First Lady 1, Toy Industry 0

It looks like the first attempt to build a toy franchise around the nations “First Children” has come to a shuddering halt.  As you will recall, a couple of weeks ago Ty, Inc. issued two new dolls, “Sweet Sasha” and “Marvelous Malia.”  Well the New York Times reported today, February 3, 2009, in an article entitled “Dollmaker Drops Sasha & Malia Figures” that the company (Ty, Inc.)  has listed the dolls as retired.  

This comes as a reaction to Mrs Obama’s earlier objections. The New York Times reported that “…[a] spokeswoman for First Lady Michelle Obama had protested that the dolls were inappropriately using ‘young, private citizens for marketing purposes,’ even though the company, Ty Inc., insisted that the dolls were not intended to depict the Obama girls, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7.”

The article went on to comment that despite Ty’s insistence that the dolls did not depict the Obama children, “…the brown-skinned, brown-eyed dolls clearly bore something of a passing resemblance to the first daughters.  Sweet Sasha’s dark brown doll hair was twisted in braids, while Marvelous Malia’s was pulled into a long ponytail over one shoulder. Other dolls in the collection include Jammin’ Jenna, Happy Hillary, Precious Paris and Bubbly Britney.”

Ty took a shot and the First Lady shot back.  Anybody else want to take a chance?