Dolls at war: Sindy v Barbie
QUESTION What was the Barbie v Sindy court case?
EVER since U.S. toy giant Mattel launched Barbie in 1959, its rival Hasbro has looked on with envy. Its own toys never quite cut the mustard. In 1986 it struck a deal with Pedigree Toys of Exeter, who made Sindy, which had long dominated the British doll market.
Sindy was less glamorous than the pneumatic American Barbie, so before setting her loose on the European market, Hasbro gave her a makeover: her legs grew longer and slimmer, the size of her bust increased and she gained a Californian tan. Mattel sued for copyright infringement in a series of international legal cases.
Hasbro had made several failed attempts to crack the doll market: in 1967 with a doll based on Sally Field’s TV character The Flying Nun; in the 1970s with Leggy dolls with super-slim, long limbs; and in the 1980s with glamorous rock star Jem and the Holograms.
The revamped Sindy was a big departure from the wholesome British version: she rollerskated, listened to a Walkman, partied at the beach and reclined on her Day Dreaming Bed. Early sales were good and Hasbro tried the European market. When Mattel’s CEO John Amerman got wind of Barbie’s rival, he asked Hasbro’s Steve Hassenfeld to desist, but he refused. He’d invested £3 million in the new-look doll and defended Sindy as original.
When Sweet Dreams Sindy came on the market in Britain, Amerman’s lawyers sued for copyright infringement. As the doll was sold internationally, legal papers were filed in Britain, Holland, France, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Hong Kong, Hungary, Spain and Turkey. Sindy was impounded in France, where courts were persuaded by Mattel’s argument that she was a counterfeit Barbie. Other countries allowed her to be sold.
The court cases were comical, with measurements taken of the doll’s bust, waist, hips, shoulders, fingers and legs. Mechanisms allowing body parts to swivel and bend were scrutinised. The colour of eyes, eyelashes and eyelids was examined. In a Dutch court, lawyers wrangled over the size of Sindy’s nostrils as it was argued that her nose was more pointed, with deeper nasal passages.
Attention focused on Sindy’s breasts. Hasbro hadn’t increased her bust to the extent of Barbie’s, arguing that this was enough to make the two distinct.
Millions went in legal fees, with no end in sight. Finally, a week before Christmas 1992, Barry Alperin, Hasbro’s go-between with
Mattel, met Amerman and newly installed CEO Jill Barad in the Admirals Club at JFK airport. Opening his suitcase, he revealed five distinct, freshly sculpted Sindy heads, asking Barad to choose one she felt was a comfortable enough distance from Barbie’s features. She did so and with that, the legal battle ended.
Hasbro never had great success in the U.S. with Sindy, which went through several iterations before being dropped in 1998. Pedigree relaunched her in 2006 and again in a deal with Tesco in 2016. Mary Knight, London.
QUESTION Why does a Roman holiday mean an occasion when you find enjoyment in someone else’s pain?
A ROMAN holiday originally referred to an occasion on which entertainment or profit is derived from the injury or death of another. Its meaning has softened over time to roughly coincide with schadenfreude, the German term to describe pleasure derived from another’s misfortune.
The expression is directly traceable to an oft-quoted passage on a dying barbarian gladiator from the fourth canto of Byron’s 1818 poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage:
‘But where his rude hut by the Danube lay / There were his young barbarians all at play, / There was their Dacian mother. He, their sire, / Butcher’d to make a Roman holiday!’
There is a direct equivalent borrowed from Greek which is epicaricacy, though it is practically unknown to modern English speakers. It comes from the Greek epi, upon, plus chara, joy, and kakon, evil. Schadenfreude comprises the German words schaden, meaning damage or harm, and freude, meaning joy.
Lionel Forrest, Belfast.
QUESTION Have any actors been booted out of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?
AFTER actor Carmine Caridi’s appearance in Sidney Lumet’s 1981 film Prince Of The City, he was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which votes on the Oscars.
He was put on the list to receive VHS screeners (advance copies of films). Despite warnings not to distribute them, Caridi shared them with family and friends, including Russell Sprague, a notorious pirater who had once fixed his video recorder.
Matters came to a head in 2003