Founder of Mattel dies this month

[Tekwych]

Eliot Handler co-founded what became the world's largest toy company. Together with a friend Matt Matson, he began making furniture for dolls' houses under the name, Mattel. Their first successful product was a toy ukulele which appeared in the 1940s shortly before Handler bought out his partner and formed a business partnership with his wife Ruth. It was she who came up with the idea of Barbie. Her husband was sceptical about the doll's potential but Barbie went on sale in 1959 and within 10 years, was the mainstay of the company's business and a figure of hate for the newly emerging feminist movement. Handler himself invented Hot Wheels, tiny toy cars which little boys could play with while their sisters dressed their dolls. Hot Wheels became a rival to Britain's Matchbox range, which Mattel eventually bought in 1996. By this time Handler and Ruth had been forced out of Mattel when a new management team began to move the company away from its toy manufacturing base.

[TSR]

I know it's just a typo, but it's like you're forecasting that he will die sometime this month of August.

He died on July 21 btw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliot_Handler

[dayraven]

there are a thousand inappropriate comments on his cause of death running through my head right now... but i'm going to choke them down and just say that this is sad... i hope his casket is shaped like a giant hot wheel.

[Mose]

That's sad. Is the management team that forced Handler and Ruth out the ones running Mattel now?

[Tekwych]

As individuals - no. As a continuos business model - yes, it is the sam group still in charge.

[dayraven]

yip... and that is why matty now blows.