USA: BARBIE IN SEX ROMP.

In Plastica Fantastica, the kids' blonde doll snorts drugs and demands kinky sex.

(c) Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail Ltd, 1997.
UNITED KINGDOM
SCOTTISH DAILY RECORD 28/07/97 P16

UK: BUYLINES... BARBIE SPAGHETTI.

THE tin, decked out in Barbara Cartland pink, is as incongruous on the supermarket shelf as a supermodel in a shell suit. Food is not normally packaged in fuchsia with a sparkly border. But this campest of cans is no normal tin of spaghetti.

The tomato sauce may be the familiar sweet red gloop but, thanks to the wonders of pasta technology, it contains Barbie Doll accessories fashioned out of wheat and water. There is a bow, high-heeled shoe, necklace and bouquet as well as a love heart and baroque B for Barbie. How miraculous is that?

This can is 34p - proof that Barbie is not just a phase four-year-old girls go through to annoy their right-on parents. She is a highly collectible icon, with books and societies dedicated to collecting her costumes and combing her improbable nylon hair. This tribute in spaghetti is surely a museum piece of the future. Japanese fanatics must already be laying down pallets of the stuff as a long-term investment. It is the Biba baked beans de nos jours.

In case any casual observer should imagine that this is junk food, the information that Barbie pasta shapes are "free from artificial colour, flavour and preservative" is contained in a large yellow flower. The sauce is also fortified with vitamins and iron, presumably so that the little girls who eat it can grow up to be big and strong - and nothing at all like Barbie.

UNITED KINGDOM
SCOTSMAN 22/7/97 P19

AUSTRALIA: BOYS REINVENT BARBIE.

To the boys she is either a sex toy or a gun.

Dr Glenda MacNaughton, of Melbourne University's department of childhood studies, gave Barbie dolls to 32 4-and 5-year-olds.

She found the boys immediately undressed Barbie, admired "Barbie's boobies", kissed her - then used her as a gun, behaviour Dr MacNaughton said was very gender stereotyped.

The 14 girls in the group concentrated on grooming Barbie, dressing her in different outfits and brushing her hair.

(c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1997.
AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND
DAILY TELEGRAPH (AUSTRALIA) 23/6/97 P15

USA: INTERNATIONAL - WORLD BULLETIN - MATTEL'S NEW BARBIE DOLL.

Becky, the disabled Barbie doll introduced in American toy shops last month, has a problem: the doors of the Barbie doll house are too narrow for her wheelchair, an apparent breach of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. Mattel, which manufactures the doll, acknowledged the fault yesterday and said it would produce a brand-new, wheelchair-friendly doll's house this summer.

(c) Telegraph Group Limited, London, 1997.
UNITED KINGDOM
DAILY TELEGRAPH 11/6/97 P18

USA: BARBIE JOINS THE REAL WORLD

Barbie joins the real world. (Mattel plans to introduce Share a Smile Becky, a doll in a wheelchair)(Brief Article).

Whether it's her idealized measurements her weakness in math, Barbie is hopelessly incorrect, politically speaking. Meet Share a Smile Becky, Barbie's "friend with a disability." With her bright pink wheelchair, Becky "was designed so that the Barbie doll world will reflect the richness and diversity of the real world," says a Mattel press release. Is Barbie culturally sensitive after all? Not quite, says M. G. Lord, author of Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll. She wonders why Barbie's friend, and not Barbie herself, has the disability. "In 1960, Mattel introduced dolls of color as friends of Barbie," she notes. "It wasn't until 1980 that the dream girl herself could be black or Hispanic."

Clearly, Mattel sees a market for Becky, says Chris Byrne, editor of Market Focus: Toys. The primary buyers, predicts University of Alabama sociologist Michele Wilson, will be "sensitive parents trying to raise sensitive children." Will we be seeing more dolls like Becky? "To a degree a company like Mattel shapes consumer preferences, but most often it reflects them," says Lord. "If it involves Barbie, it represents a trend."

But children are still wrestling with those body idealization issues. "One child said 'Becky's legs aren't skinny like a paraplegic's,' " says Julie Overton of Winners on Wheels, a program for disabled kids. "I said, 'True, most paraplegics' legs aren't that shapely, but then, whose legs are?' ".

U.S. News & World Report, Vol.122, No.21
COPYRIGHT 1997 U.S. News and World Report Inc.

UK: FOOD AND DRINK - LET THEM EAT BARBIE HOW THE CHILDREN DO THE CHOOSING

Food and Drink - Let them eat Barbie How the children do the choosing - Fiona Beckett reports on the latest attempts to capitalise on pester power.

VISIT any supermarket as the schools come out and you will witness the following scene. "Mummy, can I have one of these?" "No, you can't. We've got ordinary yogurts at home." "Oh pleeease. Just one." "Oh, all right," succumbs the weary and exasperated parent as she adds it to her already laden trolley.

It is a classic example of what the marketing fraternity calls "pester power" - the growing influence that small children have on household shopping. Gone are the days when mum decided what the family ate. These days the decision is more likely to be made in response to what is being advertised on television, what film has just come out or what the current hot currency is for "swapsies" at school.

Targeting food products at children is nothing new, but recently many more manufacturers and supermarkets have latched on to the potential of this increasingly lucrative market.

Kleshna Handel, a marketing consultant who advises clients such as Jacobs and Marmite, says: "It started when the supermarket trolley changed its shape so you could carry a small child round with you. Nowadays, children's awareness of brands can start as young as two or three, once they can make an association with what they're watching on telly."

Manufacturers have also become more sophisticated in aiming products at specific age groups. "It's not simply a question of marketing to children, full stop. The key is realising there are several different audiences within the four-to-11 age group," says Handel.

An example of this is tinned pasta shapes, which now range from toddlers' favourites Thomas the Tank Engine and Postman Pat through Power Rangers and Street Sharks up to the latest addition to the Heinz range, Barbie pasta shapes.

Steve Marinker, a spokesman for Heinz, says the company realised there was a gap in the market for a "girl-oriented pasta shape".

"All of the character pastas were unisex or boy-oriented, yet in research girls placed pasta as their second favourite food," he says. (The first was chips.) And there is, he adds, no bigger character than Barbie - a £2 billion brand: "It outsells Sindy 15 to one. It's streets ahead of any property you can name."

OTHER booming areas are novelty-shaped chicken and fish products, such as Bernard Matthews Turkey Dinosaurs, Chick 'n' Teddies ("Mealtimes will Bearly be the same") and Wily Whales described as "Interesting whale shapes formed from flaked white fish".

One of the strongest factors in persuading children to want a product is a gift. Many desserts, such as Cap'n Borg and Muller Kids Corner, include "collectables" - toys that can be swapped at school - a double whammy for the manufacturer, which can charge more for its product (up to 20p more than a standard yogurt) and ensure a repeat purchase.

Some firms are sensitive to accusations of exploitation, preferring to take the moral high ground. Safeway, which introduced a range of miniature lunch-box-sized fruit and vegetables at the beginning of this month, says that it was responding to demand. "We found that the biggest concern among the families we spoke to was to get their children to eat more fruit and vegetables as an alternative to snacks," says Tom Brooks, Safeway's marketing controller for produce.

He believes the company pleases parent and child: the fruit is washed and individually wrapped to save working mothers time, and is specially developed in smaller sizes and, in the case of pears, with softer skins to make them more palatable to children.

"It's early days, but the feedback we're getting says that children are stopping in the fruit and vegetable department instead of hurling themselves through to snacks," says Brooks.

Iceland's launch of a range of "Wacky Veg" designed to increase children's vegetable consumption is rather less high minded. Although the project has the blessing of the Cancer Research Campaign, from the parent's point of view it is a poor deal. Iceland's new chocolate-flavoured carrots are £1.15 for 450g, when you can buy three times as many pre-sliced carrots for 79p.

It is all a far cry from the days of "eat up your greens". But why don't parents simply insist that children eat what is put in front of them? The answer is changing social circumstances - the rise in the number of working mothers and the decline in family meal times.

"In the old days the attitude was that you'll sit there until you've finished it," says Handel. "But if you've got to get children off to school before you go to the office, you'll do anything to get something acceptable down them. It works at the other end of the day, too. If you come home exhausted, you're grateful for anything they'll eat. The pace of life is so fast that anything that helps you is an assistance."

ALL OF which is good news for the food manufacturers. Develop a taste for processed foods early enough and chances are you have hooked a consumer on "added value" foods for life.

"The philosophy is you go after mum when she's got the baby, then target the mother and child together, then the child on its own," says Handel. "Then you stay with them until they're grown up and have children of their own. It's a case of get 'em young, keep 'em for life."

(c) Telegraph Group Limited, London, 1997.
UNITED KINGDOM
DAILY TELEGRAPH 17/5/97 P6

USA: BARBIE PROTESTERS AREN'T PLAYING AROUND - TOYS.

LEAD: Barbie has more to worry about than what to wear on outings with Great Date Ken. Now there's the Pink Anger rebellion against Mattel Inc., led by Barbie's most adoring fans.

Mad about Barbies with bad haircuts and livid over Mattel's attempt to muzzle their favorite magazine, Barbie collectors are doing what Barbie would never do: fight. They are firing off angry letters to Mattel on pink stationery in what they call a Pink Tidal Wave. They are boycotting Barbie, refusing to buy the plastic princess for one solid month.

They are committing what had been unthinkable treason: stocking up on Barbie's rival-in-loveliness, Ashton-Drake's Jean.

Barbie hobbyist-turned-rebel Priscilla Wardlow has snapped up three Jean dolls since the boycott got underway May 1. Wardlow, so devoted to Barbie that Mattel used her in an infomercial, bought 40 to 50 Barbies last year. Now she is standing firm: "I won't be buying any until the issues are resolved."

The Pink Protest, triggered by scattered slip-ups in quality and concerns about censorship of a collector magazine, is unlikely to seriously dent sales of Barbie, among the world's best-selling toys. Together with her cars, clothes, pets and friends, Barbie raked in $1.7bn for Mattel in 1996.

But hard-core collectors, a band 250,000 strong, contribute to the mystique about Barbie that has elevated a 38-year-old child's plaything into a cultural icon. Their protest, spreading around the globe via the Internet, is drawing concern from El Segundo-based Mattel: Three vice presidents spent six hours last week with two leading collectors to begin hashing out differences.

The extraordinary summit ended (as most summits do) with key issues unresolved. Said Sandi Holder, a collector delegate at the meeting: "They want everyone to go away and be happy in Pink Land."

With the boycott into its 10th day, Pink Land is looking increasingly blue. Avid collectors, mustering their resolve, are staying out of tempting pink toy aisles packed with the latest dolls. Online Barbie bulletin boards function as digital support groups for hobbyists going cold turkey.

"Doing great on day 2," a collector named Carol posted several days ago. "Sat in the car at K mart so would not be tempted while hubby getting cat food."

Carol was stronger than a collector calling herself Mary from San Ramon. She broke down while window shopping in the pink aisle of a Toys 'R Us, buying two new Barbies. The slip cost her: While away from her home she missed delivery of four mail-order Barbies.

"I got my just desserts," she posted. "I will not go to TRU until June 1."

Pink Anger aside, collectors have an almost familial bond with Mattel. Since gearing up its collectors' doll lines eight years ago, Mattel has courted Barbie lovers. It sends representatives to Barbie conventions, supports Barbie clubs and provides Barbie fans with information. It is easy to see why: Die-hard hobbyists together buy at least 750,000 Barbies each year and another 28m adults, nostalgic about the doll they played with as kids, occasionally purchase one for themselves.

Pink Anger has its roots in a series of manufacturing goofs and marketing blunders that point to a need for tighter controls at Mattel. First came Poodle Parade Barbie, a replica of a 1965 doll exact in every detail save one: Poodle Parade's hair seemed to have been trimmed with a chain saw. Then came Barbie's friend Francie, a reissue of another vintage doll, whose undersized shoes split when placed on her dainty feet.

Beyond fashion sins, Mattel misjudged and overproduced some dolls, causing prices to fall. Collectors who bought early got stung. Star Trek Barbie, shipped late to stores because of production problems, pushed Pink Anger to new frontiers. Prices skidded to $29.99 from $79.99 when unsold stock lingered on shelves, according to some collectors.

The final blow came last month when Mattel filed a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles against the publisher of several collector-oriented periodicals that mix flattering photos of Barbie with barbed new product reviews and occasional satire. The suit accusing the Miller's publications-an assortment of newspapers, magazines and price guides-with copyright and trademark infringement aroused the Pink Power movement.

Online Barbie chat groups buzzed about 1st Amendment rights and what collectors viewed as Mattel's Big Brotherish behavior. The Iron Curtain may have fallen, but in America, they said, a toy company is stomping on the Bill of Rights. Could unofficial Barbie Web sites be next?

"Sounds like communism!" sniffed one posting.

"Take a stand girls!" said another.

In Chicago, Barbie collector Ian Henzel created the Pink Anger Web site to, as he put it, "focus the anger." Quickly translated into German and Japanese, the Pink Anger call to action was heard around the world. In a show of solidarity, rebels stopped using the B in *ar*ie in their Internet postings.

"It's just like the '60s!" enthused Norita Bergmann, 48, whose Great Lakes chapter of the Barbie Collectors Club had a run-in with Mattel over using Barbie in its name. After sending the club a "cease and desist" letter last fall, she said, Mattel agreed to let it use the Barbie name for one year. "I feel like I am back in college," she said. "It is us versus them." Forget that back then Barbie was an anti-feminist lightning rod.

In its recent meeting with two collectors, Mattel confessed marketing missteps and promised to make things right. The company said collectors disappointed with Poodle Parade Barbie's bad hair day will get new Barbie heads-absolutely free. Mattel vowed to do right by Francie collectors and issue them shoes that fit the doll.

Sensitive to complaints about flooding the market, the company pledged to reduce by 15% the models of collectible Barbies it will issue in 1997. And the company said it would work with the clubs so that they could license the Barbie name at no charge.

But Mattel refused to back down regarding the Miller's publications, maintaining that the toy company also has rights. Ann Parducci, one of the Mattel vice presidents at the meeting, said the publications unfairly profit from using Barbie's images without permission. She believes that the Pink Anger movement, while loud, is small.

Challenged this week by a collector at Mattel's annual meeting, an event punctuated by screenings of Barbie commercials, Chief Executive Jill E. Barad stood her ground. A photo spread in a recent issue of Miller's put Barbie in an unflattering light, she said.

"It showed Barbie with alcohol, Barbie with pills," Barad said. While professing that Mattel "loves the collectors," Barad was unambiguous about her priorities: "What I do in my job, first and foremost, is protect Barbie."

Mattel said it is negotiating with publishers Dan and Barbara Miller in the hope of reaching an amicable resolution. The company wants them to sign a licensing agreement that would allow it to review periodicals before they are published. (A rival magazine for Barbie collectors had entered such a licensing deal.)

Given Mattel's financial heft, legal experts expect that the Millers, who publish their periodicals from their Spokane, Wash., home, to eventually settle. But they said it is not clear Mattel would prevail should the matter go to trial.

Legal issues aside, "Mattel may end up shooting itself in the foot," said Eugene Volokh, who teaches copyright law at the UCLA School of Law. A forced licensing deal could reduce collector interest in a magazine that likely serves to build enthusiasm about Barbie.

"They could be alienating the customers who are most loyal," said Volokh, who hastened to add: "Of course, Mattel knows its business better than I do, so I'm hesitant to say they are screwing up."

Unhappy collectors lack such inhibitions. "Mattel has taken action after action that is hostile to our group," said Wardlow, who with Holder met with the Mattel vice presidents. "They are stealing our hobby. We want our hobby back."

(c) The Times Mirror Company 1997.
UNITED STATES
LOS ANGELES TIMES 10/5/97 P1

USA: Barbie Fun Facts

Introduced: 1959

Original price: $3

Current price: Average doll retails for about $10

1996 worldwide sales: $1.2bn

International scene: American girls from 3 to 11 years old own an average of 10 dolls, compared to seven in Italy and five in France and Germany

Worldwide market: More than 140 countries

Wardrobe update: About 120 new outfits produced annually

Pets: Barbie has owned 17 dogs, 11 horses, five cats, a parrot, a chimpanzee, a panda, a lion cub, a giraffe and a zebra

Some Careers and Avocations

1959: Teenage fashion model

1960s: Ballerina, nurse, stewardess, astronaut, candy striper volunteer, student, fashion editor and teacher

1970s: Surgeon, Olympic downhill skier, figure skater and gymnast

1980s: Aerobics instructor, business executive, dress designer, television news reporter, veterinarian, rock star, UNICEF ambassador, army officer, dancer

1990s: Pilot, diplomat, music video star, naval petty officer, Marine Corps sergeant, rap musician, roller-blader, chef, presidential candidate, pediatrician, dentist, paleontologist, medic, police officer, engineer, scuba diver, artist, baseball player, lifeguard and firefighter

Source: Mattel Inc.

EDITION: Orange County Edition

SECTION: Business

(c) The Times Mirror Company 1997.

UNITED STATES

LOS ANGELES TIMES 30/4/97 P2

USA: DOWNPLAY BARBIE AND KEN AS REALISTIC PHYSICAL ROLE MODELS.

Source: Industry Week, Cleveland, OH, May 6, 1996.

About Women & Marketing, Vol.10, No.4, April 1, 1997

(c) 1997 Information Access Company. All rights reserved.

CANADA: FRONTLINES - MAKEOVER BARBIE.

Sly merchants are giving the doll an unofficial update

Perhaps you've heard of Twirling Ballerina Barbie and Enchanted Evening Barbie, the latest heirs of such classic Mattel dolls as Malibu Barbie. But "Trailer Trash Barbie"? Meet a very amended, decidedly non-Mattel version of the real thing now being offered by one of several mischievous shopkeepers in San Francisco, and part of a growing backlash against the commercial icon."Trailer Trash Barbie" comes with a cigarette in her mouth, platinum hair revealing black roots and a baby swung over her hip. Then there's "Drag Queen Barbie," a Ken doll in gown and wig, and "Big Dyke Barbie," replete with pierced nose. The dolls have become a cult hit among those who love to loathe Barbie. As a thirtysomething San Francisco woman recently told the local newspaper: "Deep down, a part of us still wants to look like her. We still want the Malibu beach house. That's why we hate Barbie."

GLOBE AND MAIL (TORONTO) 25/4/97

DUBAI: IRAN SAYS ITS "ORIENTAL" SARA WILL SEE OFF BARBIE.

"Some 15,000 Iranian-made girl dolls named Sara and 5,000 boy dolls named Dara will be introduced to markets this summer," the official IRNA news agency quoted Mohsen Chini Fourhousan, managing director of the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, as saying.

Fourhousan said the dolls would have "an oriental appearance...to counter the cultural invasion of the West as well as the models of Western women and men introduced by Western-made toys and dolls."

Iran's religious leaders in 1996 declared U.S. Mattel Inc's Barbie doll un-Islamic and ordered sales of the imported doll stopped.

(c) Reuters Limited 1997
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

USA: BARBIE IS MAKING REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY AT FAO SCHWARZ.

GEORGE, the newest FAO exclusive Barbie, is the second in the American Beauties Collection, and is already making waves by marking the most unprecedented event in the 38 year history of the most famous and beloved fashion doll of all time. Barbie as GEORGE shows Barbie dressed for the first time ever as a man, and not just any man but George Washington himself, the father of Barbie's country of origin. Barbie as GEORGE is resplendent in a detailed coat and vest, ruffled jabot, plumed hat and powder white hair, and she patriotically personifies the true Style and spirit of revolution. Created for FAO Schwarz by Ann Driskill, one of the best known Barbie fashion designers in the world, Barbie as GEORGE is destined for international fame and tremendous collectible value.

Barbie is more popular than ever, with one Barbie sold every two seconds somewhere in the world. She is collected more than any other toy, and the variety of her occupations and wardrobe grows every year. Since 1989, FAO has launched a number of exclusive, limited-edition, collectible Barbies which are collected avidly around the world. GEORGE is due for shipment in time for the 4th of July, and retails for $75. She is available in any of the 38 FAO Schwarz stores across the country, by catalogue at 1-800-BARBIE-9, or on the Internet at http://www.faoschwarz.com.

PR NEWSWIRE 24/3/97

PERU: RAMBO, BARBIE AND POOR INSPIRE PERU'S MRTA REBELS.

JUNIN, Peru, Feb 20 (Reuter) - Angelica, 16, had chipped red nail varnish, a pink haircomb in her jeans' back pocket and a Barbie doll sticker on her AKM rifle.

But when she heard a car approaching on the jungle mountain track, the giggly, 4 foot 6 inch (1.35 metre) teenager suddenly took on the air of the Marxist rebel who had no fear of death.

"Car coming. Get off the road," Angelica ordered with the calm authority of a woman who every day patrols the steamy jungle, ready to clash with the Peruvian security forces at any moment.

Then, when she saw the vehicle was only a villager's fruit truck, she said: "Let's go," and began sulking again because her Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) comrades were teasing her about her rebel boyfriend.

It was one of frequent incongruous changes the 10 junior rebels made as they escorted a Reuters correspondent through the MRTA's heartland in the county of Junin, where the eastern slopes of the Andes merge with densely-forested hills on the western edge of South America's Amazon jungle.

Dressed in combat uniforms improvised from green T-shirts, black pants and rubber rainboots, the rank-and-file rebels looked most of the time like a scout group with guns.

But from this crude recruiting ground in central Peru, the MRTA found the raw material fit to form a crack unit capable of meticulously executing an assault on the Japanese ambassador's home in Lima and taking hundreds of hostages.

In a peasant's clearing overlooking a mist-covered valley, the young rebels gave an unconvincing display of marching and combat drills.

They seemed as different from their 20-odd comrades in Lima as the mountain peasants were from the 72 VIPs still held at the diplomatic mansion.

"Some of them come to us without even being able to tell left from right," said the unit's trainer, Juan.

One of the 10 was from the Ashaninka Indian tribe deep in the jungle. Before joining the MRTA, he knew little Spanish and had never seen milk or worn underwear.

But according to "Comrade Alejandro," who identified himself as a member of the MRTA high-command, the difference between these rebels and the 20-odd hostage-takers in Lima was not so great.

"Those in the residence are the same. They are cheerful pranksters and jokers," the military leader said.

Juan claimed the MRTA prepared the rank and file rebels, who mainly work explaining their beliefs to peasants, to join up with "special force" fighters.

These units trained "almost constantly" on the move or in camps of up to 30 rebels for operations of "large dimension," he said.

Alejandro refused to reveal the number of active MRTA rebels -- estimated by analysts at no more than 200. He said the youngest members were 16 years old and women make up 30 percent of its ranks.

What the junior rebels held in common with the hostage- taking unit holed up in Lima was a conviction that their avowed fight for the jungle's poor was worth dying for.

"If we die, we die," Nora, 17, said, chewing gum. Despite her peasant family's protests, she left the wooden shack they call home and the fruit trees that afford her parents a precarious livelihood to join up with the MRTA.

The rebels all said they had volunteered for service and villagers -- both for and against the MRTA -- agreed there was no "conscription."

"They do not have work so they go off," said one farmhand, who knew several teenage rebels.

"When you see your brother dying of hunger, you cannot stay at home and do nothing," said John, 18, the short and wiry rebel boyfriend of Angelica.

Walking up and down a one-street, dusty village under the blazing sun, wearing canvas gym shoes, tatty black pants and a shirt with the buttons undone, John provided a link between MRTA fighters tucked away in the hills and the lower-lying villages dotted along the few jungle roads.

"I turn into Rambo up there," he said with an impish grin.

And half an hour away, crawling along mud tracks in a taxi up into the hills, the villager made his transformation.

Getting out of the car, he nipped into the dense growth and grabbed a walkie-talkie radio. Two minutes later two armed rebels appeared on the track to hand him his uniform and rifle.

True to the image the Lima hostage-takers have tried to cultivate of well-mannered revolutionaries, the rebels greeted the taxi-driver politely.

Then -- more in keeping with the government's claim that the MRTA's bombing campaigns and kidnappings show they are mere "terrorists" -- John made the rules clear.

"The driver will not say anything. If he does, he goes to St. Peter," he said loud enough for everyone to hear.

But minutes later, the flash of rebel toughness over, he resumed his ingenuous teenage chatter: Do you like the scenery? Is there jungle in England? What language do they speak there?

He paused for a moment, thinking. "Teach me to say 'I love you' in English," said John.

Dolls meet fiery end in Japanese ceremony

TOKYO, Sept 25 (Reuter) - Children's dolls donated by about 600 people went up in flames at a temple in Japan on Thursday during an annual ritual.

Every year, hundreds of people bring their old dolls to Kiyomizu Kannon-do, a Buddhist temple in downtown Tokyo, to be burnt in a ceremony that began as a fertility rite.

These days, the faithful bring dolls they want to dispose of but feel too fond of to just throw away.

"My daughter received it from her grandmother when she was three and she is now 23...It seemed such a shame to throw it out with the rest of the rubbish. It's still special to her, so this seemed a good way," said a 42-year-old Japanese woman who attended the ceremony.

The temple is dedicated to the god of child-rearing. Childless couples would visit the temple to pray for fertility and, when blessed with a child, would return with dolls to thank the god and pray for the child's well-being.

Ryoen Kouda, a priest at the temple, estimates that about 2,000 dolls are cremated every year.

Concern that the wooden temple might catch fire meant that only a handful of dolls were incinerated in the public ceremony. The remaining dolls were to be burned in a separate furnace.

Kouda said people were welcome to bring dolls to the temple at any time of the year, but made one request.

"Please, flammable dolls only."