Ty Girlz were girl dolls manufactured by
Ty Inc.
Ty (stylized as ty) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. It was founded by Ty Warner in 1986. It designs, develops and sells products, most notably Beanie Babies, exclusively to spec ...
Similar to the Ty
Beanie Babies
Beanie Babies are a line of stuffed toys created by American businessman H. Ty Warner, who founded Ty Inc. in 1986. The toys are stuffed with plastic pellets ("beans") rather than conventional soft stuffing. They come in many different forms, mo ...
, the Ty Girlz are on a limited release pattern with dolls being introduced and older ones retired at various times. Ty Girlz are plush toys that are connected to an online
virtual world
A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...
at TyGirlz.com. Introduced to the global market on April 13, 2007, Ty Girlz was one of only a few virtual worlds geared to girls. The line was discontinued in 2013 and the virtual world shut down on June 7 of that same year.
Advertising
When the Ty Girlz were debuted at toy fairs, Ty had posters and cut-outs of the Girlz to promote them. Ty even had a billboard in Atlanta, Georgia, showing Sizzlin' Sue saying "Who's that Girl?". That phrase soon became a popular tag for the line. In September 2007, the Ty Girlz got a MySpace and YouTube page.
In the Spring 2008 Ty retailer catalog, retailers were able to purchase clothing made exclusively for Ty Girlz.
Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia controversy
In January 2009, Ty released two new Ty Girlz, one named Sweet Sasha and the other named Marvelous Malia. Media reports linked the names to Sasha and Malia Obama, daughters of President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
. On January 21, a Ty spokesperson told the ''
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' that the Obama daughters were indeed the inspiration for the dolls. In response to Ty,
Michelle Obama
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American attorney and author who served as first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She was the first African-American woman to serve in this position. She is married t ...
's press secretary said that Ty did not ask permission to use the Obama daughters' first names, saying "It is inappropriate to use young private citizens for marketing purposes."
On January 22, when asked whether the new Ty Girlz were inspired by Sasha and Malia Obama, Ty's Senior Vice President of Sales said that the dolls were not made to physically resemble either of the Obama daughters and that the names chosen "worked very well with the dolls".
[ Ty said that the process of naming dolls is proprietary information and would not say how the names were given to the dolls.][ In February 2009, Ty decided to retire the original dolls and give them new names, Marvelous Mariah and Sweet Sydney.][ Ty stated that, while the original names were inspired by "this historic time in our nation's history", they were not named after the Obama daughters.][ Ty promised to donate the profits from sales of the original dolls to a charity, the ]Andre Agassi
Andre Kirk Agassi ( ; born April 29, 1970) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. He is an eight-time major champion and an Olympic gold medalist, as well as a runner-up in seven other majors.
Agassi is the second of five men to ach ...
Charitable Foundation for youth education.
Following the recall, dolls that had already been shipped to the marketplace sold on eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
for $3,000.
List of dolls
Notes
Punky Penny Blog presented by Ty Girlz
{{Ty, Inc.
Stuffed toys