TIL Barbie dolls were originally inspired by a German comic character, "Bild Lilli"
TIL Barbie dolls were originally inspired by a German comic character, "Bild Lilli"
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credit to u/hoopsnek for their informative imgur post
Wikipedia says 1952 to 1961, not 1940s. Pretty important difference lol
Links for the lazy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilli_(comic_strip) 1952-1961
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild_Lilli_doll 1955-1964Unbeknownst to most, Barbie actually started out life in the late 1940s as a German cartoon character created by artist Reinhard Beuthien for the Hamburg-based tabloid, Bild-Zeitung.
I just pulled the date from this description under one of the images on imgur, if it's inaccurate that's why.
You might get a kick out of Netflix's "The Toys That Made Us". It has a Barbie episode, and they do talk about Bild Lili a bit at the beginning.
And CF the British comic strip "Jane" - which ran from the 1930s through to the end of the '50s.