Gay Bob is a doll created in 1977 and billed as the world's first openly gay doll. Bob was created by former advertising executive Harvey Rosenberg and marketed through his company, Gizmo Development. Gay Bob was bestowed with an Esquire magazine "Dubious Achievement Award" for 1978.
Bob stands 13 inches tall and was presented clothed in a flannel shirt, tight jeans and cowboy boots. He has one ear pierced. Bob's packaging box is decorated like a closet and included a catalog from which additional outfits could be ordered. Creator Rosenberg described the doll as resembling a cross between Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Bob is anatomically correct.
Gay Bob sparked outrage in at least one Ann Landers reader, who was inspired to write to decry the doll and predict that it would lead to the acceptance of other "disgusting" dolls like "Priscilla the Prostitute" and "Danny the Dope Pusher." Rosenberg had announced plans for a line of "permissive dolls," but no drug dealers or prostitutes. Ann incredulously replied that she'd believe such a doll existed when she saw it in the stores, but that she was unlikely to see it in the sort of "respectable" stores she patronized.
Famous quotes containing the words gay and/or bob:
“Coming out, all the way out, is offered more and more as the political solution to our oppression. The argument goes that, if people could see just how many of us there are, some in very important places, the negative stereotype would vanish overnight. ...It is far more realistic to suppose that, if the tenth of the population that is gay became visible tomorrow, the panic of the majority of people would inspire repressive legislation of a sort that would shock even the pessimists among us.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“It was because of me. Rumors reached Inman that I had made a deal with Bob Dole whereby Dole would fill a paper sack full of doggie poo, set it on fire, put it on Inman’s porch, ring the doorbell, and then we would hide in the bushes and giggle when Inman came to stamp out the fire. I am not proud of this. But this is what we do in journalism.”
—Roger Simon, U.S. syndicated columnist. Quoted in Newsweek, p. 15 (January 31, 1990)