Posted by mary/skippercollector
on 5/19/2008, 4:21 pm, in reply to "barbie family tree"
216.215.128.11
My first response regards Jazzie.
If you remember, in the 1970s, Mattel had a line of 9-inch hard plastic flexible dolls called the Sunshine Family. Mattel adapted the boy and girl and made them both 12 inches tall. The company called this new line the Young Sweethearts, Michael (brunette) and Melinda (blonde), in 1976.
In 1980 Mattel adapted the Young Sweethearts dolls and made them out of vinyl, but still having the flexible limbs and the thinner bodies. That line was called Springfield High and the dolls were Starr (blonde), Tracey (brunette and possibly Hispanic), Kelley (redhead) and Shaun (molded brunette).
Next, in 1987, came the Spectra dolls. They were again hard plastic, like Michael and Melinda, but were different shiny colors with funky hair. The Spectra dolls were supposed to be aliens. The dolls were Spectra (pink), UltraViolet (light purple), AstraGold (silver with blonde hair), StylaBlue (black with blue hair) and Tom Comet (silver with blue hair).
Then, at last, came Jazzie and her friends in 1989. Jazzie was made from a less-flexible version of the Starr body. She was on the market from 1989 to 1993, and was Barbie's cousin. Jazzie's friends were only sold in 1989, and they were Chelsie (redhead), Stacie (African-American) and Dude (molded brunette).
To summarize: all of the above dolls had their own lines of clothing, but Melinda, Starr, Spectra and Jazzie can all wear each other's outfits.
To further confuse you, some Kens and other male dolls were made with the thinner Michael body, such as Roller Blade Ken and Phoebus from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Message Thread:
« Back to thread