Doll-A-Day 2023 #129: Teen Talk Barbie

   We were pretty busy today. Ken and I went to the house, and while he shop vac-ed up a bunch of crap out of the floor of the fire room, I sorted out the back of the car. It's been having junk from the house loaded into it, and things were getting out of hand. I tidied up a lot of stuff back there, and looked for my phone, which has been lost for weeks now. I was hoping it would turn up back there, but so far, no luck. I didn't get to finish straightening and sorting the crap in the back of the car, because I got so far, and then switched to loading rescued Lego, and other bits from the fire room, out of the melted drawer units they were in, and into empty cat litter buckets. I got sunburned, but at least this time I wasn't going through the bags of room stuff and getting my arm all scratched up and black stuff up my nose, like last time.

  Then we went to get some dinner, and afterward to the storage unit, where I had to find some things. I was sad to see that some stuff had been put away wet, (and none of it was even a horse!), and had ruined. Some may be rescuable, and some has been tossed for trash already. I rescued World Doll Clark Gable as Rhett Butler just in the nick of time. He was in with the wet, musty smelling mildewed trash, but he was in a plastic bag and survived with only a musty smell. I'm hoping he'll air out and be all right.

  I was pleased about some things though. I found that all my vintage Christmas elves and decorations survived the Room of Water, and were perfectly fine. My Starship Swinetrek set wasn't as bad as I had been lead to believe...I  think. Hard to tell really, until I can take the plastic box front out. There was another thing that didn't survive as well as I had been lead to believe. We'll cover that another day. 

  Anyway, we were there until nearly dark. I finished my digging just in time to grab what I needed and Ken closed the door just before dark.

  So, since it was such a busy day, here's a quick post. I know you've been getting a lot of those lately, and I'm sorry. Hopefully I'll manage to get some done up ahead soon. But we do have a burned and soggy house to clear up, so we can go back home someday , so try to cut me some slack. As I said to Ken again tonight, this was the worst year to have committed to daily posts.

  Today's doll is Teen Talk Barbie, introduced in 1991, the same year as Emma.

This is the doll who got into so much trouble for saying "Math is tough.", and supposedly perpetuating the  idea that girls can't do math. (For the record, Math was my best subject in school...even though I hated it.)

Of course, not all the dols said the  same phrases. Each doll said four phrases, but you didn't know which phrases your doll was going to say.

The 'Math is tough." controversy caused the dolls to stop being made with that phrase. Since nobody knew which doll said that phrase until they bought it, put the batteries in, and tried it out, it made the 'Math is tough' doll, worth some money, with some people paying big dollars for one.

  The Canadian dolls had the batteries already in, and a hole in the back of the box so you could try the dolls out. They also had another difference: they spoke French! We had some of those, and sold. We bought them in Canada and sold them at doll shows here.

  The Teen Talk dolls offered a lot of variety. They came in Caucasian, with blonde, red, or brown hair, in curly or crimped styles. The African American dolls, like you see here, came with black or brown hair, in a curly or crimped style. All the Canadian ones we saw were blonde.

 This doll has black hair and a head full of luscious curls.

  The outfits were all like this one, only in various colours.

The outfit included the hat, short jacket, short top...

...a filmy skirt, stretchy leggings, a cloth purse, a pair of tennis shoes and a pair of heels.

The colour combinations were all over the place, and the patterns were loud. It was 1991, and the 80's still loomed large.

  I think I had a blonde crimped doll. Emma finally laid claim to our open Canadian example doll we put out at shows. She was blonde and crimped too, but while mine had an outfit that was primarily bright red and black, the Canadian doll was all pastel pink and green. The make-up fitted the colour scheme too, so my doll had bright red lips, and the Canadian doll had pink lips.

  That's the doll for today. She was rescued from the Room of Water, completely dry and secure in her plastic tub. She is available and no, she is not $10, as her very old sticker says! See you tomorrow.