Barbie and the Rockers in Out of This World

Crock and Roll

Dic: 1987


Now, you may be asking, "Aren't you a man? Why would you be picking on Barbie?"

Because I'm an equal opportunity crap reviewer. And while it can be argued that there is no such thing as a good Barbie cartoon, the choice this time around is definitely top contender for the worst. But let's go back in time and dissect exactly why.

In the late 80's, Hasbro was dominating not just the toy market, but of course the realm of the animated as well. Transformers, G.I Joe, and My Little Pony proved all successful ventures, but there was still one market left to attempt domination. That, would be the doll market dominated by Barbie. In 1985, Jem and the Holograms were released, both in doll and TV form. the show became an instant success, and like the other Hasbro-toons before it, the merchandise sold like hot cakes. Enough for the people at Mattel to try and get into the rock band gimmick. And thus, the Barbie and the Rockers toy line was released, as well as a cartoon video by Dic.

Yep, this is a total Dic move.

So, what was wrong with it? It suffers from what I call "New Kids Syndrome". Where the band involved are considered almost godly, and their bad crooning is enough to make even the most sane individual cream themselves in total awe.

So, let's rock out with this crock out. Let's review this thing.

There's no real intro or credits. Just a title card for this particular "episode", as an announcer says "Presenting in her first full length music video, here's Barbie in 'Our of This World'."



And we open our movie with Barbie and the Rockers, Ken, Dana, Didi, Derrick and Diva, performing in Japan. An announcer calls them the hottest group in the history of the world. Hoo boy, not even minute in, and the "New Kids" syndrome is kicking in like a punch in the gut. And in the middle of her performance, we get an assortment of scrolling articles continuing this ego trip, even going so far as to say Barbie won everything at the world music awards. Everything! She Jethro Tulled every non crappy pop category. She's even more popular than the freakin' Queen of England for pity sake. We learn that every country in the world goes insane for the Band. More so, that they declare Barbie the ambassador for world peace.


The..... Ambassador of world peace? Of all the Nobel prize winners, and humanitarians out there, you declare the leader of a crappy pop group the ambassador for world freakin' peace?

My god, even the New Kids craze wasn't crazy enough that the insane fans declared them ambassadors of world peace.




Later, at a restaurant what looks to be the Jetson residence, the band worry about what they're gonna do next. And from there we get a spontaneous dance number/song called "Best Friends". The following day, after apparently dancing all night, Barbie gets a letter, which informs her that there's going to be a ball in her honor. And, if you're curious, of course she asks Ken to go with her. And from there, another song, as Barbie gets dressed up. Barbie and Ken go to the ball, and after dancing, Barbie has an announcement. Since they've performed all over the world, there's only one place to conquer... Outer space.



The band, like myself right now, are a bit shocked at this stupid idea. But they go with it anyways, because they're just as dumb as Barbie. And this leads to another spontaneous song. This time the song is "do you believe in magic". We get a montage of the group getting ready for their outer space exploits. And following that, the group launches off into space, and we get yet another crappy pop song "Reaching for the stars".

The group finally arrive on a space station, and after dressing in anti gravity, are ready for their big performance. Dr. Leonard, head of the space station sets up the stage, which turns the station into a giant flower.



Boy, all this money wasted on this stupid project for world peace could've been spent on... I don't know.. actually fixing the world's problems instead of an extremely overhyped pop band's ego splurge.

The band performs as literally the entire planet watches on, singing for peace, and other crap. And that's pretty much it.

What a piece of crap. While the animation was pretty decent, the music was awful, even for late 80's pop. The characters have no personality except for always being happy, and I still don't buy any real reason for Barbie to go into outer space. But at least it was a short induction, and I never have....




Wait, Barbie and the Sensations Rockin' Back to Earth? This crap isn't finished yet? Jesus H. Macy...

See you this weekend with the conclusion.