Amazon offers the Share a Smile BARBIE Special Edition (1996) Doll for $5.35 plus shipping.
In the world of Barbie there are many friends. Did you know that one of her friends had a disability? Here's your chance to add this doll to your collection for a great price!
In 1997, Mattel produced a wheelchair-using Barbie doll called “Share a Smile Becky”. The doll was a unique way to intertwine Barbie dolls and people with disabilities, making sure no one was left out in the Barbie world. Unfortunately, the doll was eventually discontinued due to ongoing design problems.
The original Becky could not fit through the Barbie Dream House front door, and her hair was so long that it would get caught in the wheelchairs wheels.
Attempting to make the doll as real-life as possible, Mattel did some adjustments to Becky making her wheelchair smaller and her hair shorter. The new and improved Barbie was wanted in high demand and flew off the shelves in less than two weeks.
Despite the reworked Becky Barbie doll, 17-year-old Kjersti Johnson discovered that Becky could not fit into the Dream House’s elevator. Johnson, a high school student with cerebral palsy, complained about the issue stating, “This is what we live with every day… how ironic and true…housing for people with disabilities that is not accessible!”
Mattel stated in the future they intended on making changes to the Barbie house designs, but instead they later rejected the doll and discontinued Becky along with wheelchair-racing Paralympic Becky.
Many believe that the company discontinued the wheelchair Barbie doll because it would be much easier to take her off the shelves than redesign the whole Barbie community such as housing, cars, and various accessories. A spokesperson stated the company, “might recreate another wheelchair-using doll in the future, but has no definite plans to do so”.
To learn more about the world of Barbie, click this link to read about her in Wikipedia.
Source: Go to sourceCategory: Toys/Games
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Member of the BlindBargains.com team. Love to find deals of all kinds and sharing them with you! I\'m a big Star Trek fan and run an internet radio station with my wife called TheRadioStorm.com.
