Why Did We Forget Skipper? The Mattel Barbie's Discontinuation Explained
By Emily Bell
After Barbie broke onto the scene in 1959, created by Ruth Handler, she was criticized for being too "sexualized" — and alongside her friend Midge, Skipper, Barbie's younger sister, was born. When Skipper first came into existence in 1964, she was a lot shorter than Barbie and definitely had a more childlike appearance... but eventually, Mattel kept aging Skipper up ever so slightly until they got to Growing Up Skipper in 1975.
The idea behind Growing Up Skipper was simple but also extremely weird. When kids playing with Skipper raised her arm, her chest would... inflate and she would also get taller, so the doll could basically go through puberty at a moment's notice. (This is the exact Barbie played by Khalique-Brown in "Barbie," where she hides out from the more beautiful denizens of Barbie Land.) It's probably not surprising that this doll was hit with backlash, and eventually, Mattel just made Skipper a slightly older teenager — with a more mature body — upon her re-release in 1979. As recently as 2020, in the animated series "Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures," Skipper's still hanging around and is really into technology and is fourteen-years-old.
