Saturday, December 2, 2017

Tooniversary: Barbie & the Rockers (1987)

Mattel was rebooting Barbie in 1987, this time positing the iconic doll as a would-be rock star in answer to Hasbro's Jem & The Holograms. However, a proposed series went no further than a 2-part miniseries that saw the name of Barbie's band change in mid-stream.

Barbie & The Rockers was given plenty of hype as far as the toy line was concerned. Meanwhile, Mattel had issued a license to DIC and Saban, the latter owned at the time by Mattel, to adapt the toy line into a cartoon.

Actress Sharon Lewis was the voice of Barbie, and posted her appreciation for the following video being posted to YouTube about 2 years ago. In this episode, Barbie/Sharon covers the Dave Clark Five's "Catch Us If You Can", among other tracks.



DIC & Mattel couldn't come to an agreement on an ongoing series. Part 2 of the miniseries saw the band be rechristened as the Sensations without any explanation, though this might've been a hint that things were falling apart. The following season, DIC rebooted and landed a licensing deal with Hasbro for Maxie's World, which we've previously covered.

No rating. Never saw this before today.

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