The Nostalgic Details Only Adults Notice In Barbie
Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" movie advertised itself thusly: whether you hate Barbie or love Barbie, this was a movie for you. Gerwig is also a self-professed fan of the doll itself, something that really comes through in her adaptation. From original costume details to Barbie dolls that are no longer sold, the writer-director included a ton of references both in the movie and during its press tour. While not in the actual film, star Margot Robbie — who also served as an executive producer and played the main Barbie — wore outfits made to mimic some of the original doll's classic outfits, showing the cast and crew's collective attention to detail.
Barbie was introduced in 1959, so kids have been playing with this uber-popular doll for several decades now — and if you were one of those who did own a bevy of Barbies, there's probably some stuff that caught your eye in Gerwig's candy-coated feminist epic. Here are just a few of the major nostalgic details to be found in "Barbie" that might have only been obvious to audiences of certain ages.
Pregnant Midge was a real — and controversial — doll
Pregnant Midge — who's played by Oscar-winning screenwriter and "The Crown" actress Emerald Fennell — is only seen fleetingly throughout "Barbie," but she serves as a sort of jumpscare (literally for Mattel's CEO, played by Will Ferrell, who seems genuinely unnerved by her). That's because the exact Midge that Fennell is playing is a visibly pregnant Midge, and she was discontinued after, much like Ferrell's CEO, people thought she was just far too weird to stay on the shelves.
Midge was intended to be Barbie's friend and wife to Ken's friend Allan, but the pregnant version of her simply took things too far. Introduced in 2002 and pulled from toy shelves shortly thereafter, the pregnant version of Midge had a truly disconcerting stomach that opened up so that children could remove a full-fledged back from her before closing her back up. The idea of this is fairly grotesque for a child's toy, and while kids should definitely be comfortable seeing pregnant women, it's maybe not the best idea to have them playing with a doll who delivers her baby by opening her stomach from the top down. If you remembered how weird the concept behind Pregnant Midge was, you probably completely understand why she's banished to the outskirts of "Barbie," even if she is played by Fennell.
Michael Cera's Allan is dressed in the doll's original costume
Speaking of Midge's husband, the movie does prominently feature Allan, played by Michael Cera. Unlike the Kens and the Barbies of Barbie Land, there's only one of Allan (and, as he tells narrator Helen Mirren, he's actually a little confused about that). Allan doesn't really fit in with either faction, and he's just sort of... there, being Ken's best friend. According to his original box, which is featured in the end credits alongside Cera's name, Alan is meant to be "Ken's buddy," and it confirms that he can fit into all of Ken's same clothes.
Allan was, in fact, released in 1964 as Ken's best friend, but when it seemed as if Ken and Allan were maybe more than just buddies, he was pulled from shelves two years later. He was then reimagined in the 1990s as Midge's husband, with a new look and a new spelling for his name — Alan — but in Gerwig's movie, she pays homage to the OG Allan. He's wearing the exact same striped shirt that adorned the original doll, although whether or not the movie's main Ken Ryan Gosling can also fit into it is unconfirmed by the film.
Barbie's very first appearance shows off the doll's original outfit
As fans saw in the movie's very first teaser, Gerwig introduces Barbie in the most epic way possible: by mimicking the opening of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey." In place of chimps and rocks, we see little girls and their baby dolls as they play at being "moms," despite being clearly bored by their exploits. Then, she arrives: Robbie's Barbie, in her giant glory, massive and looming over the young girls holding their baby dolls as "Also sprach Zarathustra" blasts. She lowers her sunglasses, winks at the young girls, and watches with glee as they smash their baby dolls on the ground.
The outfit Barbie wears in this scene — black high heels, a black and white striped strapless swimsuit, and white-rimmed sunglasses — is no coincidence. This is the exact outfit Barbie wore when she was introduced in 1959, so it's definitely not an accident that Gerwig and her creative team went with this outfit for the doll's big introduction. If you know someone with vintage Barbies lurking in storage, it's possible they've got this exact doll.
Weird Barbie's collection of dolls were also real... and so was that dog
Because she's been "played with too hard" and "smells like basement," Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) is exiled to the far reaches of Barbie Land, but at least she's not alone out there. First off, she's got her canine companion Tanner, a plastic golden Labrador who roams her house and basically just poops everywhere. Believe it or not, Tanner was a real Barbie accessory, and he really did poop everywhere, but his little poop-scooper had a magnet that could easily fall out and become an easy choking hazard for a child. He was recalled in 2007 and, apparently, banished to Weird Barbie's house.
Tanner is joined by several other misfits, including a Barbie with a television in her back (who was discontinued for a seriously disturbing reason), "Sugar Daddy Ken" (who's the father to a dog named Sugar, lest you get any strange ideas), and "Magic Earring Ken," whose necklace gave everybody a really weird vibe. All of these are only seen very briefly, but it's entirely possible that a few audience members actually owned one or more of these, considering that they're all real, discontinued Barbies — and that includes the final outcast in Weird Barbie's tribe, "Growing Up Skipper."
Skipper's apperance in the film
As for "Growing Up Skipper," she's one version of Barbie's younger sister, and she's a strange case! When you raise the doll's arm, she gets taller and her chest grows, so it's not exactly a mystery why this doll didn't make it into the Barbie Hall of Fame. At the time, Mattel wanted a doll that would appeal to the growing stage of puberty — except it didn't work out so well. Still, Skipper is an important figure in Barbie lore, so she gets name-checked several times in the movie.
Despite being Barbie's little sister, Skipper is only seen twice in the film. Later in the film, Mattel executives recall a time when Skipper made it into the real world. Apparently, she kidnapped a kid in Key West. (Skipper's job, in Barbie lore, is "babysitter"). Executives then acknowledge that Barbie being loose in reality is a much bigger deal than when it happened with Skipper, but even so, Barbie's younger sibling caused a pretty harrowing situation that won't be easily forgotten by adult viewers.
"Barbie" is in theaters now.