A Smidge of Midge

Midge, the first girl friend of Barbie and redhead goddess, but she wasn't always redhead...

At the beginning, in the 60s, children had with Midge three hair options, blonde, brunette or red with a more innocent face than Barbie as a response to all the criticism that said that Barbie was too much... womanly, sophisticate, revealing... but at some point, after less than a decade in the toy store shelves PJ stole her facemold and Midge went on a hiatus from Barbie world to came back in 1988 with the sweetest of the molds, the Steffie facemold, with Midge California and Cool Times to adopt a bit later the Diva face as her own for many years until  2012 when Mattel gave her "The Face" again, the Steffie facesculpt for the serie "Life in the Dreamhouse".

Her presentation at the series was pretty cool, she appears first in black and white and dressed in 60s fashions in the episode "A Smidge of Midge", mantaining the action of her first commercial ever in 1963 as if she had went forward in time. She is scared of the electronic devices and doesn't understand many things of this century. She developes a crush on Ryan (no Alan in this serie) and Barbie gives her a makeover and, after that, she is in color and has a new appearance. And for the record Mattel did a dream OOAK black and white Midge for the series, sadly was unavailable for the public.

But Midge also had a story of her own in Japan that couldn't be obviated... The japanese concept of beauty had little to do with the hollywoodesque Barbie, in fact the most successful actress in Japan was Audrey! Petite, big doe eyes, pale and oval face, black hair... so the first exclusive doll for Japan, coinciding with Midge's american launchment, was the "New Midge" and had a different headmold and makeup than her counterpart in USA with sculpted hair like Barbie Fashion Queen, little nose and lips and dark doe eyes looking sideways.

In all this time Midge has skated in California beaches, had fun in the snow, played roles like Sherezade and Guinevere in “The Little Theatre”, played softball, she has been a rock star, cruised the Mediterranean on a ship, swam in a mermaid tail, slept under the stars, married Allan and became a mom raising lots of polemics. Who knows what more she could do!