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Ruth Handler's fashion doll was already three decades old when the 90s arrived — then had one of its biggest decades anyway. 1992 alone delivered Totally Hair Barbie, the best-selling Barbie of all time, and the 'Math class is tough!' scandal. Every toybox had at least one; every sibling war featured a hostage.
Design an outfit on screen, print it onto a fabric sheet on the family inkjet, and dress a real Barbie in it. Mattel Media's 1996 CD-ROM sold more than a million copies within a year and became the proof that a game aimed squarely at girls could sell big.
Lavender mesh shirt, purple pleather vest, streaked blond hair, an earring in his left ear and a chrome ring on a chain around his neck. Mattel's 1993 attempt to make Ken "cooler" for little girls instead made him a camp icon, bought up by gay men until he sold out by Christmas.
The Barbie that was as tall as you were. Mattel's 1992 My Size Barbie stood about three feet high and came in a ballet outfit a little girl could take off the doll and wear herself, tiara included. It was the big-box Christmas present of the early 90s, and the doll that stared at you from the corner of the bedroom all night.
Press the button and Barbie chirped one of her four phrases: pizza party, dream wedding, meet me at the mall. About one doll in a hundred carried "Math class is tough," and in 1992 that single line got Mattel scolded by math teachers, condemned by the AAUW, and parodied on The Simpsons.