No Kiddin', It Exists... Sort of...
I hate to be the one to spoil the creative fantasies here...
(Well, not really...
)
...But there actually
is a Barbie Tarot. Sort of.
Okay, so it's not really a tarot -- it's a "fortune-telling deck." But it
is Barbie. Oddly, however, the copy I have is Italian. This deck may have been published in the U.S. as part of the now-defunct fortune-telling game that was issued by Mattel at one time (I can't remember the name of it, sorry). But I haven't actually ever seen the cards from the Mattel game to comapare to the Italian deck I have.
The Barbie logo is printed on the top and bottom flap of the box, and although the front title reads "Le Carte della Fortuna," the side panels read "36 Carte Magiche di Barbie." I'm "tippin' my hat" here, so to speak, 'cuz quite by coincidence, we were planning on auctioning our Italian copy on eBay this coming weekend. But for anyone who wants to see the sample scans in advance, here's a link:
http://www.tarotgarden.com/database/dbsearchengine.php?view_title=barbie
As to the "Barbie Tarot" story -- it was written by George Alec Effinger, who unfortunately passed away earlier this year. I had a chance to meet Mr. Effinger a few years ago, and he was as fun and charming an individual as you'd ever want to meet. I have a great photo around here of him somewhere that I thought might be nice to post, so people could see what the author of this marvelous tarot story looks like. But unfortunately, I can't find it at the moment. If I turn it up, I'll scan it and post a link. It's really quite a priceless picture -- it fits right in with the "Barbie Tarot" discussion, in its way.
-- Jeannette
http://www.tarotgarden.com