Welcome to the doll outhouse, Kicking up a profit
Good day for Ken the Plumber, Bad day for profiting from your fame
GOOD DAY FOR: Ken the Plumber, as Mattel has augmented its line of Barbies and other dolls with a Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Gotta Go Doll, which triggers “potty waste” to appear when she sits on a toy toilet. The Baby Alive Learns to Potty doll is even more realistic—you feed her the included “green beans” and “bananas” and the doll passes them out the other end. Both dolls are on track to be big hits this Christmas season, to the dismay of child-development experts. (The Washington Post)
BAD DAY FOR: Profiting from your fame, as the Iraqi journalist Muntazar al-Zaidi remains in jail while the Turkish producer of the shoes he famously threw at President Bush has hired 100 extra workers to meet the surge in demand—Istanbul-based Ramazan Baydan plans to rename his Model 271 “the Bush shoe” or “Bye-Bye Bush.” Baydan’s company has received 300,000 orders for the shoe—four times its normal annual orders—since Zaidi’s shoe toss; 120,000 of the orders are from the U.S. (The Guardian)
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Russia rattles nuclear saber, orders tactical nuke drills
Speed Read President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian military to hold nuclear weapons drills in response to Western "threats"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Five top new women's watches
The Week Recommends From dancing diamonds to reconfigured classics, these models were recently revealed at Watches & Wonders Geneva 2024
By Alexandra Zagalsky Published
-
Social Security, Medicare gain years before benefit cuts
Speed Read The programs have a little longer than previously forecast before they run out of money — about a decade
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published