Companies are constantly seeking ways to undermine their opposition or the ride on their coat tails. But it's also not at all uncommon in the industry. This isn't a secret, this is a well documented fact that Mattel themselves are really annoyingly proud of doing.

Mattel have successfully managed to take some of the excitement out of Hasbro's release. When Jem hits people say 'these look just like that Barbie and the Rockers line'. The result is just what Mattel hoped for. They create Barbie and the Rockers and they beat Jem to store shelves by several months despite starting later. So they get together and they cobble together a line themselves, using parts they already have to speed up production. Mattel know this could potentially be HUGE for their rival, they need some way to take the wind out of their sails. It's the 80s, Hasbro has a new doll line in the works that really captures a culteral zeitgeist, they're calling it JEM and Mattel has caught wind of this.

To explain to those who don't understand what that means, i'll tell you a story. So what on earth was coming out that Mattel was trying to preempt to market? Was it a rival to MGA's OMG line? That didn't feel right. 'What is Mattel rushing these out to counteract?'īecause they came outta nowhere using reused graphics and parts and felt rather hasty.įor months we speculated. See, when these were released a lot of old guard doll people all voiced the same question. Import fees were a bit painful but considering this line is fairly unlikely to get a global rollout (haha watch, that'll happen now!) i'm glad at least to have my hands on two of the set.īut before we delve into the review I want to discuss the elephant in the room.

Mattel annouced these a few months back to a lot of excitement, rapidly quashed when we all found out they were store exclusives and worse, US ONLY exclusives.īut I really do love me some alternative dolls with interesting hair so I sort of put a cheeky bid in on a couple on ebay and sort of.

Wild hearts crew doll