The Daily Show: Ears Edition - TDS Time Machine | Happy Birthday Barbie

Episode Date: March 9, 2025

The Barbie doll was introduced on March 9, 1959. Celebrate her birthday with a look back.  Jon Stewart takes a look at the festivities for Barbie's 40th birthday, and uproar over her first tattoo. Desi Lydic takes issue with Barbie's unrealistic professional accomplishment standards. Jon takes a look at an Arabic Barbie release, and the story of a Taiwanese man who married a doll that may or may not contain the reincarnated soul of his late wife. And speaking of souls trapped in dolls, Michael Kosta takes a look at the lucrative world of haunted dolls. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. Belly up to the Barbie! Some of Hollywood's biggest stars turned out to honor a hunk of molded petroleum as Barbie turned 40, making her too old to play the girlfriend and too young to play the mother. Here's Brandy, singing the Barbie marching song Anything, with a chorus of future divorcees. She looks just like Moesha. So hear your heart and dream your dream. Be anything you wanna be anything.

And here's Brandi talking. Barbie means so much to young little girls, and she's so positive, she's very classy, and I'm just happy to be here, you know, because that's the way you know I am. Yes, that's exactly right Brandi because class is all about telling people you're classy. Tell me more about this fabulous woman. You are the best, happy anniversary.

That was Barbie's role model, Dick Clark, who's also made entirely out of age-retardant space age polymers. Oh, is that a microphone? I always loved Barbies. We never really had enough money to have a lot of Barbies, but we had a few. And though Rosie had only a few Barbies, every morning they were forced to sit on the couch

and laugh at her jokes for a whole hour. According to Mattel, somewhere in the world, a Barbie doll is sold every two seconds. And every five seconds, a little girl starts to hate the way she looks. Tattooed Barbie outrages parents. Barbie exclaims, I was drunk. A tattooed version of the Barbie doll

called Butterfly Art Barbie has come under fire from parents prompting Mattel to stop production. The toy giant finally agreed the tattoo spoils the natural purity of Barbie's non-existent mons and 48 double D knockers. Mattel says it only included the tattoo at the last minute to cover Barbie's teen C-section scar. Though Butterfly Art Barbie is selling well, Mattel has also pushed back the release

of Iron Butterfly Art Barbie, which comes in the back of a crumpled van at the bottom of the Malibu Dream Canyon. The dolls are part of the Generation Girl series of Barbies, which, according to a Mattel spokesman, are cool teenagers who go to an international high school in New York City, which of course means they will all date Nairobi Ken just to annoy their parents.

Today is International Women's Day. And here's how the world's top feminist organization is celebrating. Mattel is also celebrating International Women's Day with seven new role models. The new Barbie lineup was inspired by the likeness of female leaders in STEM fields from around the world. The company hopes the role models, including former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and UK space scientist Dr. Maggie Addern and Polcock, will inspire the next generation of girls to pursue their passions, despite women being underrepresented in STEM fields. This is so important. Kids learn so much from their toys they play with. You want them to have scientist dolls and CEO dolls

that can scissor each other. Oh! Oh! For more on this story, we turn to Desi Lydic. Desi. How's your International Women's Day going? Well, thank you for asking. It started out so great.

This morning, the random guy who usually yells, nice ass, instead yelled, I respect your nice ass. And this is why we march. So yeah, I was feeling pretty good. I mean, at least until I saw this Barbie story. Wait, you don't like these brand new Barbies? But they're so accomplished. They got scientists and they got a YouTube CEO.

Oh, yeah. Equally great role models. You could be a scientist who helps humanity, or you could design a YouTube algorithm that says, hey, kids, if you like Peppa Pig, you'll love QAnon. Okay, that's fair, but some of them are doctors and engineers and one of them is a professor. Yeah, I know, they're all so successful.

F*** those Barbies, f*** them all, f*** them. It's bad enough, Barbie was always hotter, now she's smarter than me too. I want a doll that makes me feel bad about my body, not my mind. So you're saying we should get rid of these Barbies? Well no, not necessarily, but why can't we also have some mediocre Barbies who don't make us feel pressured? Right? Not... Med mediocrity.

Not every Barbie has to be a girl boss. Let's have a Barbie who's a paralegal at a mid-sized law firm. Or one who works the lunch shift at a Just Salad. There is nothing wrong with Barbies who are just trying to make it through the day. There is nothing wrong with Barbies who are just trying to make it through the day. But aren't Barbies supposed to be aspirational? No. No Marlon, they're not.

Give me a Barbie who's okay with letting 5,000 emails pile up in her inbox. The Barbie who spilled coffee on her shirt but knows she can still get another day out of it if she puts a blazer on top. The Barbie who spends her Friday nights in bed binge watching Vanderpump rules, dunking carrot sticks into a jar of peanut butter and letting her kids drive themselves to Taekwondo.

For the love of God, stop judging me, Marlon. drive themselves to Taekwondo. For the love of God, stop judging me, Marlon. I wasn't, but those do feel very specific. You're specific. My point is, they don't all have to be rock stars. You think every Ken is a Nobel Prize winning aeronautical engineer? No, he's just a man with a car and a pubic mound.

And we all accept him! That's what I want. The dream of every woman to be as successful as an average white man. That doesn't sound like women achieving their dreams. I'm sorry, are you mansplaining my dreams to me? On International Women's Day? No. What? No, I wouldn't dare.

No, it kind of, I feel like you wanted to. I swear I was not. I think. Desi Lydic, please everybody. ["Dream House Faces Mecca"] Arabs get their own Barbie doll. Please, everybody! -♪ Arabs get their own Barbie doll. Dreamhouse faces Mecca. If you happen to be in a Kmart in Cairo next year,

be sure to look for Layla, an Arab version of the Barbie doll who'll be dressed in modest head-to-toe Islamic attire. A spokesman said that Layla will admire American Barbie for her strength in worldwide dominance, while Barbie will only hang out with Laila for the oil. Manufacturers insist the dolls are safe, but children, but clearly state in the warranty that all defects will be blamed on Israel.

The Laila doll will be only 10 or 12 years old, still in little girls under clothes and too young for a boyfriend, which is important as she's already been betrothed to 68-year-old spice trader Ken Al-Ghabibi. ["Spring Day in the City"] Huh. ["Spring Day in the City"] Taiwanese man marries actual Barbie doll. Promises to have and to hold until death

or errant space heater placement do they part. Believing it would appease the restless spirit of his dead wife, a Taiwanese man, Shang-Chi Shum, married a real plastic and in no way living Barbie doll last Sunday. Religious scholars say according to the tenets of Buddhism, in this life Chang has been reincarnated as an idiot. The happy couple enjoyed a lengthy ceremony surrounded by relatives and embarrassed loved ones. Many of whom were also present when the groom met his current bride at the factory where he made her. After the wedding the happy couple drove off to the reception, where they will dance

as the wedding band plays the standard, I knew the bride when she used to be a lump of unmolded petroleum. The 46-year-old groom had been hoping to remarry ever since his first wife's death over 20 years ago, but Chang never met the right woman until Mattel released the embodiment of my first wife, Barbie. Welcome back to The Daily Show. You know, with the global economy looking shaky, you may be wondering where you can safely invest your money. Well, Michael Kosta has you covered with an opportunity you can't miss. When you think of successful markets that have thrived during the pandemic

while so many others have perished, you think of Zoom, Amazon, sweatpants, and haunted dolls. That's right, haunted dolls are big right now. Now, I'm not usually an occult guy, but to survive in this economy, I'm willing to make a deal with the undead. But first I had to find out more about the business and who better to teach me than Kat Blauers,

the number one seller of haunted dolls on eBay. Be scared of demons. Be scared of negative energy. But other than that, if you're interested, you should jump in with both feet. You are literally in the business of ghosting people. When did you notice that the haunted doll business was skyrocketing and that you are basically the Jeff Bezos of haunted dolls?

I started in 2014 and there was only a few shops. Now there's probably 50, 60 shops for haunted dolls. How many dolls would you say you've sold in the last year? Probably a thousand. There's money in this? There is. I've seen a haunted doll go for $4,000 before. Woo!

OK, now Kosta's into it. But my big question, aside from how can I hide $4,000 of doll sales from the IRS, is what made a haunted doll a haunted doll? According to haunted doll sellers, any doll that was inhabited by the soul of a dead person was primed for selling. But what made one haunting more expensive than another?

When you say haunted, for me that sounds scary. You're also saying that there's a positive haunting? Absolutely, and I try to keep most of my stuff on the positive side. Oh, you mean the baby with its legs ripped off? Actually, that one's not that positive. Right. What if it's like a really evil spirit? I actually do charge a little bit more. I don't want the little young kids to be able to afford it.

You can sell a human soul on eBay. There was a ban. Who was selling too many human souls? You have to have a disclaimer if a ghost causes you to murder your wife. Isn't capitalism fascinating? It can be. That's about 25% of the business and people send them to me and right now I have a two and a half year waiting list for evaluations.

Yeah. What? Write down everything you know about the doll so when I open the box I know what I'm dealing with and I'll talk to you in two and a half years. The rest of the business is people contacting me looking for a haunted doll. Are you looking for a little kid? Are you looking for something that's gonna challenge you? Are you looking for something

that's gonna scare your neighbors? There's spirits that will motivate you to do work. There's spirits that'll attract money to your house. There's spirits that will attract love. Wow, clearly Catherine was selling these haunted little hotcakes, but who are the everyday folks buying these haunted dolls? Hi, oh I know it's you. I know you.

Yep, THE Stormy Daniels. Stormy's doll, Susan, was purchased in 2011 and is said to be cursed with a uniquely malevolent spirit. We believe Susan belonged to a little girl who died in 1955 and it definitely had something to do with a stomach issue. Before we even started shooting, the producer on set here wanted to touch her and you said don't do that you'll shit your pants. Yes, three people that I slept with in a row she attacked. They had stomach problems and back issues pretty much immediately. She's more mischievous than malicious. I've never felt like I was in danger.

What has Susan added to your life? She adds protection when you go into these places that could be dangerous. Okay, but is Susan really worth that much? I have been offered $7,500 for her once and $10,000 for her once, but she is not for sale. She has her own TV show. She's on VH1's The Real Life. Anyone who follows her Instagram will know this little plastic bitch has been in yachts and Ferraris.

Is that her handle, this little plastic bitch? It should be. Would you say she's living her best afterlife? She is definitely living her best afterlife. So I went back to Kat to learn about the highly scientific analysis process used to identify a haunted doll. So bells. Okay.

After studying the extensive tools needed and the strict procedure. What if the UPS guy rings the doorbell? That screws it up. I knew if I was serious about getting into the business of haunted dolls, the next step had to be trying out the haunted product to see what all the fuss is about. Her name's Jennifer. She is about seven or eight years old, and we think she was murdered.

Is it safe to say that she was killed by a white man? Yes. Probably. Absolutely. What is it with the white men lately? What would Jennifer cost for someone? 60, 70 bucks. 60, 70 bucks.

Yeah. OK. All right, Jennifer. Sorry you got murdered. So I left with my free trial named Jennifer, and I took a video diary to record my feedback. Hey, so day one with Jennifer. I don't know if I really get it yet.

Only thing I can report, I have had some violent dreams. There was a river of blood and there was stabbing, but still better than what I was dreaming about before, which was the state of this country. So I think I'm starting to get it a little bit. Did you make this for me? I don't know if she's following me, or if I just bring her everywhere. I can't do this with you watching. Thank

you. The soul of this doll has excellent comedic timing. It's just great having someone around who laughs at jokes. She is a haunted doll and I know what I'm saying and it sounds crazy but it's just it's it's wonderful. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. I'm gonna kill you. Just kidding. Um, the trial, the trial's over and I can't get into this business. Sending Jennifer back to Catherine is the hardest thing I've ever

had to do. Jennifer... You gotta go. Get in the box. Explore more shows from the Daily Show Podcast universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show, weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central. And stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus.