TDS Time Machine | Happy Birthday Barbie

We were getting where we couldn't pay the bill.

PG&E asked customers about their biggest concerns so we could address them one by one.

That's terrifying.

That's fair.

Joe, Regional Vice President, PG&E.

We have to run the business in a way that keeps people safe, but it starts driving costs down.

I would love to see that.

We're on our way.

I hope so.

PG&E electricity rates are now lower than they were last year.

Hear what other customers have to say and what PG&E is doing about it at pge.com slash open dash lines. You're listening to Comedy Central.
Belly up to the Barbie. Some of Hollywood's biggest stars turned out to honor a hunk of molded petroleum as Barbie turned 40, making her too old to play the girlfriend and too young

to play the mother. Here's Brandy singing the Barbie marching song, Be Anything, you wanna be anything, yeah.

And here's Brandi talking.

Barbie means so much to young little girls, and she's so positive, she's very classy,

and I'm just happy to be here, you know, because that's the way, you know, I am.

Yes, that's exactly right, Brandi, because class is all about telling people you're classy.

Tell me more about this fabulous woman.

You are the best. Happy anniversary.

That was Barbie's role model, Dick Clark,

who's also made entirely out of age-retardant space-age polymers.

Oh, is that a microphone?

I always loved Barbies.

We never really had enough money to have a lot of Barbies,

but we had a few.

Though Rosie had only a few Barbies, every morning they were forced to sit on the couch and laugh at her jokes for a whole hour. According to Mattel, somewhere in the world, a Barbie doll is sold every two seconds.
And every five seconds, a little girl starts to hate the way she looks. Tattooed Barbie outrages parents.
Barbie exclaims, I was drunk. A tattooed version of the Barbie doll called Butterfly Art Barbie has come under fire from parents, prompting Mattel to stop production.
The toy giant finally agreed the tattoo spoils the natural purity of Barbie's non-existent mons and 48 double D knockers. Mattel says it only included the tattoo at the last minute to cover Barbie's teen C-section scar.
Though butterfly art Barbie is selling well, Mattel has also pushed back the release of

Iron Butterfly Art Barbie, which comes in the back of a crumpled van at the bottom of the

Malibu Dream Canyon.

The dolls are part of the Generation Girl series of Barbies, which, according to a Mattel spokesman,

are cool teenagers who go to an international high school in New York City, which course, means they will all date Nairobi Ken just to annoy their parents. Today is International Women's Day.
And here's how the world's top feminist organization is celebrating. Mattel is also celebrating International Women's Day with seven new role models.
The new Barbie lineup was inspired by the likeness of female leaders in STEM fields from around the world. The company hopes the role models, including former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and UK space scientist Dr.
Maggie Addernan-Pocock will inspire

the next generation of girls to pursue their passions, despite women being underrepresented in STEM fields. This is so important.
Kids learn so much from their toys they play with. You want them to have scientist dolls and CEO dolls that can scissor each other.

For more on this story, we turn to Desi Lydic.

Desi, how's your International Women's Day going?

Well, thank you for asking.

It started out so great.

This morning, the random guy who usually yells, nice ass! Instead yelled, I respect your nice ass. And this is why we march.
So yeah, I was feeling pretty good. I mean, at least until I saw this Barbie story.
Wait, you don't like these brand new Barbies? But they're so accomplished. They got scientists and they got a YouTube CEO.
Oh, yeah. Equally great role models.
You could be a scientist who helps humanity, or you could design a YouTube algorithm that says, hey, kids, if you like Peppa Pig, you'll love QAnon. Okay, that's fair, but some of them are doctors and engineers, and one of them is a professor.
Yeah, I know. They're all so successful.
F*** those Barbies. F*** them all.
F*** them. It's bad enough Barbie was always hotter.
Now she's smarter than me, too. I want a doll that makes me feel bad about my body, not my mind.
So you're saying we should get rid of these Barbies? Well, no, I mean, not necessarily.

But why can't we also have some mediocre Barbies

who don't make us feel pressured?

Right? Not mediocrity.

Not every Barbie has to be a girl boss.

Let's have a Barbie who's a paralegal at a mid-sized law firm.

Or one who works the lunch shift at a Just Salad.

There is nothing wrong with Barbies

who are just trying to make it through the day.

But aren't Barbies supposed to be

aspirational? No.

No, Marlon, they're not.

Give me

a Barbie who's okay with letting

5,000 emails pile up

Thank you. No.
No, Marlon, they're not. Give me a Barbie who's okay with letting 5,000 emails pile up in her inbox.
Okay? The Barbie who spilled coffee on her shirt but knows she can still get another day out of it if she puts a blazer on top. The Barbie who spends her Friday nights in bed, binge-watching Vanderpump Rules, dunking carrot sticks into a jar of peanut butter, and letting her kids drive themselves to Taekwondo.
For the love of God, stop judging me, Marlon. I wasn't, but those do feel very specific.
You're specific. My point is, they don't all have to be rock stars.
You think every Ken is a Nobel Prize winning aeronautical engineer? No, he's just a man with a car and a pubic mound. And we all accept him.
That's what I want. The dream of every woman to be as successful as an average white man.
That doesn't sound like women achieving their dreams. I'm sorry, are you mansplaining my dreams to me? On International Women's Day? No.
What? No, I wouldn't dare. No, it kind of sad.

I feel like you wanted to.

I swear I was not.

I think...

Desi Lidek, please, everybody!

Arabs get their own Barbie doll.

Dreamhouse faces Mecca.

If you happen to be in a Kmart in Cairo next year,

be sure to look for Layla,

an Arab version of the Barbie doll, who'll be dressed in modest head-to-toe Islamic attire. A spokesman said that Layla will admire American Barbie for her strength and worldwide dominance, while Barbie will only hang out with Layla for the oil.
Manufacturers insist the dolls are safe, but children, but clearly state in the warranty that all defects will be blamed on Israel.

The Layla doll will be only 10 or 12 years old, still in little girls under clothes, and too young for a boyfriend, which is important as she's already been betrothed to 68-year-old spice trader Ken Al-Ghabibi. Huh.
Taiwanese man marries actual Barbie doll. Promises to have and to hold until death or errant space heater placement do they part.
Believing it would appease the restless spirit of his dead wife, a Taiwanese man, Shang-Chi Shum, married a real plastic and in no way living Barbie doll last Sunday.

Religious scholars say according to the tenets of Buddhism,

in this life, Shang has been reincarnated as an idiot.

The happy couple enjoyed a lengthy ceremony surrounded by relatives and embarrassed loved ones.

Many of whom were also present when the groom met his current bride at the

factory where he made her.

After the wedding, the happy couple drove off to the reception, where they will dance

as the wedding band plays the standard, I knew the bride when she used to be a lump

of unmolded petroleum.

The 46-year-old groom had been hoping to remarry ever since his first wife's death over 20 years ago. But Chang never met the right woman until Mattel released the embodiment of my first wife, Barbie.
We were getting where we couldn't pay the bill. PG&E asked customers about their biggest concerns so we could address them one by one.
That's terrifying. That's fair.
Joe,

Regional Vice President, PG&E. We have to run the business in a way that keeps people safe,

but it starts driving costs down. I would love to see that.
We're on our way. I hope so.
PG&E

electricity rates are now lower than they were last year. Hear what other customers have to say

and what PG&E is doing about it at pge.com slash open dash lines. Welcome back to The Daily Show.
You know, with the global economy looking shaky, you may be wondering where you can safely invest your money. Well, Michael Kosta has you covered with an opportunity you can't miss.
When you think of successful markets that have thrived during the pandemic while so many others have perished,

you think of Zoom, Amazon, sweatpants, and haunted dolls.

That's right. Haunted dolls are big right now.

Now, I'm not usually an occult guy, but to survive in this economy, I'm willing to make a deal with the undead.

But first, I had to find make a deal with the undead.

But first I had to find out more about the business and who better to teach me than Kat Blowers, the number one seller of haunted dolls on eBay. Be scared of demons.
Be scared of negative energy. But other than that, if you're interested, you should jump in with both feet.
You are literally in the business of ghosting people. When did you notice that the haunted doll business was skyrocketing and that you are basically the Jeff Bezos of haunted dolls? I started in 2014 and there was only a few shops.
Now there's probably 50, 60 shops for haunted dolls. How many dolls would you say you've sold in the last year? Probably a thousand.
There's money in this? There is. I've seen a haunted doll go for $4,000 before.
Woo! Okay, now Costa's into it. But my big question, aside from how can I hide $4,000 of doll sales from the IRS, is what made a haunted doll a haunted doll? According to haunted doll sellers, any doll that was inhabited by the soul of a dead person was prime for selling.
But what made one haunting more expensive than another? When you say haunted, for me that sounds scary. You're also saying that there's a positive haunting? Absolutely, and I try to keep most of my stuff on the positive side.
Oh, you mean the baby with its legs ripped off? Actually, that one's not that positive. Right.
What if it's like a really evil spirit? I actually do charge a little bit more. I don't want the little young kids to be able to afford it.
You can sell a human soul on eBay. There was a ban.
Who was selling too many human souls? You have to have a disclaimer if a ghost causes you to murder your wife. Isn't capitalism fascinating? It can be.
That's about 25% of the business, and people send them to me, and right now I have a two-and-a-half-year waiting list for evaluations. Yeah.
What? Write down everything you know about the doll so that when I open the box, I know what I'm dealing with, and I'll talk to you in two-and-a-half years. The rest of the business is people contacting me looking for a haunted doll.

Are you looking for a little kid?

Are you looking for something that's going to challenge you?

Are you looking for something that's going to scare your neighbors?

There's spirits that will motivate you to do work.

There's spirits that will attract money to your house.

There's spirits that will attract love.

Wow.

Clearly Catherine was selling these haunted little hotcakes,

but who are the everyday folks buying these haunted dolls? Hi, oh I know, it's you. I know you.
Hey. Yep, THE Stormy Daniels.
Stormy's doll, Susan, was purchased in 2011 and is said to be cursed with a uniquely malevolent spirit. We believe Susan belonged to a little girl who died in 1955.
And it definitely had something to do with a stomach issue. Before we even started shooting, the producer on set here wanted to touch her.
And you said, don't do that. You'll shit your pants.
Yes. Three people that I slept with in a row she attacked.
They had stomach problems and back issues pretty much immediately. She's more mischievous than militias.
I've never felt like I was in danger. What has Susan added to your life? She adds protection.
When you go into these places, it could be dangerous. Okay, but is Susan really worth that much? I have been offered $7,500 for her once and $10,000 for her once, but she is not for sale.
She has her own TV show. She's on VH1's Surreal Life.
Anyone who follows her Instagram will know this little plastic bitch has been on yachts and Ferraris. Is that her handle, this little plastic bitch? It should be.
Would you say she's living her best afterlife? She is definitely living her best afterlife. So I went back to Kat to learn about the highly scientific analysis process used to identify a haunted doll.
So, bells. Okay.
After studying the extensive tools needed and the strict procedure... What if the UPS guy rings the doorbell? That screws it up.
I knew if I was serious about getting into the business of haunted dolls, the next step had to be trying out the haunted product to see what all the fuss is about. Her name's Jennifer.
She is about seven or eight years old, and we think she was murdered. Is it safe to say that she was killed by a white man? Yes.
Probably. Absolutely.
What is it with the white men lately? What would Jennifer cost for someone? 60, 70 bucks. 60, 70 bucks.
OK. All right, Jennifer.
Sorry you got murdered. So I left with my free trial named Jennifer.
And I took a video diary to record my feedback. Hey, so day one with Jennifer.
I don't know if I really get it yet. The only thing I can report, I have had some violent dreams.
There was a river of blood and there was stabbing, but still better than what I was dreaming about before, which was the state of this country. So I think I'm starting to get it a little bit.
Did you make this for me? I don't know if she's following me, or if I just bring her everywhere. I can't do this with you watching.
Thank you. The soul of this doll has excellent comedic timing.
It's just great having someone around who laughs at jokes. She is a haunted doll and I know what I'm saying and it sounds crazy, but it's just, it's wonderful.
Nice to meet you, nice to meet you. I'm going to kill you.
Just kidding. The trial's over, and I can't get into this business.
Sending Jennifer back to Catherine is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Jennifer.
You got to go. Get in the box.
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