Barbie you 50 year old teenage freak!

So, today is the big Happy 5-0 for the preternaturally young, beautiful fashion doll Barbie. Most of us know about Barbie and how, when and why she came to be. That info has been all over the web lately, I certainly don't need to give you a history lesson about Mattel and the evolution of Barbie. Personally, I hadn't given Barbie much thought in years until today then I started remembering what fun I used to have playing "Barbies" and one thing led to another and before I knew it I was looking up all of my old favorites.

The doll above is much like the first one I had. A hand me down from my older sisters, probably from the early sixties, when I finally got my own dolls later on this doll always took on the roll of the mom. Most likely due to her stylish sixties mom-do.

This is the Francie & Casey townhouse that my Barbies took up residence in. Unbelievably hard to find a photo of this on the web. The other girls were all interested in the Barbie dream house, but I had this cool vinyl fold out case with mod furniture. I do not know who Casey was, but I did have a Francie doll. This from the late 60's time period. I always associate this with kindergarten, so I must have received it around that time but played with it from then until I quit the Barbie game.

Ah. Malibu Barbie and Ken. I had them both, issued the first year available. I was in first grade. After I received these, no pale Barbies would darken the doorstep of my townhouse again. I mean, come on. These guys were cool. Except Ken's clothes, my Ken generally wore his swim trunks year round because he generally looked like a big dork in everything sold commercially. In my mind, as a child, I sort of thought Ken was not a good match for Barbie. I thought GI Joe was a much better choice. My Barbie and Ken never married in a dream wedding ceremony.

One thing all the dolls did quite a lot was go camping! This was possibly my favorite toy ever. I believe I had a dune buggy or some type of vehicle they cruised around in. This thing came out early seventies. This is the color scheme I had. I believe later editions were pink. Many times, I would drag the townhouse along on these camping trips (because in your imagination you can do whatever the hell you want to do!) and the dolls would have one gigantic house - camper party, because even then I did not believe in sleeping outside and only traveling in style. My friend K. contributed to the travel theme by adding her Barbie's Friend Ship on our play dates. We would take over the entire family room floor of one of our houses, hers or mine, with these elaborate doll scenarios.

The Friend Ship was very cool, a plane when opened up it had a seating area...

A wing with the stowing are painted on and even a little galley with a push cart and dishes!

Hours and hours of fun. We couldn't give up that Barbie habit until sometime after sixth grade. We played Barbie secretly in sixth grade because her next door neighbor teased us at school about it, so a few times there was a rush to hide the Barbie stuff when the girl knocked on the door for us to go out and play. I think it is sad that kids grow up so fast now. Also, I think the old Barbie accessories were so much more clever then, than they are now. Perhaps I'm biased, but looking through hundreds of items today I was surprised at the variety and detail of things we had available back then. Now that I have that out of my system, I can move on. No need to start a collection, but would love to have all the things I had back so I could sell them on Ebay. I can't believe what people pay for some of those old collectibles.