Mad Men Barbie Dolls - We Saw This One a Mile Away

Back a few months ago we here at Toy Whimsy were lamenting the fact that there were no Mad Men Action Figures.  Someone must have heard our cries of anguish - and that someone must have been Barbie herself.  In the New York Times today, there comes news of a Mad Men/Barbie agreement to be part of the publicity behind the new season.

Soon, the show will enter a realm of the pop-culture pantheon that its creator, Matthew Weiner, says has surprised even him: Mattel plans to bring out versions of Barbie and Ken styled after four “Mad Men” characters.

The dolls are part of a premium-price collectors’ series for adults that Mattel calls the Barbie Fashion Model Collection. Although there have been Barbies and Kens based on other TV series, among them “I Love Lucy” and “The X-Files,” the dolls will be the first licensed line for that collection, Mattel says, with a suggested retail price of $74.95 each.

Mattel is licensing rights to the characters from Lionsgate, the studio that produces “Mad Men” for the AMC cable channel. There will be 7,000 to 10,000 copies of each doll, to be sold in specialty stores and on two Web sites, amctv.com and barbiecollector.com.

The characters to become dolls are Don Draper, the show’s leading man; his wife, Betty; his colleague at the Sterling Cooper agency, Roger Sterling; and Joan Holloway, the agency’s office manager who was Roger’s mistress. 

Here's a little sneak peek at the dolls:

 

My birthday is in July.  I see a set of these for my desk in my future!

This partnership shouldn't be too much of a surprise seeing the success Barbie is having with the Twilight series.  So what is next?  I'd love to see some True Blood Barbies.  What pop culture Barbies would you like to see?  Leave us a comment!

--Laura M.