Mattel Skip-Bo. Mattel purchased Fisher-Price, Inc. in 1993, Tyco Toys, Inc. (owners of the Matchbox and Dinky Toys brands) in 1997, and Pleasant Company (maker of the American Girl brand) in 1998. Mattel purchased The Learning Company in 1999 for $3.5 billion, but sold it in 2000 at a loss. The company had a $430.9 million net loss that year. Mattel earned the first grant for Disney Princess doll licenses in 2000. In December 2000, Mattel sued the band Aqua, saying their song "Barbie Girl" violated the Barbie trademark and turned Barbie into a sex object, referring to her as a
Porteous (store) Grant store in Cooks Corner Shopping Center in Brunswick ME had been taken over by JC Penney, but was subsequently closed when the JC Penney store opened at the expanded Maine Mall in South Portland in 1983. Porteous not only opened in The Maine Mall at this time but also took over the Cooks Corner location. The downtown Portland flagship store closed not long after the Maine Mall store opened. Owned by the Dunlaps Store chain based in Texas in its last years (starting around 1993), and operated as "PMB, Inc.--a Division of Dunlaps", the chain found itself flustered with