Ruth Handler Club children's television show, Mattel invested heavily in television advertising. The TV commercials for the Barbie doll paid off and Barbie rocketed Mattel and the Handlers to fame and fortune. Subsequently, they would add a boyfriend for Barbie named Ken, after the Handlers' son, and many other "friends and family" to Barbie's world. Handler was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1970. She had a modified radical mastectomy, which was often used at the time to combat the disease, and because of difficulties in finding a good breast prosthesis, she decided to make her own. Handler went on to found a
Ideal Toy Company top three toy companies. By 1970, Ideal had outgrown its manufacturing complex in Hollis, Queens. The company wanted to build a new plant in College Point, Queens (later the site of Shea Stadium), but was unable to strike a deal with the Lindsay administration. Consequently, the company opened a new facility in Newark, New Jersey, in the early 1970s, while continuing to operate its factory in Hollis. Ideal had earnings of $3.7 million in fiscal year 1979-1980, but lost $15.5 million in fiscal year 1980-1981. (Sales both years averaged c. $150 million.) Trying to maximize profits on the Rubik's Cube