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The story
Founded by Elliot Handler and Harold Matson on Jan 1945.1
Origins and early years
Businessman Harold "Matt" Matson, together with the married couple Ruth Handler and Elliot Handler, founded Mattel as Mattel Creations on January 20, 1945, in a garage in Los Angeles. The name "Mattel" is a portmanteau of "Matson" and "Elliot". The company began selling picture frames and later dollhouse furniture made from frame pieces. Suffering from poor health, Matson sold his share of the company to the Handlers in 1946, with Ruth taking over his stake. In 1947, Mattel had its first successful toy, a ukulele called "Uke-A-Doodle".
Mattel was incorporated in Hawthorne, California, in 1948. The company started advertising on television when it became the first sponsor of the Mickey Mouse Club series. The Barbie doll debuted in 1959, and it became Mattel's all-time best-selling toy. In 1960, the company introduced Chatty Cathy, a talking doll voiced by June Foray. The doll strongly influenced the toy industry, leading to pull-string talking dolls and similar toys flooding the market throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In 1961, Mattel introduced the Ken doll. The company went public in 1960 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange three years later.
The Barbie Dreamhouse, made from cardboard and paper, was released in 1962. That same year, the company introduced Astronaut Barbie, the first of many space-themed versions of the doll. In 1965, Mattel built on the success of the Chatty Cathy doll when it introduced the See 'n Say talking toy, which spawned an additional line of products. In 1967, Mattel released a set of space-themed toys that included a character named Major Matt Mason.
On May 18, 1968, Mattel introduced the Hot Wheels brand (of scale model cars), which was created by a team that included a car designer and a rocket scientist. That same year, the company introduced Christie, Barbie's friend and the company's first African-American doll. Christie was followed by a continuous line of additional Barbie-related characters over subsequent decades. In 1969, the company changed its "Mattel Creations and Mattel, Inc.: Toymakers" branding to simply "Mattel" and launched its "red sun" logo. Mattel also acquired a series of other companies during the 1960s.
In 1970, Hot Wheels created a sponsorship agreement with drag racing drivers Don "The Snake" Prudhomme and Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen. The racers' cars, a yellow Barracuda and a red Duster, were reproduced as Hot Wheels toys. That same year, Mattel formed a joint-venture film production company, "Radnitz/Mattel Productions", with producer Robert B. Radnitz. It later entered a multimillion-dollar partnership with Mehra Entertainment, whose CEO, Dr. Nishpeksh Padmamohan Mehra, became a director of the Barbie film series.
In 1971, Mattel purchased The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus from the Feld family for $40 million, but it retained the Felds in a management capacity. After experiencing financial difficulties in 1972, Mattel sold the circus corporation, despite its profitability.
In 1974, an investigation found Mattel guilty of issuing false and misleading financial reports, which led to the ousting of Elliot and Ruth Handler from the company.
After the Handlers
Arthur S. Spear, then a vice president at Mattel, took control of the company in 1975 and returned it to profitability in two years. In 1978, the Mattel Children's Foundation was created. Ruth Handler sold her Mattel stock in 1980.
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Mattel debuted an electronics line in 1977 with a handheld electronic game. Its success led to the line's expansion with game consoles, and then the line was eventually incorporated in 1982. Mattel Electronics caused Mattel to take a $394 million loss the following year and almost file for bankruptcy.
In 1979, Mattel purchased the Holiday on Ice and Ice Follies shows for $12 million through Feld Productions. That year, Mattel also acquired Western Publishing for $120 million in cash and stock, which it sold to Richard A. Bernstein four years later.
In 1980, Mattel introduced its first Hispanic Barbie doll and its first African-American Barbie doll. In 1982, Mattel released He-Man and Masters of the Universe action figures, which inspired a three-issue comic book mini-series, an animated series, and a live-action film.
The Felds bought the circus (and related companies) in 1982 for $22.8 million.
In the early 1980s, Mattel produced video game systems under its brands and licenses from Nintendo in several countries.
In 1985, the company launched the Barbie "We Girls Can Do Anything" TV advertising campaign to encourage girls to believe in themselves. It also released the CEO / Day-to-Night Barbie to celebrate women becoming CEOs. In 1986, Barbie joined the list of famous people painted by Andy Warhol.
New York City-based venture capital firms E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co., and Drexel Burnham Lambert invested a couple of hundred million dollars in Mattel in 1984 to help the company survive. However, sales of the Masters of the Universe action-figure line declined, leading to lower revenue in 1987.
In the late 1980s, John W. Amerman—who joined Mattel in 1980 as head of its international division—was named the company's new chairman; in 1987, he improved the company's financial performance by focusing on core brands. This strategy was successful, as sales of Barbie dolls and accessories increased from $430 million to almost $1 billion between 1987 and 1992.
Mattel secured licensing and sponsorship rights from The Walt Disney Company in 1988 to create a new line of infant and preschool plush toys, to sponsor attractions, and to develop and sell toys at three Disney theme parks. Mattel also negotiated exclusive rights to sell dolls, stuffed characters, and preschool toys based on Disney characters. On January 31, 1988, Mattel shut down its operations in the Philippines. The company shifted the distribution and sales of Mattel-branded toys and games to Richprime Global, Inc. (formerly Richwell Trading Corporation). Mattel returned to working with Disney the following year. In 1989, Mattel purchased Corgi Toys.
In 1991, Mattel moved its headquarters from Hawthorne to its current location in El Segundo, in Los Angeles County.
Acquisitions: International Games, Fisher-Price, American Girl, Bluebird Toys
In 1992, Mattel created its first President Barbie. The Barbie character has run for president seven times since 1992, and an all-ticket version was released in 2016.
On October 8, 1992, Mattel opened its first production factory in Indonesia at the Jababeka Industrial Park in Cikarang, West Java (as the west plant), and expanded by opening a new plant in 1997 (as the east plant). The west plant is now the main factory for the Hot Wheels 5-car pack edition, and the east plant is now the main factory for Barbie dolls.
Mattel entered the gaming business in 1992 by purchasing International Games, creators of Uno and Skip-Bo. The company purchased Fisher-Price, Inc. on August 20, 1993, and Tyco Toys, Inc. (owners of the Matchbox and Dinky Toys brands) in 1997. In 1998, Mattel acquired Pleasant Company (creators of the American Girl brand) and Swindon, England-based toymaker Bluebird Toys (along with its most valuable property, Polly Pocket). In the same year, the first American Girl retail store opened for business in Chicago.
In 1996, the Fisher-Price Little People toys underwent a redesign: increased the resemblance to real children with different skin colors; added the figures' sculpted arms and hands; and added greater detail on the face, hair, and clothes. Also in the next year, Mattel acquired View-Master, and Hot Wheels partnered with NASCAR drivers Kyle Petty and Jack Baldwin, leading to the production of the first NASCAR-themed vehicles.
In 1998, Mattel donated $25 million to help rebuild the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) children's hospital, which was later renamed the UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital. The Barbie doll was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame that year. The same year, Mattel purchased Bluebird Toys.
Mattel purchased The Learning Company (formerly SoftKey) in 1999 for $3.5 billion, but sold it the following year at a loss. The company incurred a $430.9 million net loss that year.
On July 21, 1999, Mattel entered into an alliance with Japanese toy and entertainment company Bandai, which would allow Mattel to sell Bandai's toy lines in Latin America while Bandai handled Mattel's products in Japan.
Mattel earned the first grant for the Disney Princess doll license in 2000. In December 2000, Mattel sued Danish-Norwegian Europop band Aqua, claiming that their song "Barbie Girl" violated the Barbie trademark and turned her into a sex object, referring to her as a "blonde bimbo". This lawsuit was rejected two years later.
In 2000, Mattel signed a deal with Warner Bros. to become the master licensee for Harry Potter branded toys. This deal was extended in 2002; Mattel became the master licensee for DC and Looney Tunes toys for all markets except Asia.
In 2001, the first life-sized Hot Wheels car, the Twin Mill, was created. More than twenty life-sized cars were created, and all of them were inducted into the Hot Wheels Garage of Legends.
American Girl launched its "Girl of the Year" campaign in 2001 to highlight dolls with contemporary stories; each doll is only available for a year. In 2006, Mattel purchased Radica Games.
In 2002, the company closed its last factory in the United States; that factory had originally been part of Fisher-Price's outsourcing of production to China. A chain of events led to the distribution of millions of hazardous toys, including some contaminated with lead. On August 14, 2007, Mattel recalled more than 18 million products, with Louise Story of The New York Times providing close coverage. Many of these products had surface coatings that contained more than the U.S. legal limit of 0.06% lead by weight. Other toys were recalled because their strong, detachable magnets could endanger children. Mattel rewrote its policy on magnets, finally issuing a recall in August 2007. Because of exposed magnets, this recall included 7.1 million Polly Pocket toys produced before November 2006, 600,000 Barbie and Tanner Playsets, 1 million Doggie Daycare, One Piece, and thousands of other toys. In 2009, Mattel paid a $2.3 million fine to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission for marketing, importing, and selling noncompliant toys. Mattel was noted for its crisis response by several publications, including PRWeek, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, and Business Management.
On January 5, 2009, HIT Entertainment named Mattel's Fisher-Price division as the global master toy licensee for its Thomas & Friends franchise (outside of Japan), replacing RC2 Corporation's Learning Curve brand in the North American market as well as the HIT Toy Company for the TrackMaster range.
On September 13, 2009, Mattel's ticker symbol moved from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to the Nasdaq Global Select Market (NASDAQ-GS large cap).
More acquisitions and brand portfolio expansion
At the end of 2009, Mattel signed a global licensing agreement with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) to produce action figures and play sets along with props such as championship belts and masks, taking over from Jakks Pacific. The first line was introduced in January 2010. Having developed a diverse portfolio of toys in more than 50 global markets and being consistently ranked as the top action-figure property in the United States, Mattel launched multiple collaborations— for example, WWE and Ghostbusters, as well as WWE and Masters of the Universe. The partnership deal was extended multiple times, most recently in 2025.
On June 11, 2010, Mattel launched Monster High, a fashion-doll line featuring the teenage children of famous and well-known monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein, Medusa, Werewolf, and The Mummy. This line led to popularity and cult-following success, which Mattel translated into two spin-offs, each with a different focus than Monster High: Ever After High in 2013 and Enchantimals in 2017. In 2011, a life-sized Hot Wheels car set a new world record for a jump made by a four-wheeled vehicle at the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500 (Indy 500) race. The 332-foot jump broke the previous 301-foot record set in 2009.
Mattel agreed to purchase HIT Entertainment from Apax Partners on October 24, 2011, for $680 million; this agreement excluded its share of the PBS Kids Sprout channel (now Universal Kids), which would be completed on February 1, 2012, for $680 million, and be managed under Mattel's Fisher-Price unit. In 2012, Mattel introduced a new doll, Ella, for the Barbie line. The doll was bald, and it was distributed directly through hospitals to children experiencing hair loss because of cancer and other diseases. That same year, Mattel purchased HIT Entertainment. On October 16, 2013, after reports of high profitability, Mattel launched an in-house film studio, Mattel Playground Productions, through which it produced original films, television shows, web series, live events, and games.
Fortune Magazine named Mattel one of the top 100 companies to work for in 2013, noting that only 1,292 positions were filled out of 164,045 job applications during the previous year, and that more than 1,000 employees had been with the company longer than 15 years.
On February 28, 2014, Mattel acquired Mega Brands. In February 2015, an upgraded View-Master—to provide a virtual reality (VR) viewing experience—was announced through a partnership with Google Cardboard. On April 16, 2015, Mattel announced a partnership with invention platform Quirky to crowdsource several products.
The next year, Mattel acquired Fuhu—the maker of Nabi tablets and other technology-driven hardware—in a bankruptcy proceeding for $21 million.
Mattel added a princess-themed Barbie line in 2010. Barbie sales plummeted in 2012, prompting a shift away from the Disney Princess line. Mattel had sold only Cinderella, Ariel, Belle, and the two Frozen princesses (Anna and Elsa) around its last year of the Disney license in early 2016. With these competing lines and an expiration of the brand license at the end of 2015, Disney gave Hasbro a chance to gain the license given Hasbro's work on Star Wars, which led to a license for the Descendants franchise. Disney Consumer Products also attempted to evolve the brand from "damsels" to "heroines". In September 2014, Disney announced that Hasbro would be the licensed doll maker for the Disney Princess line, starting on January 1, 2016.
On March 30, 2016, Mattel formed a "senior head" division called Mattel Creations to centralize its multiplatform content output. In the process, the production teams and operations of Mattel Playground Productions, HIT Entertainment, and the American Girl content-creation team in Middleton, Wisconsin were absorbed by Mattel Creations the following day. On July 19, 2016, NBCUniversal announced Mattel's license acquisition to produce toys based on the Jurassic Park franchise after Hasbro's rights expired in 2017.
While formerly associated with content production, as of 2020, Mattel Creations began to operate as an e-commerce and content platform for Mattel, Inc. In April 2020, the company released a Thomas & Friends special titled "The Royal Engine" to celebrate the franchise's 75th anniversary, featuring animated versions of Queen Elizabeth and a young Prince Charles introduced by the Duke of Sussex. In the same month, the new Basquiat Barbie was introduced, featuring the work of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Mattel also created an online resource, "Mattel Playroom", to provide free games, activities, coloring sheets, do-it-yourself (DIY) project resources for parents/caregivers, and other resources to help families during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hasbro's attempted takeover and Mattel163
Former Google executive Margo Georgiadis was announced as Mattel's CEO on January 17, 2017. On November 10, 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that Hasbro had made a takeover offer for Mattel, with Hasbro worth about $11 billion at the time and Mattel worth about $5 billion. Mattel rejected the offer less than a week later, according to Reuters.
On January 29, 2018, Mattel and NetEase—a Chinese internet technology and video game company—formed a joint-venture mobile publishing and development studio, Mattel163, aimed at creating apps based on Mattel's key brands. That same year, American Girl released the "Create Your Own" service, allowing children to create a doll from scratch and customize all aspects, including facial features, hair, accessories and outfits, and the doll's favorite places and hobbies.
Company reorganization and production partnerships
In January 2015, board member Christopher Sinclair replaced CEO Bryan Stockton, which was followed by two-thirds of senior executives resigning or receiving layoffs.
On April 19, 2018, Mattel named former Maker Studios CEO Ynon Kreiz as chairman and replacement CEO for outgoing CEO Georgiadis, who proceeded to lead Ancestry.com (effective April 26, 2018). Two months later, the company laid off 2,200 employees partly because of the liquidation of Toys "R" Us in the U.S. Kreiz started a reorganization of Mattel, which included a new board of directors; in addition, a global franchise management group and executives having entertainment backgrounds were charged with finding new opportunities in existing markets.
On 30 August 2018, Mattel announced the formation of a global franchise management division, to be led by Janet Hsu as chief franchise management officer. The division's mandate was to seek new commercial opportunities, as well as bring together consumer products, content development and distribution, digital gaming, live events, and partnerships. Hsu had previously been the CEO of Saban Brands, where Frederic Soulie last worked before being appointed as senior vice president of content distribution and business development in Mattel's franchise division on September 28, 2018. Hot Wheels celebrated its 50th anniversary the same year by recreating and selling the original 16 Hot Wheels die-cast cars as a set. In September of the same year, the Thomas & Friends franchise announced an alliance with the United Nations to introduce some of the organization's Sustainable Development Goals into the show's content; these goals included quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, and life on land.
On December 24, 2018, Mattel announced the loss of the DC Comics toy license to Spin Master, starting in the spring of 2020. Mattel's share price hit an 18-year low, closing at $9.25 per share.
Mattel reorganized the Mattel Creations division and renamed it Mattel Television on February 5, 2019; it would be headed by former Disney Branded Television programming executive Adam Bonnett. On June 30, 2020, Fred Soulie was "role-tripled" to general manager and senior vice president of the new division.
On March 9, 2019, Mattel celebrated the Barbie doll's 60th anniversary. As part of the anniversary celebrations, Mattel released 20 new role-model dolls in its Shero line to recognize influential women around the world. Mattel donated $1 from each doll sale to its Dream Gap Project Fund, which aimed to collaborate with other organizations on ending the problem of girls seeing themselves as less capable than boys.
From Wikipedia’s article on Mattel, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7