Barbie goes to THE BIRDS!

The other day while walking down the Barbie aisle at Walmart (you tend to do that when you have two daughters), I happened across something that caught me totally by surprise. It was a collectable Barbie of Tipi Hedren from Afred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS.

It wasn't the uncanny resemblance or the stylish outfit and matching purse that appealed to the Hitchcock fan in me. No, it was the fact that she actually had birds hanging all over her! One was pecking at her skull, while one was latched onto her shoulder and another on her hip. The backdrop of the display box is the Bodega Bay schoolhouse with dozens of contemptuous crows taking flight. Of course, in customary Barbie fashion, this Tipi possesses a perpetually happy-go-lucky smile... even as the evil fowls seek to flay the flesh from her bones and build a nest with her beautiful, bleached-blonde hair.

So what will be Mattel's next tribute to the Master of Suspense? Perhaps Barbie au naturel as Janet Leigh in the classic shower scene from PSYCHO... along with Ken in the role of a cross-dressing, knife-wielding Norman Bates.