MATTEL

'Mattel Inc.' () is an American toy company and is the largest toy company based on revenue. Its products include Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. It was founded in 1945 by Harold "Matt" Matson and Elliot Handler (hence the name "matt-el"). Handler's wife Ruth Handler would later become president and is credited with establishing the Barbie product line for the company in 1959. Today the Barbie line is responsible for more than 80% of Mattel's profits. Mattel has been forced to issue major recalls of it's products due to reliance on sub-standard Chinese manufacturing and raw materials that have been shown to pose dangerous and deadly threats to consumers.

Contents

Corporate governance

Corporate leadership

Board of directors

History

2007 Product recalls

Products

Toys

Games

Video game consoles

Mattel in Popular Culture

References

See also

External links

Corporate governance

Corporate leadership

★ Robert A. Eckert, Chairman of the Board, CEO (since May 2000)

★ Kevin Farr, CFO

★ Neil Friedman President Mattel Brands

★ Ellen L. Brothers, President American Girl Brands

★ Bryan G. Stockton, Executive VP of International

★ Thomas A. Debrowski, Executive VP of World Wide Operations

★ Alan Kaye, Senior VP of Human Resource

★ Bob Normille, Senior VP, General Counsel and Secretary

Board of directors

Current members of the board of directors of Mattel Inc. are:

★ Robert A. Eckert, Chairman

★ Tully Friedman

★ Dominic Ng

★ Andrea Rich

★ Ronald Sargent

★ Christopher A. Sinclair

★ G. Craig Sullivan

★ John Vogelstein

★ Kathy White

History

The company originally produced picture frames and dolls house accessories from picture frame scraps. With the success of its dolls house accessories, the company turned its attention to toys. The company became publicly traded in 1960.
Although it has never accepted responsibility, Mattel has often been accused of stealing ideas for their toy-lines. For example in the 1980s the company held a contest to invent a character for their He-Man line. The winner was to receive a college scholarship and their idea was to become an actual toy. The toy idea that won (a Camera-Headed figure) was never produced. Mattel instead took ideas from children who did not win, such as Mosquitor, which was produced and sold quite well. Throughout its history, the company has been criticized for exploiting the same children that they sell their toys to.
Mattel was the original sponsor of Matty's Funday Funnies from 1959 to 1962.
Throughout the 1960s, Mattel diversified its lineup by purchasing smaller toy companies that produced unrelated toy product lines. In 1966, Mattel purchased a small manufacturer of low-quality plastic lunchboxes. Mattel began exploring ideas for using this company's processes to make new products out of formed plastic. An employee noted that Matchbox was producing a line of die-cast cars but that the cars' wheels didn't roll well. Mattel created a competing line of small toy cars using superior bearings that enabled the new cars to roll further. They paired this advantage with formed plastic technology from the acquired company that allowed Mattel to develop innovative chassis that excited their target market, boys. This resulted in the very successful Hot Wheels line. Another acquisition allowed Mattel to make the diecast chassis that were light and could be painted with bright colors.
An independent audit of Mattel, released on November 3, 1975, revealed that company officials had fabricated press releases and financial information to "maintain the appearance of continued corporate growth."
In 1978 Mattel began development of the Intellivision, a videogame console to compete with Atari VCS. The videogame system was released in 1979 under the branding Mattel Electronics. By the time of the release it was the most powerful console on the market.
In 1987, Mattel distributed the NES in Europe, as Nintendo at the time did not have a European office. The early European versions of the NES were called the Mattel Version, while later versions distributed by Nintendo were called the NES Version. The only difference between the two was "Mattel" or "NES" branding under Nintendo Entertainment System 'badge' on the face of the console.
Between 1986 and 1990, Mattel was also responsible for marketing NES products in Canada, producing bilingual packages, and co-branding them. However, many gray-market American packages were also sold in Canada, which caused Mattel to sue Nintendo. Nintendo eventually took over sole distribution of for North America.
In 1993, Mattel bought the Fisher-Price toy company. In 1996, Mattel purchased Tyco Toys, then the third largest toy manufacturer.
In 1999, the ill-advised purchase of a major software publisher, TLC, for $3.6 billion led to the ousting of chief executive Jill Barad (See Brøderbund.)
In 2006, Mattel purchased Radica USA, an electronic toy manufacturer.
Mattel serves as the parent company for American Girl (formerly Pleasant Company), Radica USA, and Fisher-Price. Currently, it is headquartered in El Segundo, California.

2007 Product recalls

On August 2, 2007, Mattel's Fisher-Price unit recalled almost a million Chinese-made toys, including ''Dora the Explorer'' and ''Sesame Street'' toys because of possible hazards due to the toys being coated in lead-based paint. ^[1]
On August 14 2007, Mattel recalled over 18 million products because it was possible that they they could pose a danger to children. The products were manufactured in China did not conform to safety standards (see Chinese National Standards and China compulsory certification). Some of the products had been avilable in US stores since 2003, during which time Mattel did not flag them up as being harmful enough to warrant a recall. Mattel to announce toy recall
Recalled items included die-cast ''Cars'' character, Sarge, made between May and July 2007, were found to have to have been manufactured using paint containing higher than acceptable levels of lead (436,000 recalled globally),
7.1 million Polly Pocket toys produced before November 2006; 600,000 Barbie and Tanner Playsets; 1 million Doggie Daycare; Shonen Jump's One Piece; and thousands of Batman Manga toys due to exposed magnets. 18.2 million items were recalled in total.
The lead-based paint recall was similar to Fisher-Price, a subsidiary of Mattel, two weeks earlier. On August 1, 2007 Mattel recalled Sesame Street's Big Bird and Elmo, and Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer for lead levels in paint.^[2]
Zhang Shuhong, co-owner of the Lee Der Toy Company, which had made a number of toys for Mattel's Big Bird and Elmo based on the Sesame Street children's television series, and Dora the Explorer, based on a cartoon character from the Nickelodeon channel committed suicide by hanging himself at one of his company's factories in Foshan on August 11, 2007, according to authorities.^[3] In the factory's loading bay. the BBC's Quentin Somerville found boxes of toys made for Mattel and its Fisher-Price division and going nowhere. The business was closing for good.^[4]
On 4 September, Mattel recalled a further 530,000 affected toys in the US – and 318,000 outside the US – after its testing found that the Chinese-made products contained levels of lead that are dangerous. This third recall in a month included accessories for ''Barbie'' dolls and Fisher-Price toys.^[5]

Products

Toys

★ Aladdin (film)

★ Aladdin (TV series)

★ American Girl

★ Disney's Atlantis

★ Barbie and Ken dolls (Named in 1959 after Elliot and Ruth Handler's children)

★ Batman

★ Batman Begins

★ Beauty and the Beast (1991 film)

★ Big Jim

★ Bravestarr

★ Cabbage Patch Kids (1994-2000)

★ Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future

★ Computer Warriors (1989-1990)

★ Chatty Cathy (1959-1965, 1969-1971, 1998, 2001)

★ Demolition Man (film)

★ Diva Starz

★ Fisher-Price

★ Flash Gordon (toys based on The New Adventures of Flash Gordon)

★ Food Fighters

★ Hercules (1997 film)

★ Hot Wheels

★ The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996 film)

★ Isabella

★ Jack-in-the-box

★ Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors

★ Justice League Unlimited

★ The Last Action Hero

★ Liddle Kiddles

★ The Lion King

★ M-16A2 (1973)

★ Masters of the Universe action figures

★ Magic 8 Ball

★ Major Matt Mason (1966 - 1970)

★ Matchbox

★ Max Steel

★ Mighty Ducks (animated series)

★ Mulan

★ My Child Dolls (1986-1988)

★ My Scene Dolls

★ Naruto

★ The New Adventures of He-Man

★ Pixel Chix

★ Pixar's Cars Diecast Line

★ Pocahontas (1995 film)

★ Polly Pocket

★ Popples plush toys

★ Pound Puppies

★ Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots (1966)

★ Secret Wars (1984-1985)

★ See 'n Say

★

★ The Simpsons

★ Strange Change Machine (1968)

★ Superman

★ Superman Returns

★ Tarzan (mid-1970s)

★ Tarzan (1999 film)

★ Toss Across

★ Upsy Downsy

★ Tyco R/C

★ Wayne Gretzky

★ Vertibird

Games

★ Cinq-O

★ MAD GAB

★ Radica USA

★ Othello (Reversi)

★ Scene It?

★ Sonar Sub Hunt (1961-?)

★ UNO

★ Scrabble

★ Pictionary

★

★ Apples to Apples (acquired from Out of the box Publishing)

Video game consoles

★ Intellivision

★ Intellivision II

★ Intellivision III (unreleased)

★ Intellivision IV (unreleased)

Mattel in Popular Culture

★ In the movie ''Toy Story'', T-Rex (Rex), asks Buzz Lightyear where he is from. Buzz replies that he's from Star Command, and Rex responds, "Oh. Well, I'm from Mattel!" - then adds it was actually a smaller toy company purchased in a leveraged buyout, a reference to Mattel's corporate history – as well as the fact that Mattel produced the tie-in products for the movie.

★ In ''Toy Story 2.'' Tour Guide Barbie takes the other toys round the toy store – and, as she passed the Buzz Lightyear section, she says: "Mattel sorely underestimated the demand for Buzz Lightyear figures in 1995." This is a reference to the first movie's success catching Mattel short of stock that year.

References

See also

★ 2007 Chinese export recall crisis

★ Lead Health Effects

External links

★ Mattel's Bob Eckert's video apology and list of recalled toys

★ American Girl

★ Mattel

★ Fisher-Price

★ Hot Wheels

★ ''NicholsCapGuns.com'' The largest cap gun website which also features Mattel cap guns.

★ ''SonarSubHunt.com'' The Sonar Sub Hunt Web Page.

★ barbie.com

★ radicagames

★ The Action Figure Archive: Mattel

★ Matchbox Toys

★ Intellivision Lives

★ Unsafe Chinese Products Page. Updated frequently as new reports of recalls are published. Contains links to specific information and photographs of recalled products at the Web site of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, and in media reports.