I went shopping today. Everywhere I turned there was the talentless mug of a teen pop princess grinning at me from the front of one product or another. It was unnerving and I started jonesing for a shot of real female musical talent. When I got home I sat for a while and listened as Rickie Lee Jones used word and music to paint something real about being a human:
One thing that will be sadly missing from the store next year are the famous pre-teen Bratz dolls. It looks like they've gone to the Big Stripper Pole in the Sky:
The rowdy Bratz dolls have been evicted. Barbie has regained control of the dollhouse.Toy giant Mattel Inc., after a four-year legal dispute with MGA Entertainment Inc., touted its win in the case Wednesday after a federal judge banned MGA from making and selling its pouty-lipped and hugely popular Bratz dolls.
"It's a pretty sweeping victory," Mattel attorney Michael Zeller said. "They have no right to use Bratz for any goods or services at all."
U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson rocked the toy industry with his order that MGA must immediately stop manufacturing Bratz. He allowed MGA to wait until the holiday season ends to remove the toys from store shelves.
The decision was a stunning defeat for MGA, which exploded onto the tween scene in 2001 with the edgy dolls and made hundreds of millions in profits, giving Mattel's more classic doll-diva Barbie a run for her money.
Requiescant in pace, little plastic hoochie mamas. I know that as a child I would have adored your impish enjoyment of the world around you:
Posted by floridacracker at December 15, 2008 06:30 PMBratz dolls are the ugliest dolls I have ever seen, even eclipsing the Cabbage Patch kids. Such hideous faces.
Posted by: Starla Darling at December 15, 2008 09:26 PMToo bad they outlawed them..I was gonna start a doll porn site..and make 40something billion
dollars.
atleast they look so "real" haha what's this world coming to
Posted by: Baron Thoma at December 17, 2008 07:43 PMBarbie just looks brainless. The Bratz kids look positively psychotic. Barbie would let the bathtub overflow, run her car battery down, and get lost in the mall. The Bratzes would shoot up their school, poison their grandmother and possibly blow up Chuck E. Cheese.
Posted by: Starla Darling at December 17, 2008 08:51 PM"The Bratzes would shoot up their school, poison their grandmother and possibly blow up Chuck E. Cheese."
Yeah..and THEN start a 40billions somehtin' doll porn bizness !
Posted by: csason at December 17, 2008 11:02 PMmy tweener didn't ever get into Bratz. She refused Bratz gifts at her parties - actually gave them back... Dad drove the point home with the Mrs by always referring to them as the "STD sisters." Though never in front of the little one, she eschewed un-virtuous appearances on her own.
We lived in a Bratz-free zone.
Posted by: citizenlurker at December 18, 2008 08:25 AMWe didn't have Bratzes when I was little, but we did have those ugly Cabbage Patch kids, and the ven uglier knockoffs. Can't belive I used to carry my Cabbage Patch, Melissa (she had a "real" name but I didn't like it and don't remember it now) around like a real baby.
They did smell really nice though. I'm reminded of my Melissa everytime I use Carmex on my lips.