Mattel Launches Mad Men Barbie. Is This Venture on the Rocks?

According to the New York Times, Mattel and Matthew Wiener, Mad Men creator. have joined forces to bring the pop culture phenomenon to life... Well, plastic life that is! This summer Mattel's new Barbie line will be launched. These dolls will be licensed for the Barbie Fashion Line collection. The characters will retail for approximately $75 a piece and it is expected that 7,000 - 10,000 copies of the dolls will be produced.

According to the New York Times, "The characters to become dolls are Don Draper, the show’s leading man; his wife, Betty; his colleague at the Sterling Cooper agency, Roger Sterling; and Joan Holloway, the agency’s office manager who was Roger’s mistress."
 
The New York times also comments that "That two dolls represent a relationship outside wedlock, and Don Draper’s propensity for adultery, may be firsts for the Barbie world since the brand’s introduction five decades ago."

Because Mattel wants to keep the Barbie image squeaky clean, the characters will come with period accessories like hats, overcoats, pearls and padded undergarments, but the cigarettes, ashtrays, martini glasses and cocktail shakers will not be included.

So the dolls can cheat and slap and romp around but they can't smoke or drink? What's the fun in that?
How can you recreate an office scene or bar scene without a smoke and a drink?

Since these dolls are not being marketed toward children I think they absolutely should come with the necessary and critical accessories. Ok, so the cigarettes aren't necessary or critical. I'll give them that. We should be responsible health-wise these days, but surely, for a couple of hundred dollars, there should be a fold-able bar and kit available as an accessory with miniature gins and vodkas and juices, with shakers and stirrers and ice cubes... after all, isn't her name Barbie?

I'm a little shaken by this...