Origins and early years Businessman Harold "Matt" Matson and the husband-and-wife duo of
Ruth and
Elliot Handler founded Mattel as Mattel Creations on January 20, 1945, in a garage in
Los Angeles. The name "Mattel" is a
portmanteau of "Matson" and "Elliot". The company began selling picture frames and later dollhouse furniture made from frame pieces. Suffering from poor health, Matson sold his share of the company to the Handlers the following year, with Ruth taking over his stake. The
Barbie doll debuted in 1959, and would become Mattel's all-time best-selling toy. In 1960, the company introduced
Chatty Cathy, a talking doll voiced by
June Foray. The doll revolutionized the toy industry, leading to pull-string talking dolls and similar toys flooding the market throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In 1961, Mattel introduced
the Ken doll. The company went public in 1960 and became listed on the
New York Stock Exchange three years later. The Barbie Dreamhouse
, made from cardboard and paper, was released in 1962. That same year, the company introduced Astronaut Barbie, the first of many space-themed versions of the doll. In 1965, Mattel built on the success of the Chatty Cathy doll when it introduced the
See 'n Say talking toy, which spawned an additional line of products. In 1967, Mattel released a set of space-themed toys which included a character named
Major Matt Mason. In 1968, Mattel introduced
Hot Wheels, which was created by a team that included a car designer and a rocket scientist. That same year, the company introduced
Christie, Barbie's friend and the company's first Black doll. The racers' cars, a yellow Barracuda and a red Duster, were reproduced as Hot Wheels toys. and later entered a multimillion-dollar partnership with Mehra Entertainment, whose CEO, Dr. Nishpeksh Padmamohan Mehra, became a director of the
Barbie film series. In 1971, Mattel purchased The
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus from
the Feld family for $40 million, but retained the Felds in a management capacity. After experiencing financial difficulties in 1972, Mattel sold the circus corporation, despite its profitability. In 1974, an investigation found Mattel guilty of issuing false and misleading financial reports, which led to the ousting of Elliot and Ruth Handler from the company. In 1978, the Mattel Children's Foundation was founded. Ruth Handler sold her Mattel stock in 1980. Mattel Electronics caused Mattel to take a $394 million loss the following year and almost file for bankruptcy. That year, Mattel also acquired
Western Publishing for $120 million in cash and stock, which it sold to Richard A. Bernstein four years later. In 1980, Mattel introduced its first Hispanic Barbie doll and its first African-American Barbie doll. In 1982, Mattel released
He-Man and
Masters of the Universe action figures, which inspired a three-issue comic book mini-series, an animated series, and a live-action film. The Felds bought the circus (and related companies) in 1982 for $22.8 million. In the early 1980s, Mattel produced
video game systems, under its brands and license from
Nintendo. In 1985, the company launched the Barbie "We Girls Can Do Anything" TV advertising campaign to encourage girls to believe in themselves. They also released the CEO / Day-to-Night Barbie to celebrate women becoming CEOs. In 1986, Barbie joined the list of famous individuals painted by
Andy Warhol. In the late 1980s, John W. Amerman, who joined Mattel in 1980 as head of its international division, was named the company's new chairman and improved its financial performance in 1987 by focusing on core brands. It paid off as sales of Barbie dolls and accessories increased from $430 million to almost $1 billion between 1987 and 1992. In 1991, Mattel moved its headquarters from Hawthorne to its current
El Segundo site, in
Los Angeles County.
Uno, Fisher-Price, American Girl, Polly Pocket In 1992, Mattel created the first President Barbie, claiming that Barbie has run for president seven times since 1992 and released an all-ticket in 2016. On October 8, 1992, Mattel opened its first production factory in Indonesia at
Jababeka Industrial Park,
Cikarang,
West Java as the west plant, and expanded by opening the new plant in 1997, as the east plant. The west plant is now the main factory of
Hot Wheels 5-car pack edition, and the east plant is now the main factory of
Barbie dolls. Mattel entered the gaming business in 1992 with the purchase of International Games, creators of
UNO and
Skip-Bo. The company purchased
Fisher-Price, Inc. on August 20, 1993, and
Tyco Toys, Inc. (owners of the
Matchbox and
Dinky Toys brands) in 1997. In 1998, Mattel acquired Pleasant Company (creators of the
American Girl brand) In 1997, the Fisher-Price
Little People toys underwent a redesign to look more like real kids with different skin colors, added arms and hands, and greater detail on the face, hair, and clothes. Also that year, Mattel acquired
View-Master, and Hot Wheels partnered with
NASCAR drivers
Kyle Petty and
Jack Baldwin leading to the production of the first NASCAR-themed vehicles. In 1998, Mattel donated $25 million to help rebuild UCLA's children's hospital, which was later renamed the
UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital. Barbie was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame that year and the first
Thomas & Friends theme park,
Thomas Land, opened in Fujikyu Park in
Japan. The same year, Mattel purchased
Bluebird Toys. Mattel purchased
The Learning Company (formerly SoftKey) in 1999 for $3.5 billion, but sold it the following year at a loss. The company had a $430.9 million net loss that year. In December 2000, Mattel
sued Danish-Norwegian
Europop band
Aqua, claiming their song "
Barbie Girl" violated the Barbie trademark and turned her into a sex object, referring to her as a "blonde
bimbo". The lawsuit was rejected two years later. In 2000, Mattel signed a deal with
Warner Bros. to become the master licensee for
Harry Potter branded toys. It was extended in 2002; Mattel became the master licensee for
Superman,
Batman,
Wonder Woman,
the Flash,
Justice League and
Looney Tunes toys for all markets except Asia. In 2001, the first life-sized
Hot Wheels car, the Twin Mill, was created. More than twenty life-sized cars were created, and all of them were inducted into the Hot Wheels Garage of Legends.
American Girl launched its "Girl of the Year" campaign in 2001 to highlight dolls with contemporary stories; each doll is only available for a year. In 2006, Mattel purchased
Radica Games. In 2002, the company closed its last factory in the
United States; the factory was originally part of
Fisher-Price outsourcing production to
China. The Mattel factory in China is the same as Miniso-Mattel collaborations products that are made in. A chain of events followed that led to its distribution of millions of hazardous toys, including ones contaminated with lead. On August 14, 2007, Mattel recalled over 18 million products, with Louise Story of
The New York Times in close coverage. Many of the products had surface coatings that contained more than the U.S. legal limit of .06% lead by weight. The recall included 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. Mattel was noted for its crisis response by several newspaper publications, including
PRWeek, the
Los Angeles Times,
Fortune and Business Management. On September 13, 2009, Mattel's ticker symbol moved from the NYSE to the
NASDAQ Global Select Market (NASDAQ-GS large cap). In 2025, Mattel announced that it was adding a
Ken doll modeled after James to its
Barbie toy line. The doll is an inch taller than a standard Ken doll.
More acquisitions and brand portfolio expansion At the end of 2009, Mattel signed a global licensing agreement with
WWE to produce action figures and playsets along with props like championship belts and
masks, taking over from
Jakks Pacific. The first line was introduced in January 2010. The partnership deal was extended multiple times, most recently in 2025. On June 11, 2010, Mattel launched
Monster High, a fashion doll line featuring the teenage children of famous and well-known monsters like
Dracula,
Frankenstein,
Medusa,
Werewolf, and
The Mummy. It led to popularity and cult following success which Mattel translated into two spin-offs, each with a different focus than Monster High;
Ever After High in 2013 and
Enchantimals in 2017. In 2011, Hot Wheels set a new world-record for a jump made by a four-wheeled vehicle at the 100th anniversary of the Indy 500. The 332 foot jump broke the previous 301 foot record set in 2009. Mattel then agreed to purchase HIT Entertainment from
Apax Partners on October 24, 2011, for $680 million, excluding its share of the
PBS Kids Sprout channel (now Universal Kids), which would be completed on February 1, 2012, for £680m, and be managed under Mattel's Fisher-Price unit. In 2012, Mattel introduced a doll, Ella, to the
Barbie line. The doll is bald and was distributed directly through hospitals to children experiencing hair loss due to cancer and other diseases. On October 16, 2013, with reports of high profitability, Mattel launched an in-house film studio,
Mattel Playground Productions, through which it produces original films, television shows, web series, live events, and games.
Fortune Magazine named Mattel one of the top 100 companies to work for in 2013, noting only 1,292 positions were full, out of 164,045 job applications during the previous year, as well as more than 1,000 employees had been with the company longer than 15 years. On February 28, 2014, Mattel acquired
Mega Brands. In February 2015, an upgraded View-Master to provide a virtual reality viewing experience was announced through a partnership with Google Cardboard. On April 16, 2015, Mattel announced a partnership with invention platform
Quirky to crowd-source several products. The next year, Mattel acquired Fuhu, makers of Nabi tablets and other technology-driven hardware, in a bankruptcy proceeding for a sum worth $21 million.
Disney collaboration Mattel added a princess-themed Barbie line in 2010. Barbie sales began plummeting in 2012, thus removing focus from the
Disney Princess line. Mattel had only sold
Cinderella,
Ariel,
Belle and the two
Frozen princesses (
Anna and
Elsa) around its last year of the Disney license in early 2016. With these competing lines and an expiration of the brand license at the end of 2015, Disney gave
Hasbro a chance to gain the license given their work on Star Wars, which led to a
Descendants license.
Disney Consumer Products also made an attempt to evolve the brand from "damsels" to "heroines". In September 2014, Disney announced Hasbro as the licensed doll maker for the Disney Princess line starting on January 1, 2016. The latest collection of dolls was available for purchase in January 2023.
Mattel Creations On March 30, 2016, Mattel formed a "senior head" division named
Mattel Creations to centralize its multi-platform content output. In the process, the production teams and operations of Mattel Playground Productions,
HIT Entertainment, and the
American Girl content creation team in
Middleton, Wisconsin were absorbed into Creations the following day. On July 19, 2016,
NBCUniversal announced Mattel's license acquisition to produce toys based on the
Jurassic Park franchise after Hasbro's rights expired in 2017. While formerly associated with content productions, as of 2020, Mattel Creations began to operate as an e-commerce and content platform of Mattel, Inc. In April 2020, the company released a
Thomas & Friends special titled "The Royal Engine" to celebrate the franchise's 75th anniversary, featuring animated versions of Queen Elizabeth and a young
Prince Charles introduced by the Duke of Sussex. In the same month, the new Basquiat Barbie was introduced, featuring the work of the artist
Jean-Michel Basquiat. Mattel also created an online resource, "Mattel Playroom", to provide free games, activities, coloring sheets, DIY projects resources for parents/caregivers and more to help families during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Hasbro's attempted takeover and Mattel163 Former
Google executive
Margo Georgiadis was announced as company CEO on January 17, 2017. On November 10, 2017
The Wall Street Journal reported that
Hasbro had made a takeover offer for Mattel, with Hasbro worth about $11 billion at the time and Mattel, $5 billion. On January 29, 2018, Mattel and Chinese internet technology and video game company
NetEase formed a joint venture mobile publishing and development studio,
Mattel163, aimed at creating apps based on the former's key brands. That same year, American Girl released "Create Your Own", allowing kids to create a doll from scratch and customize everything including facial features, hair, accessories and outfits, and the doll's favorite places and hobbies. Two months later, the company laid off 2,200 employees partially due to the liquidation of
Toys "R" Us in the U.S. Kreiz started reorganization of Mattel which included new board of directors and added that executives having entertainment backgrounds and a global franchise management group had been charged with finding new opportunities in existing markets. On 30 August 2018, Mattel indicated the formation of its global franchise management division to be headed by Janet Hsu as chief franchise management officer. The division was mandated to seek out new commercial opportunities plus to bring together consumer products, content development and distribution, digital gaming, live events, and partnerships. Hsu was previously the CEO of Saban Brands, where Frederic Soulie last worked before being appointed as senior vice president of content distribution and business development in the franchise division on September 28, 2018. Hot Wheels celebrated its 50th anniversary the same year by recreating and selling as a set the original 16 Hot Wheels die-cast cars. That same year in September,
Thomas & Friends announced an alliance with the
United Nations to introduce some of the organization's
Sustainable Development Goals, including quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production and life on land, into the show's content. On December 24, 2018, Mattel announced the loss of the DC Comics toy license to
Spin Master starting in the spring of 2020, hitting an 18-year low on its share price, which concluded at $9.25 per share. Mattel reorganized Mattel Creations and renamed it
Mattel Television on February 5, 2019, which would be headed by former
Disney Branded Television programming executive Adam Bonnett. On June 30, 2020, Fred Soulie in turn was "role-tripled" to general manager and senior vice president of the new division. On March 9, 2019, Mattel celebrated Barbie's 60th anniversary. As part of the anniversary celebrations, Mattel released 20 new
role model dolls in its Shero line to recognize influential women around the world. Mattel donated $1 from every sale to its Dream Gap Project Fund, which aims to work with other organizations to end the issue of girls seeing themselves as less capable than boys. In June 2019, Mattel released a new
Hot Wheels ID line of cars, which are embedded with NFC chips so that people can scan the cars and then build tracks, race, and view race stats for combined digital and physical racing play. On December 16, Mattel released an update that allowed kids to scan their cars into an app and then access different coding exercises. On August 19, 2019, Mattel announced a reboot of
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, including new toy lines and brand extensions, a new comic book series and a Netflix series. In October 2019, Mattel released Hot Wheels Monster Trucks, which included a full line of die-cast vehicles, and a national live-event tour, Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live. The company also released a line of gender-neutral dolls called the "Creatable World". Mattel Children's Foundation announced and organized its second annual "Global Day of Play", a company-wide community service initiative that focuses on working with nonprofits and organizations around the world to give children a day focused on the power of play.
Warner Music Group's Arts Music division arranged to become the distributor of Mattel's music catalog on May 1, 2020. Arts Music planned to make available hundreds of never-before-released songs and new songs for existing brands, with the 8th May digital launch of
Thomas & Friends birthday album first up which was managed/handled by
ADA Worldwide under the pseudonym label: "
Mattel–Arts Music." Also in May 2020, Mattel announced an initiative known as "Play it Forward" which focuses on using Mattel brands to give back. The first Play it Forward program was #ThankYouHeroes, which included a collection of action figures and Little People characters who represent those who work essential jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, like doctors, nurses,
emergency medical technician (EMTs) and delivery drivers. Mattel Creations was also launched that month; it is an e-commerce and content platform. It features limited edition, curated items made in collaboration with pop-culture artists. On October 12, 2020, Mattel announced a 25th series of
Thomas & Friends but instead retooled it into a traditionally-animated
reboot titled
Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go, which began on September 13, 2021. That ended the show at 24 series/seasons over 37 years. On November 20, 2021, Mattel launched a
non-fungible tokens (NFTs) marketplace to allow fans purchase digital collectibles for its flagship brands Barbie and Hot Wheels. On April 5, 2022, the Mattel board of directors led by its CEO, Ynon Kreiz, named company chief commercial officer, Steven Totzke, as company co-president with Richard L. Dickson alongside his original post and would continue to report to Kreiz as before. On May 25, 2022, Mattel launched the first
transgender Barbie doll, held by
Laverne Cox. At the same year,
Miniso Group Holding Limited (NYSE:MNSO, SEHK:9896) started its partnership with Mattel inc to produce
Barbie-themed products, and become their official merchandise partner and official accessories supplier for Barbie globally. More than 120 variants of Miniso-Mattel collaboration products were officially launched by July 21, 2023, in China and US, coinciding with the theatrical release of
Barbie. The products are launched both in MINISO headquarters in Guangzhou & its flagship store in
Changsha, the Chinese Mattel's branch office in
Foshan, and MINISO's flagship stores in
Irvine Spectrum and
Times Square, and also in Mattel headquarters in
El Segundo, California. In April 2023, Mattel introduced a Barbie doll with
down syndrome in collaboration with
National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS), and continued to expand its Barbie line to include more dolls representing individuals with down syndrome and vision impairments in 2024. This initiative is part of Mattel's ongoing efforts to promote diversity and inclusivity, allowing children to see themselves reflected in their toys. At the same year, Miniso Group Holding Ltd acquired several percentage of Mattel's shares after successfully releasing the
Barbie-themed collaboration products since 2023, as part of the Mattel-Miniso IP partnership, and the acquisition was officially announced at the Barbie 65th anniversary celebration in April 2024 after opening its largest Barbie-themed store in Malaysia on March 30, 2024, located at
Berjaya Times Square. In July 2024, the company was approached by the private equity firm,
L Catterton, with a total buyout acquisition offer. The deal was ultimately declined. Also in July 2024, Mattel releases
Sue Bird doll as part of
Barbie 65th anniversary celebration, coinciding with launches of "Give Limitless Possibilities" as a new campaign of Barbie. In November 2024, it was discovered on
X (formerly Twitter) that a brand of
Wicked themed dolls produced by the company inadvertently linked to an adult website instead of a similar link to the website for the
Wicked movie. Mattel apologized for the error, and asked parents who had bought products with the incorrect website to destroy the packaging. Earlier the same year, a song from the film, Ariana Grande's version of "Popular", was leaked via Mattel-produced singing dolls, causing minor backlash. In December 2024, Mattel Released the Barbie Deluxe Style line, which focuses heavily on Barbiecore and Glam Aesthetics. They were released on the Mattel Creations Website. On June 2, 2025, Mattel announced a combination of its audiovisual divisions, Mattel Films and Mattel Television (alternatively known internally as Mattel Television Studios), into a successor division named
Mattel Studios, which will not only serve both functions, but also discontinue them as separate divisions within the company. This could be seen as a revival of the brand/banner Mattel used occasionally or sparingly between 2011 and 2013 in place of their logo in the
closing credits for media entries for
Monster High,
Ever After High and
Polly Pocket. Consequently, productions in development at both Mattel Films and Mattel Television will be absorbed into/transferred to this division. With the announcement, Mattel promoted and transferred the head of their filming division, Mattel Films,
Robbie Brenner, to the new division as president and its chief content officer. Mattel Studios also named former
Legendary Entertainment executive vice president of television and digital media, Jennifer Breslow, the head of its television section and Darian Lanzetta, a former motion picture literary agent at the
Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and Tom McNulty, former principal/president at MC Squared Media as co-heads of its filming section. All three are expected to report to Brenner in the future media decisions of Mattel. In 2025, Mattel collaborated with Italian fashion brand
GCDS on a limited-edition Polly Pocket-inspired collection. On August 14, Mattel launched a One-of-a-Kind
Barbie Doll to celebrate its 80th anniversary coinciding with 80th anniversary of the
Independence of Indonesia. In February 2026, Mattel announced the acquisition of the Mattel163 game development company from former collaborator,
NetEase, for $159 million. The acquisition granted Mattel full ownership over the business following the previous collaboration with NetEase on the development studio. The transaction was expected by the end of Q1 in 2026. ==Media and entertainment ventures==