Aspiring Equal Oppertunity Feminist Granola girl.

In addition to Barbie chocolates and Barbies dressed as chocolate, I'm sure it comes as no surprise that Barbie sells chocolate.

As part of a branded collaboration with hot cocoa company Swiss Miss (back in the days where a lot of Barbie releases had incidental branded products), the Barbie Chocolate Shop hit shelves in 1991.

This particular ad (which spells the product as "Shoppe") provides more details about how the product serves both as a cafe setting for Barbie and Ken to spend a romantic date together and a place to create hot chocolate or melt chocolate chips into candy treats.

It is worth noting that this was part of a wider ski themed release - the Barbie and Ken here are Ski Fun Barbie and Ken.

Surprisingly, there's remarkably few other Barbies as chocolate saleswomen - a plethora of pastry chefs and bakers, but very few themed specifically around chocolate.

Although there definitely appear to be some chocolate elements. (And an animal. In the kitchen. This Barbie violates the health code!)

And speaking of animals and chocolate... I do have to draw attention to another Barbie product that came up in my search because I feel like the branding is... off somehow.

Why would you theme a set with "milk chocolate treats" around a VET?! That seems like it is setting a dangerous precedent! Is that how Vet Barbie makes her money?!

I have never verified this but a part of me wonders if there have been more ballet Barbies than any other genre of Barbie.

Obviously there was the Barbie Nutcracker movie which had a whole host of tie-in dolls - both at the time of the movie's release, and in callbacks to the line over time. After all, it was the first Barbie animated movie and there's plenty of material there to refine and rerelease.

In addition to the Nutcracker Barbies, there have been a number of Barbies depicting characters in other ballets, including Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream as well as other famous ballets like Swan Lake.

But more generally, there have been a great number of Barbies simply identified by variations on "Ballerina" - Ballerina, Ballet Star, Ballet Wishes, Fairytale Ballerina, and so on. To my knowledge the first of these was in 1961, but variations on the line continue into the present day.

Most of these - especially the playline dolls - have been very basic doll releases containing just the doll in costume without a great deal of additional accessories or props,

Probably the one with the most interesting props, to my mind, is Barbie Ballet Instructor, in which Barbie is the dance teacher and her child pupils are able to perform on a working dance stage.

I do find it quite a cute little design.

Another strong contender in a similar line would be I Can Be: Ballet Teacher, also featuring Barbie as the teacher with a Kelly/Chelsea-aged doll as her student.

And of course, it would be remiss to talk about this without acknowledging the Barbie Ballet Studio and Stage Set.

This post feels really long and yet I've not even talked about a fraction of the ballerina Barbies and other ballet-themed playsets there are in the Barbie world. You can see what I mean when I say that I think ballet may just be the most prolific career or theme Barbie has.

(This post is for @plasticoctopus as a belated birthday present!)