Mattel Matson sold his share to Handler due to poor health, and Handler's wife Ruth took Matson's role. In 1947, the company had its first hit toy, a ukulele called "Uke-A-Doodle". The company incorporated the next year in California. Mattel became the first year-round sponsor of the "Mickey Mouse Club" TV series in 1955. The Barbie doll debuted in 1959, becoming the company's best-selling toy in history. In 1960, Mattel introduced Chatty Cathy, a talking doll revolutionizing the toy industry, which led to pull-string talking dolls and toys flooding the market throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The company went public in
Performo Toy Company as does a nightly news broadcast in the heyday of television broadcasting. There is a well known legend in Middletown about how Performo Toy Company sued The Walt Disney Company, which included some coverage in the local paper. A conspiracy theory might have arisen from this story, however, "History Detectives", a television program on PBS, conducted an extensive investigation on the topic. The historians and researchers of the PBS program conducted a nationwide search, finding that there are no records nor evidence of any legal action between the two parties. Inquiries to Disney historians and archivists resulted in a letter