HELL ON WHEELS!...
> > Rollerblade Barbie
> > by Dave Barry
==========================================================================
> > As executive director of the Bureau of Consumer Alarm, I am always on
> > the alert for news stories that involve two key elements:
> >
> > 1. Fire
> >
> > 2. Barbie
> >
> > So I was very interested when alert reader Michael Robinson sent
> > me a column titled "Ask Jack Sunn" from the Dec. 13, 1993, issue
> > of the Jackson, Mississippi Clarion-Ledger. Here's an excerpt from a
> > consumer's letter to this column, which I am not making up:
> >
> > "Last year, my two daughters received presents of two
> > Rollerblade Barbie dolls by Mattel. On March 8, my 8-year-old
> > daughter was playing beauty shop with her 4-year-old brother.
> > After spraying him with hair spray, the children began to play
> > with the boot to Rollerblade Barbie. My little girl innocently
> > ran the skate across her brother's bottom, which immediately
> > ignited his clothes."
> >
> > The letter adds that "There are no warnings concerning fire on
> > these toys ...I feel the need to warn potential buyers of their
> > danger."
> >
> > In his response, Jack Sunn says, cryptically, that "Mattel does
> > not manufacture Rollerblade Barbie any more." He does not
> > address the critical question that the consumer's letter raised
> > in my mind, as I'm sure it did in yours, namely: Huh?
> >
> > I realized that the only way to answer this question was to
> > conduct a scientific experiment. As you may recall, last year,
> > in response to a news item concerning a kitchen fire in Ohio, I
> > did an experiment proving that if you put a Kellogg's strawberry
> > Pop-Tart in a toaster and hold the toaster lever down for five
> > minutes and 50 seconds, the Pop-Tart will turn into a snack-pastry
> > blowtorch, shooting flames up to 30 inches high. Also, your toaster
> > will be ruined.
> >
> > The problem was that I did not have a Rollerblade Barbie. My son
> > happens to be a boy, and we never went through the Barbie phase.
> > We went through the Masters of the Universe phase. For two
> > years our household was the scene of a fierce, unceasing
> > battle between armies of good and evil action figures. They
> > were everywhere. You'd open up the salad crisper, and
> > there would be He-Man and Skeletor, striking each other with
> > carrots.
> >
> > So at the end of a recent column, I printed a note appealing for
> > a Rollerblade Barbie. I got two immediately; one from Renee
> > Simmons of Clinton, Iowa, and one from Randy Langhenry of
> > Gainesville, Ga., who said it belonged to his 6-year-old
> > daughter, Greta. ("It would help me if you could get Barbie
> > back to north Georgia before Greta notices she's gone," Randy
> > wrote.)
> >
> > Rollerblade Barbie is basically a standard Barbie, which is to
> > say, she represents the feminine beauty ideal, if your concept of
> > a beautiful female is one who is six feet, nine inches tall and
> > weighs 52 pounds (37 of which are in the bust area) and has a
> > rigidly perky smile and eyeballs the size of beer coasters and a
> > one-molecule nose and enough hair to clog the Lincoln Tunnel.
> >
> > But what makes this Barbie special is that she's wearing two
> > little yellow Rollerblade booties, each of which has a wheel
> > similar to the kind found in cigarette lighters, so that when
> > you roll Barbie along, her booties shoot out sparks. This seems
> > like an alarming thing for Rollerblades to do, but Barbie,
> > staring perkily ahead, does not seem to notice.
> >
> > To ensure high standards of scientific accuracy, I conducted the
> > experiment in my driveway. Aside from Rollerblade Barbie, my
> > materials consisted of several brands of hair spray and -- this
> > was a painful sacrifice -- a set of my veteran underwear
> > (estimated year of purchase: 1968).
> >
> > I spread the underwear on the driveway, then sprayed it with hair
> > spray, then made Rollerblade Barbie skate across it, sparking her
> > booties. I found that if you use the right brand of hair spray
> > -- I got excellent results with Rave -- Rollerblade Barbie does
> > indeed cause the underwear to burst dramatically into flame.
> >
> > (While I was doing this, a neighbor walked up, and I just want to
> > say that if you think it's easy to explain why you're squatting
> > in your driveway, in front of a set of burning underwear,
> > surrounded by hair spray bottles, holding a Barbie doll in your
> > hand, then you are mistaken.)
> >
> > At this point, the only remaining scientific question -- I'm sure
> > this has occurred to you -- was: Could Rollerblade Barbie set
> > fire to a Kellogg's strawberry Pop-Tart? The answer turns out to
> > be yes, but you have to be in the act of hair-spraying the
> > Pop-Tart when Barbie Rollerblades over it, so you get a
> > blowtorch effect that could very easily set fire to Barbie's
> > hair, not to mention your own personal self. Plus you get tart
> > filling in the booties.
> >
> > So we can see why Mattel ceased manufacturing Rollerblade Barbie.
> >
> > I imagine that whichever toy designer dreamed up this exciting
> > concept has been transferred to Mattel's coveted Bosnia plant.
> > But what should be done about all the Rollerblade Barbies that
> > are already in circulation? I believe that the only solution is
> > for all concerned consumers to demand that our congress-humans
> > pass a federal law requiring that all underwear, snack pastries
> > and other household objects carry a prominent label stating:
> >
> > "WARNING! DO NOT SPRAY HAIR SPRAY ON THIS OBJECT
> > AND SKATE ROLLERBLADE BARBIE OVER IT!"
> >
> > But that is not enough. We also need to appropriate millions of
> > dollars for a massive federal effort to undo the damage that has
> > been done so far. I'm talking about scraping this crud off my
> > driveway.
> >
> > Also, the taxpayers owe Greta a new Barbie.
> > |
