Research Paper 

  Introduction

Uno is a very popular game. Barbie is worldwide famous, along with Ken. These brands are owned by Mattel, the famous toy brand. Mattel has been around for a very long time. Most of the toys you grew up with are probably owned or made by Mattel.  Mattel has a lot of history. Owning most of the toy brands and creating even the most popular toys ever to this day. Hot-Wheels, Barbie dolls and so much more toys that they created. This toy brand has changed the game for everyone around the whole world. This is why Mattel is important to us all around the whole world.  Mattel was the majority of kids' childhoods because of the toys and games they created. The creators of Mattel were game changers now and back then. 

Early Life

           Elliot Handler was born on April 9, 1916, and was born in Chicago but grew up in Denver. He had a brother named Sidney Handler. After High School, he moved to Los Angeles. He went to study industrial design at the Art Center School in Los  Angeles, which now has a different name. While in Los Angeles, he lived with his future wife Ruth who was his highschool sweetheart (Chang). In 1938, Elliot and Ruth made a huge decision and decided to get married. They had a daughter named Barbara. Ruth worked as a secretary for Paramount Studios and took care of their child Barbara while Elliot went to school to study industrial design. In 1939 was when he began making fake jewelry and dollhouse furniture in his garage in Southern California (Chang). Later on, he decided to make a super realistic piano and sold them in New York. Ruth and Elliot accidentally mispriced their pianos, this made them lose about a dime for each individual one sold. Before Mattel was even created Elliot went to the army. He was serving in the army and then later came back to work on his toy career.

Beginning of Career

In 1945 was when Elliot , Ruth and Harold Matson founded Mattel. It was founded out of a workshop in Los Angeles. Mattel's name was a mix of Matson and Elliot's name. They first sold picture frames, which later changed to doll items such as doll furniture (Duhigg). Mattel went public in 1960 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1963. Mattel was selling out their toys superfast. They had success early on and were selling toys such as a child-size ukulele and the Uke-A-Doodle. The Handlers and Matson advertised these items on the new medium sized television. While selling all these items Ruth wanted a doll her daughter would play with, so she invented the Barbie doll. Elliot had no faith in Ruth's idea (Tukaki). The Barbie doll debuted at the New York toy fair in 1959. After the Barbie doll then came the Ken doll inspired by Elliot and Ruth’s son who had sadly passed (Tukaki). By 1965, the Barbie doll had already topped the sales with $100 million which was a huge success from the Handlers. Mattel had been doing so well that they agreed to purchase HiT Entertainment Sprout from Apax Partners in October 2011 for $680 million. 

Significant Accomplishments

Mattel has had many amazing accomplishments. The one that was so  memorable to this day is the Barbie doll bringing in Mattel  an amazing one million dollars a year since it was made. This is very  significant because Elliot didn't have any  faith at all in this idea and it turned out to be loved by kids all around the world . The Barbie doll was a teenage doll with a tiny waist, slender hips to demonstrate a young woman.  This changed the toy game for all creators and collectors. Ruth decided since Barbie was all alone she should have a boyfriend doll. So Ken was made, this brought in even more money as kids wanted to have  the matching pair of the  Barbie and Ken dolls. The Barbie doll is now an iconic  global icon. From all the money that  Mattel had been earning they were able to buy many brands from here on, Fisher-Price Inc., Tyco Toys Inc. and  the Pleasant Company Inc., the  makers of the American Girl Doll  brand (Mattel). In just five years Mattel became a part of the Fortune 500 company  in 1967. This means that Mattel is on  the list for the  top 500 companies in the United States (Tukaki). This was a huge accomplishment for Mattel since they were just a small company only  a  couple years ago.  Mr Handler though became so focused on making toy cars specifically hot-wheels. He loved designing different cars with different unique features. They had made  so many cars that they had ended up  manufacturing 10,000 totally different cars that Mr Handler came up with. Mattel entered the home of the video game console market in the 1980s but racked up $394 million dollars in loss only three years later  in 1983 and nearly filed for bankruptcy (Mattel). 

Impact on the World

Elliot Handler and Ruth Handler impacted the world in many ways. Elliot did a lot, he did not only create a worldwide toy company but served the army for a tiny amount (Chang).  He only went for a little while so that he could work on his company. Ruth had a big impact on the world the same way that Elliot did.  Ruth made what mattel is today, worldwide. Ruth created the Barbie doll. This impacted the whole generation of kids when the toys that Mattel made came out. These toys did not only affect the kids but grown  people as well. Fully grown adults would go out and buy collector barbie dolls because of how precious they were (Tukaki). This shows how much Barbie meant to some people. The Handlers created their own glory. They made their own designs and toys and made a full living  out of it. They both changed the world by showing people that toys can be for everyone and this is shown with the barbie doll. They made a bunch of different barbie dolls and still do. Another toy that affected their career was the Hot-Wheel (Chang). Kids and collectors would fight for these car toys. This shows how the Handler affected the world with their imagination and their determination to make toys for everyone.

Lessons Learned From their Life

Elliot and Ruth lived a life full of fun and creativity. One article says ¨ He loved the design part, and Ruth loved the business. It worked pretty well. He was a quiet, kind man. Elliot liked making toys a lot. They make people happy¨ (Duhigg). Showing how nice he was as a person. A lesson that Ruth learned that she wrote herself is ¨Helping other women became the answer to helping myself ¨ this gives inspiration to want to be like Ruth. (Tukaki). Ruth is someone people should look up to, she wanted to make others feel better and others happy and knew that doing that would help herself too. Handlers did a lot for kids and learned from their own kids to make others happy. Elliot loved his job because it even states here ¨A soft-spoken man, Handler was known at Mattel for his thoughtfulness and insistence that all employees call him by his first name at a time when such informality was unprecedented¨ (Chang).