NOSTALGIA
If you’re a ’90s kid, the fever-dream histrionics of “Barbie’s Birthday at Walt Disney Epcot” is likely seared into your brain, a cheesy celebration of excess we treasured on VHS.
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When we talk about America’s eras of indulgent overabundance, why do we never mention the 1990s? As a ’90s baby myself, I’m sick of it. Our minds jump to the poshness of the art deco Roaring ’20s or the Wall Street-y greed of the ’80s, but the ’90s had its own profusion of bigger and better. Food got larger, cars were more expensive, and houses became big enough to justify the absurd prices that would lead to a housing bubble.
If you’re looking for the perfect distillation of this unique sense of ’90s excess, you can find it in a very unexpected, magical place: a 1994 videotape entitled Barbie’s Birthday Party at Walt Disney Epcot, thrown in for one additional cent with the purchase of any of a select batch of 1994 Barbie dolls. My family welcomed the Barbie birthday tape into our lives alongside Bedtime Barbie. The special doll had a “soft body” (not as weird as it sounds) and could “open or close its eyes” with icy or warm water (incredibly terrifying, thanks to Mattel making Barbie sleep with eyeshadow on).
While my memories of playing with Bedtime Barbie are scant, my recollection of Barbie’s Birthday Party is not. The tape was a staple of my childhood, and I’ve got the limp wrist to prove it. As much as I loved to use my imagination playing with the Barbies that my sister and our friends used to amuse ourselves with, I was happier to shut off my brain entirely to let Barbie’s Birthday Party transport me to the magical world of Barbie itself.
With Greta Gerwig’s much anticipated Barbie film hitting theaters this week—and Gerwig’s films being as impactful in my adult life as Barbie’s Birthday Party was when I was a kid—I felt it was time to revisit this gloriously kitsch fever dream of a direct-to-video movie. It turns out, Barbie’s Birthday Party was the perfect foundation for building all of my life’s most wide-eyed aspirations, even if they couldn’t all come true.
The video is a total time capsule, right down to the colorful scrunchies and ornate vests sported by its child actor hosts, Lisa (Samantha Merck) and Stephanie (Melinda Hugh). Together, this dynamic duo led a guided tour of Walt Disney World’s Epcot park, giving kids everywhere a crash course in cultures from around the world, as they all join in Barbie’s birthday celebration. And because this was the ’90s—when everything was larger than life and everyone was abnormally high-strung—Lisa and Stephanie didn’t just speak all of their lines, they screamed them.
“ARE YOU READY TO PARTY WITH BARBIE?” Lisa yells as the video opens, after a hot pink limousine with Barbie-emblazoned plates rolls up outside of Epcot. Her screaming feels less like a question, and more of an interrogation of the soul. Well, are we ready to party with Barbie? And what do we need to change about ourselves to prepare us to do just that? As if to echo our uncertainty, Stephanie confirms that this will, indeed, be a celebration we’ll never forget. “PARTY, PARTY, PARTY!” she cries, shaking a fist in the air for emphasis, a tactic she’ll employ several more times before the video has ended.
Barbie’s Birthday Party is a stroke of marketing genius. The entire affair is one big advertisem*nt for both Disney Parks and Barbie. But the sheer decibel level of Lisa and Stephanie’s voices, combined with the jaunty music that fills the entire video, are enough to make you forget that you’re merely a pawn in capitalism’s game. This was the age of the Beanie Baby collecting; examination of our own purchasing habits was not at the top of our to-do lists when the Princess Diana tribute bear was going to be worth thousands on eBay someday.
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Stephanie and Lisa split up at the start of the video, but keep their trusty “Barbie cellular phones” on them at all times. (Why they need phones to reach each other, when their hollering could surely be heard across the park, is beyond me.) Stephanie gives us a tour of different Epcot villages, while Lisa heads backstage to talk to some of the staff putting together The Magical World of Barbie, a musical tribute to Barbie’s extravagant, brightly hued world.
All these years later, I really think Stephanie got the shaft here. Lisa gets to hang out behind the scenes, look at beautiful costumes, and literally get her hair done by one of the show’s stylists. Meanwhile, Stephanie has to pound the pavement, going from pavilion to pavilion, in the unforgiving Florida sun? It doesn’t seem fair, especially since Stephanie’s first stop at the Mexico pavilion sees her sporting a comically large sombrero. They’re trying to get my girl canceled for cultural appropriation!
The tape jumps back and forth between the two hosts, each one giving us a rundown of their respective areas of coverage. Lisa speaks with the Barbie show’s creative director, costume designer, and hairstylist to find out how to make anything Barbie-fied (hint: add glitter). Stephanie trots around Epcot like she owns the place, meeting Chinese calligraphers, Japanese origami artists, and French painters, each with a special, culturally-specific gift for Barbie’s big birthday party. After a long afternoon of exploring, Lisa and Stephanie meet back up at Epcot’s Italian restaurant, which is “the best place to find spaghetti.” Thank god, I’ve been wondering.
All of the chaos eventually winds down with some choice numbers from The Magical World of Barbie, including a full Parisian fashion show and a down undah Aussie dance number that would make Margot Robbie shed a tear. The songs are damn catchy too! You won’t soon be able to get the chorus of closeted gay men singing, “In Barbie’s world, there’s no limitations!” out of your head if you hear it even once. Those tunes have stayed with me for the better part of two decades, and my sister and I still hum them every now and again.
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But we’re not the only people for whom Barbie’s Birthday Party has endured. A recording of the full tape is on YouTube, and the comment section is filled with people experiencing the euphoria of pure nostalgia, the world’s most potent drug. “Excuse me for being literally in tears because this was such an important part of my childhood,” one user commented, to the tune of 22 replies agreeing. “My sister and I watched this tape until it didn’t work anymore,” another user replied. The tape was clearly beloved among young people and their siblings and friends. Never mind that Lisa and Stephanie were actors; to all of us lucky enough to come across this video, they were our fellow Barbie-loving besties.
Hundreds of comments feature similar sentiments, all basking in the wistful reminiscence of a much simpler time. Barbie’s Birthday Party has limos, cellphones, and handheld camcorders—every over-the-top, adult thing a kid could ever want. Lisa and Stephanie running around Epcot, unsupervised, was an idealistic window into what we thought tweenage independence would be like circa 1994: filled with glamour, tech, and all-you-can-eat spaghetti. In Barbie’s world, there really were no limitations. Barbie’s Birthday Party was the perfect picture of excess, and it rose to meet the decade exactly where it was.
