Five Questions for Jerry Oppenheimer, author of Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel
Mattel is a beloved and iconic toy company what first inspired you to write an expose of the secret side of the company?
All of my previous books have been about iconic people and dynasties The Kennedys, Clintons, Hiltons, Martha Stewart, Barbara Walters, Jerry Seinfeld. But for my ninth book I decided to write about an iconic institution, one that was a household name whose products had a profound impact on generations. Mattel fit the profile especially since it was in the headlines for the massive toy recalls in 2007, and with the iconic Barbie doll s 50th anniversary looming this year.
How did you gather all the information that you discuss in the book?
I gathered everything that was in the public record about Mattel, going back to its earliest days to the present, more than 60 years worth. That kind of organization is important for a biography such as the one I planned to write about Mattel. Then I began doing the legwork, tracking down former and present Mattel employees and executives, and interviewing them on the record about their experiences at Mattel, about the company s corporate culture, and cast of characters. Then came the immense job of organizing all of that material and research and writing what I hope readers will enjoy and from which they will learn.
What was the most shocking revelation you uncovered in the course of writing Toy Monster?
There were many jaw-droppers and shockers that surfaced during my research. One especially was the vicious feud between Jack Ryan, the Father of Barbie, and Ruth Handler, the co-founder of Mattel, over who conceived and developed the company s best-known and biggest-selling toy, Barbie.
The book reveals many little-known facts about the company history of Mattel and the odd corporate culture. What, in your opinion, is the most misconstrued assumption in popular opinion that you address in Toy Monster?
During the course of my research, I discovered that Jack Ryan was the key person to bring Barbie in to the world, but that Handler, after Ryan s death, dismissed and denigrated his major contributions, taking all credit for the iconic doll. After Ryan committed suicide, Handler wrote an autobiography and etched her story in stone that Barbie was all her idea from start to finish, and that myth has since been perpetuated. For the first time Toy Monster gives Ryan s side of the previous untold story, and flips the birth of Barbie 180 degrees.
What s the one thing you d like readers to take away after reading Toy Monster?
Don t be fooled by those wonderful playthings. Behind the scenes the big business of toys is a highly competitive battleground, and is far from fun and games.
Toy Monster Cast of Characters
Mattel, the world s largest toy company, has brought joy to generations of children for more than six decades, with such iconic toys as Barbie and Hot Wheels. Throughout their reign, Mattel has had a curious, eccentric if not totally off-the-wall cast of characters running the business, from creating toys to advertising and marketing them. In Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel, you ll meet:
A brilliant Yale engineering school graduate who went from designing weapons of mass destruction for the Cold War Pentagon to bringing Barbie to life. He even molded real-life women in Barbie s image-- the long legs, the thin waist, the Pamela Anderson-esque breasts--and there were many in his swinging world as both a technologist and a playboy. As a close friend recounts, When Jack talked about creating Barbie, or improving Barbie it was like listening to somebody talk about a sexual episode a sexual pervert
The driven, ambitious, and cutthroat co-founder of Mattel, who after Ryan s bizarre death claimed all credit for inventing Barbie. Handler waged a deliberate campaign to diminish, if not altogether erase Ryan s importance as the Father of Barbie, and take full credit as the billion dollar doll s inventor. While embarrassed about Ryan s sexual proclivities and even more about the huge royalties she had to pay him for his lucrative inventions it was Handler who almost brought Mattel to its corporate knees by helping to cook the books and was ousted from the company. The 61-year-old grandmother avoided imprisonment in a plea bargain deal, and was sentenced to 2,500 hours of community service and a $57,000 fine.
A glamorous real-life Beverly Hills Barbie who skyrocketed from a lowly job in Mattel s novelty-development department to CEO after brilliantly marketing Barbie through the Milky Way. Barrad s efforts generated billions of dollars for the company before she was axed after making what is considered one of the worst corporate acquisitions in history. During her rise and before her fall, she earned a reputation as a fearsome diva for firing on a whim and promoting people based on how they looked and dressed. Notes a Mattel colleague, Jill believed you are what you wear. Her comment would be, Well, what does she know? Look at what she wears. Look what she looks like. She was Hollywood personified, even having had a role in the mobster film Crazy Joe .
A genius designer who developed one of Mattel s hugely successful boys toys, He-Man, as well as a toy line called Masters of the Universe. When the money rolled in to Mattel coffers at one point He-Man was outselling even Barbie he was crowned one of the toymaker s stars. But when Mattel oversold the toy to stores whose shelves were sagging under He-Man s weight and sales went into the proverbial toilet, so did Sweet, who was forced out. Fearful he had been blacklisted in the industry, Sweet wound up driving a forklift at Home Depot.
Eckert became the big cheese at Mattel as CEO after a long career at Kraft Foods. A shrewd, but mild-mannered Midwesterner who is compared to the likeable Chevy Chase character Clark Griswold in National Lampoon s Vacation , he was at the helm during the Toy Terror summer of 2007 when millions of Mattel toys made in China had to be recalled because of dangerous lead in the paint. The media, the U.S. Congress, and furious parents scandalized Mattel. Also during his reign, Eckert saw Barbie s sales and popularity plummet when an upstart series of sexy dolls the Bratz Pack hit the toy scene, leading to the Barbie vs. Bratz toy trial of the century.