, and then I just have it and it just sort of be this little- Little glowing- Glowing toy. That's cute. Yeah, that was sick. Oh, man. Feeling nostalgic. Thank you, Justin. And finally this week, we've got one from Stephen Edmonds, whose title is, sorry, no recipe this time.

Okay, well, I'm mad at you, Stephen. But still has titled the entry Recipe Stephen writes although It will soon be two years since The Stupid Old Studios has got a move Please help if you can No pressure telethon There is part of it that I still think about

At least once a month During Rhys' Jaffel segment In the stream recording on YouTube It's about 3 hours three minutes and 50 seconds, there is a reveal from Andy Matthews, some sort of scientist, of Jaffels with cheese and grated carrot. Then the reaction from Rhys and Beck was fantastic. I remember that.

Everyone was talking about the ones you go to Jaffels and people talking about beans and cheese and tomato and ham and stuff. And Andy, just like it's another one of the classic options is talking about cheese and grated carrot. And Rhys and Beck were disgusted. Does I still have questions about that? Is the cheese also grated? Wouldn't the grated carrot be too wet? Yeah. Anyway, my actual question is, what would you have in a Jaffel? And Stephen writes, if I'm making a Jaffel, it is to use up leftovers.

Last time I made a Jaffel, it was with roast chicken, chorizo and cheese. Oh, that's a gourmet Jaffel. Yeah, yeah. You're hitting nostalgia for me as well because our canteen at school did spaghetti Jaffels. You're right, yes. Like, tinned spaghetti. Like, essentially, it's the same as, like, baked beans, except it's, like, overcooked pasta instead.

But they would sell out really quickly. But the photography studio was right next to the canteen, so whenever I had photography, I'd go and, like, stock up and then pass them out to my friends. It was the best. Nice. So, that's my go-to. I was just wondering if Jaffa was an international thing. Apparently apparently it's an australian term yeah i was about to chime in

and be like what's a jaffa oh it's basically a toasted cheese sandwich but the edges are sealed yeah yeah okay yeah yeah but apparently it's named uh from its creator dr Dr. Ernest Smithers from Bondi in Sydney who created and patented the Jaffal Iron in the 1950s. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's not a toasted sandwich. It's a very specific sub-genre of toasted sandwich where the machine presses it all together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yes. What would you call that? I'd probably just call that a toasty. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seals it in. Yeah. Yes. So my go-to- What would you call that? I'd probably just call that a toasty. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it's just like a slightly- slight variation on the toasty. Yeah. But yeah, I'd say mushroom, cheese, tomato or tomato paste.

Oh, yep. It's almost like a pizza- Yeah, a little calzone essentially. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. AJ? I'm all about the hot sauces. I'll just do cheese, and then I'll find, like,

an interesting sauce to pair with it, I think. Love that. Yeah, yum. Yeah, yeah. That's a good one. Great call. And great question. Thank you very much, Stephen.

And thank you as well to Mac, David, and Justin. Do I still have a Jaffa Maker at home? Can I get some spaghetti and white bread on the way home? I think the classic ones you would, I'm assuming, are the ones where you press it in and it's got a long metal stick and you put it in the fire. I wonder if that was the original. Oh, wow.

Right. Yeah, yeah. I've never done that. That's cool. Yeah. I don't know if that was the original, but I've seen those around. Sick. But, yeah, there's the more sort of classic Jaffa Lion

slash sandwich press kind of thing. Yeah. Something that Breville or someone like that might make. 100%. I reckon I've bought one from Kmart for $15 and then just had an absolute feast. Oh, yeah. Man, I'm so hungry for Jaffals right now.

Yeah, I could really go a Jaffal. Unfortunately, there is a place that sells Jaffals near us, but it's called the Bearded Jaffel and that grosses Matt out, so we're not allowed to- We're not allowed. No, we just don't order from there. Well, I'm- It's gross.

You can. I just- I haven't. It was amazing. I've got this- Yeah, it's something I'd- Yeah, I've got to talk to someone about, but I get caught up in my head and now I just can't-

If a word grosses me out attached to the food- Anyway, whatever. Don't need to- I'm not on the clock in my therapy session right now. But the next thing we'd like to do is shout out to a few of our other fantastic Patreon supporters. Jess, you normally come up with a game here. Yeah, obviously we have to, like, name their Barbie.

Their Barbie, fantastic. I do have every Barbie from the different years in front of me. We don't have their birthdays, do we? No. But I could, like, randomly scroll to one and read it read it yes would love that i like that all right so maybe just we just go one for one here yeah all right well if i can kick us off i'd love to thank from inverell in new south wales here in australia anna parker sweet and anna parker can have the 2000 summer olympics in Australia. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Barbie released Olympic swimmers with gold medals in 2001. Were they Team USA? They are. I think they might have been. Well, I think that would be misleading because I think Australia won a few in the pool that year. Yeah, okay. Okay.

That was a good year for us in the pool. Yeah. It's not like America to have a bit of bravado Yeah okay You were so Market towards their main audience And market oh okay great Yeah ridiculous Have you seen their American

Soccer team ad No It's just basically like good luck beating us at the World Cup. And it goes for like two minutes and it would have cost them millions of dollars. And they're not there at all. I only saw it once they got eliminated. And then the rest of the world's going,

hmm. But I mean, surely all ads pumping you up for a sports tournament are going to be pretty positive about your chances. It is maybe a little bit too far, but that's probably more backlash than probably deserved. I would love to thank from, oh, where's this? 2L in Utah? Yeah.

That's exciting. Brian Cunningham. Anything salty there or desert-like? Absolutely. I've got in front of me a cooking show Barbie where she hosted a cooking show in 2008. You can get the figure and also like a fridge stocked with plastic food and a counter and cooking instruments and even like a clapperboard and a camera. Oh, that's good stuff. That's a-

Because often you'll only get a few little accessories, so it's nice to get, like, quite a lot there, which is great. Yeah, yeah. That's a picture of 2L. Beautiful place. Looks great. So green, but in the desert. Just a little, like-

Looks like a suburb just planted in the desert. If I could go again, and I'm assuming I can. Please. I'd love to thank from Reston in Virginia in the United States, Dina Gottesman. Dina Gottesman. Would you say Gottesman? Yes. We're going to give Dina the Cher Barbie doll, which came out in 1970 it is a miniature version of Cher uh wearing um sort of like a didn't look at this

before I said it out loud what we'd now call maybe like a a problematic Native American outfit but oh man but it's a collector's item Dina and it's gonna be worth a lot of money keep it in the box it's for it's it says here that um the singer wore this for the music video half breed in 1970 so wow okay apparently i'll be a bit more discerning with the next barbie i've just i've just looked it up and it's yeah that that is controversial but she would wear like the headdresses and stuff. But it says, just, I mean, I'm not looking into this very much, but it says her mother, Georgia Holt, an aspiring actress and occasional model, is of Cherokee, English and French descent. Oh, it's all good then.

Oh, nice. Yeah. Maybe it's a little less problematic, which is great. A relief for Dina. But, yeah, obviously I've not looked into that too much. Swiftly moving on, I would love to from indianapolis indiana azade azade azade azade that's a sick name azade azade i'm going to give the 1962 red flare barbie which is a barbie and a vol and a voluminous red coat and matching hat and is said to be

inspired by Jackie Kennedy. Wow. Jackie Kennedy. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I love a big red coat. Can I have one too? No, you can't. I know you're dishing me that. No, only one Barbie. Damn. Alright, next one comes from

oh my god, address unknown. Return to the sender can only shoot from somewhere deep within the fortress of the moles. But please, may I thank you. And I'm getting word, yes, I can. Rebecca Cutler. Nice. Rebecca Cutler, I'm going to give the 2021 line of frontline vaccine Barbie dolls released during the pandemic, including one model,

modelled after Sarah Gilbert, Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University, who co-created one of the vaccines. That's pretty cool. Imagine having a Barbie modelled after you. That'd be sick. That'd be sick if they're listening. If they're listening.

And you do want to fill that gap and have a podcast of Barbie? Yeah. Podcast of Barbies. Exactly. Would I have to be a Ken? No, they do other characters. I think it's about- I could be Blaze number two. I think it's about like-

It's not about like whether you're a guy or a girl. It's about like your characterisation and life. Yeah. So, to answer your question, you are a Ken, Matt, yes. Yeah, you're a Ken. You're a Ken. But AJ is a Barbie. I'm a Barbie, are a Ken, Matt, yes. Yeah, you're a Ken. Big Ken. But AJ is a Barbie. I'm a Barbie, correct.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm pretty sure you're both having a go at me here. No, not at all. No, it's not an insult. It's just how it is. It's just Ken. He's a bit dopey though, Ken, isn't he? No.

Barbie's the smart one, Ken's the dopey one. No. It depends on the Ken or the Barbie. Exactly. Depends on the Ken. Ken's had a million different jobs. There's the dopey one. No. It depends on the Ken or the Barbie. Exactly. Depends on the Ken. Ken's had a million different jobs. There's no other accent where that rhymes, but you made it work. Depends on the Ken.

Okay. I would love to thank from Portland in Oregon. How would you say this name, Matt? Isi? Isi or Eki? Isi or Eki? Eki Hughes. Isi Hughes.

I'm going to say- Echi. Etsy. Etsy. Isi. Isi. It's E-C-Y? Ackie Hughes. Issy Hughes. I'm going to say. Ackie. Ackie. Issy. Issy. Issy. It's E-C-Y. E-C-Y.

That's a great name, no matter what it is. Issy Hughes. I'm going to give the 2018 tie-in to the movie A Wrinkle in Time, starring Mindy Kaling, Oprah Winfrey, and Reese Witherspoon, all released as Barbies. So there you go. That commemorates that movie that we all remember. Yes. All love.

Yeah, so they do some that no one has heard of as well, which is cool. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like President Barbie. The next person I'd love to thank, also address unknown, can only assume from deep within the fortress of the moles, Jingold. Jingold. Jingoold. Jingold.

Jingold. I'm going to give the 1983 Barbie Townhouse, which was a play set that was sort of your more like yuppie looking, you know, what I'd call it like a Yopro flat, but I don't think they had the term Yopro in 1983. Love that. Yeah. What is that yeah what is that young professional young professional yep it had took me took me a few minutes to unpack that it has ended out that thinking time if you don't mind make it sound like i got it straight away yeah it included a dining room an eat-in kitchen living room and and bedroom wow but no bathroom or toilet Well, as we've talked about before They don't have the necessary bits

Does that make Barbies all gentlemen then? Ah, yes I think so All Barbies are gentlemen Apart from that one who eats dog shit And shit dogs The only Barbie doll that's not a gentleman Is Tanner the Labrador

And that's reasonable, I think That dog is no gentleman It's actually a sick dog It eats its own shit Where are we up to, Boppa? And that's reasonable, I think. That dog is no gentleman. It's actually a sick dog. It eats its own shit. Where are we up to, Boppa? I would like to thank from Leeds. Oh, Leeds.

Leeds. In the UK, Lizard Jackson. Lizard Jackson is getting the- Well, I took a sip of water at the wrong time, man. Lizard Jackson. Holy fuck. Lizard Jackson. Frantically searching for like a lizard themed barbie um no there's got to be a crocodile hunter or something like that control f lizard

yes please or croc okay there's gotta be surely there was a tie-in to steve irwin no there's no at least not on this insider website in which they're all presented i can't find one but i can google it i'll google lizard barbie oh god this is not this is people who have turned like their barbie dolls into like lizards like rip the heads off and things okay there's a barbie lizard queen on pinterest um from and you can buy it on etsy and it's oh yeah these are scary I don't like this bootleg lizard Barbie Bindi Irwin's got a very own Barbie doll what about that that's pretty close

let's do that one yeah Bindi Irwin has a Barbie according to newidea.com.au but Bindi Irwin gets a very own Barbie doll that's awesome all right Alright and bringing it home then Matt If you want to thank our last I'd love to thank from Austin Texas stay weird It's Breezy

That is I think Breezy Gets it Breezy gets the whole ethos That Austonians like me I'd stay there for a week And others share Like Willie Nelson, staying weird. Yep. Breezy.

And for Breezy, we're going to give them the 1965 Bangs Barbie. Barbie's bangs are back with a striped jumpsuit, and she's got bangs. Hell yeah. Pretty disappointed there's no Willie Nelson Barbie, but Bangs Barbie will have to do the job. Yeah, yep. So, thank you so much to Breezy, Lizard, Jingle,

Eckie, Essie, Rebecca, Aziad, Dina, Diner, Brian and Anna. And that leaves just the last thing for us to do. Welcome a few people into our triptych club. We've got four inductees and unductees. Yep. Wow. Now I'm starting to talk with the New Zealand accent. Four inductees.

What do vows mean anymore? Unductees. I did a gig with Tony Martin last night, and he's Australia's another adopted Kiwi. And I think maybe talking to you and him back to back, I'm going to start slipping into it. Yeah, it happens. So, the Trip Ditch Club.

Is that what we're doing? Yeah. Yes. Essentially, I zoned out because I was doing something. Oh, that's okay, because AJ will be able to explain it better than us anyway. Yeah, go on, AJ. Do you want to explain the Trip Ditch Club? The Trip Ditch Club is people who have been patrons

for three years or more. Is that it? Yeah, three years straight. That's right. On the shout-out level or above. Yep. And it's an exclusive club. I think of it as an airport lounge or like a clubhouse.

I think of it like a 1950s Vegas lounge cabaret, Red Velvet, Frank Sinatra. There's a bar. We've got beautiful meal. You can eat. There's sleeping pods, beautiful showers, everything you'd possibly need. It's almost like a Barbie dream house. Yeah, yeah. Yes!

I think I think of it more in the Christchurch equivalent, Christchurch, New Zealand equivalent, which is a pool bar that closes at 10.30pm. Yes, yeah, yeah. And then there's bunk beds and everybody goes to their bed. Because you can't leave once you're in the triptych club. Now, normally Dave books a band. Yes.

I've actually done it this week. Oh, great. That worked out well. Yeah, and you won't believe it, but- Try me. To come and play their huge hits like Turn Back Time. That's the ballad. My Oh My, Dr. Jones.

That song's a banger. And Barbie Girl. I've bloody booked Aqua. Holy shit. Can you believe it? I got them after months. Holy shit. I've got them I got him After months Holy shit I've got him

That is sick I can't wait to meet him And see him And enjoy them Yeah I'm just gonna ask for Dr. Jones To be played on loop They're not gonna do that

Dr. Jones Dr. Jones Calling Dr. Jones Dr. Jones Dr. Jones Where are you? You know Life was like for me

When that song came out Having the surname Jones? Of course. It was great. Everyone thought I was a doctor. Yeah, it's so sick. It's like when Mumbo No. 5 was big and my name's in there. Oh, of course.

Here we go. I imagine it was better then than it is now that Alex Jones is also the name of a guy who believes in a lot of things. Yeah, yeah i've i've done as i've sort of tried to become an internet personality i've had to really uh curb my real name to be as least thought about as possible yeah yeah so we've got four inductees is there anything else we need to do oh you've got you got any food or drink on the go well um and you won't necessarily get this um having not seen the film yet,

but I don't have real food, but I do have decals of food that I've stuck to the inside of fridges and onto plates and stuff. Right. So, they can't eat in the film at all. No, they're Barbies. So- Well, I imagine in the other Barbie movies they can eat. So, it wasn't a ridiculous question.

No, they're Barbies. Jesus. Are you okay? Not right now. Not the way that I'm being treated here. How are you being treated? Well, not with a lot of dignity. I think that's a lot of- You're doing a lot of that yourself.

Yes. So, okay. So, we need to thank these people. I'll hype them up. Okay. AJ, you hype me up. Okay. All right. Here we need to thank these people. I'll hype them up. Okay. AJ, you hype me up. Okay. All right.

Sounds good. Here we go. Here we go. Firstly, welcome in to the Triptych Club from West Lakes in South Australia. It's Sean. Sean, join me on a- Yes. Sean through the park.

Yes. That's the Sean. Dave lost his job already. One in, and that's better than anything he's ever done it's not bad please welcome from sydney australia it's nicola welsh burke nicola nicola welsh burke or nicola welsh burke if that helps you yes we're not welshing on this deal. You're in the club for good. Welcome. Make yourself at home.

Next up from Location Unknown, can only assume from deep within the Fortress of the Moles, it's Anne P. Anne the man. Yes. And I mean that in like the most positive way possible. Yes. You're the man, Ed.

We love men here. This is a men-loving podcast. And finally from Brownhill in Victoria, Australia, it's Caitlin Louise. Brownhill. More like turn that frown hill upside down hill and smile. Smile hill. Come on, Barbie. Let's go party.

It's a very Aussie trip to the club this week. Welcome in. Make yourselves at home. Caitlin and Nicola and Sean. And that brings us to the end of the episode. Anything we need to tell people before we go? Just that we love them, that they can suggest a topic on our website. There's also a link in our show notes. Our website is dogoonpod.com.

You can find us on social media at dogoonpod. AJ aj where can people find you across social media if they would like to follow you and your podcast yes so we're cult popture on all the places you can find us on all the all the places you harvest your podcasts from um and if you want to follow me personally i'm on instagram at aj and hd um and that's my username on tiktok as well if you do want to follow a very dead account but you can still watch uh my previous former glory exactly well thank you aj again for joining us for doing the report so we didn't have to love that thank you for editing it and um uh your tikt TikTok account is kind of like Barbie's cousins. Yeah.

It's been taken out the back. Yeah. And a bullet has been put in it. Yeah. How do we wrap this up? I think- How does Dave do it? Well, I think we say we'll see you next week with another fantastic episode of Do Go On.

I know that because we've already recorded it. And thanks so much for joining us, AJ. But until next week, I'll say laters. Bye. See ya. We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge Indigenous cultures.

Or we can learn from Indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future.