Forget the plutonium seeping across the Japanese landscape and the US’s attempt at making Libya its 51st state, the important news of the day is that Barbie’s ‘friend’ the iconic Ken doll is returning to store shelves sporting a well-needed make over.

In anticipation of the event, Ken’s agent and handlers at Mattel have been busy booking him appearances including movies (Toy Story 3), magazines (GQ Germany), and culminating with the Hulu’s web based reality show, Genuine Ken: The Search for the Great American Boyfriend. Elisa Schreiber, a spokeswoman for Hulu, said that on days when “Genuine Ken” had a new episode premiere, it was “often among the most popularity reality shows on Hulu.”

Scary, huh?

The web series concluded on March 15 with Kurtis Taylor being crowned the winning real life Ken doll. Taylor, a 25 year old football icon from Iowa, received $5,000 for his charity of choice and a redesigned Ken doll that will incorporate his features. Facing down seven other contestants in the competition, Taylor said he won the hearts of judges during a Bachorlette-like competition. He had to use $500 to buy gifts for 50 women. Taylor gave each gal a penny, then donated the rest of the cash to the Make-A-Wish foundation.

Awwwww. But in reality we all know his winning had more to do with the large number of steroids this hunkster has consumed, leaving Mattel’s designers little work to do in building his likeness genitalia free. And its Ken’s bulge with no bite that is at the heart of this post. (You thought it was gonna be a doll=gay=sissy thing? Hell, no! It’s always about dick!)

Since Ken’s debut, young gay boys across the nation have run downstairs on Xmas morning, eager anticipation meeting the proverbial brick wall when they pull down their new Ken doll’s pants to see his most interesting feature. Screams of horror echo across the land. And it wasn’t just the gay boys at large, the real life Ken was also traumatized by the dicklessness. Ken Handler, Mattel’s founders’ son and the toy’s namesake, spent his life feeling embarrassed and humiliated by having a dickless doll named after him according to the book Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel. To add insult to injury, though married with three children, Ken Handler was gay and closeted according to the book. Diagnosed with AIDS, he died in Greenwich Village 1994.

Like the real Ken, Mattel too tried to hide the doll’s gay image by attempting to stuff Ken back into his 1/6 scale closet. As with many hunky models and actors, rumors that Ken was not just a doll, but gay, have surrounded him since his debut. But no ‘is he gay’ rumors survive without a few facts; when it comes to Ken’s gayness, consider this:

While Mattel has never specified the exact nature of their relationship, Ken, and his beard Barbie, “broke up” after a 43-year-courtship in 2004, lasting much longer than Kenny Chesney and Renee Zellweger’s faux romance. Vice President of Marketing at Mattel, Russell Arons, hinted that the separation might be partially due to Ken’s reluctance to getting married, saying that Barbie and Ken “feel it’s time to spend some quality time – apart . . . Like other celebrity couples, their Hollywood romance has come to an end”.

Mmmmm, that’d be like Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman?

And in Ken’s own words according to Mattel’s website, “I’m a lucky guy – solid hair, solid abs and most importantly, a solid group of friends! These guys have been there for me through thick and thin over the years– Brad, Curtis,Steven, Todd, Derek, Darren, and last but not least, Alan, who’s been my best and longest friend. We’ve known each other since 1964.”

Which disturbingly echoes last week’s gay of the week, Jake Gyllenhaal’s recent comments about his romance relationship with David Modigliani, his best buddy from childhood.

Proof of which team Ken plays on seemed to come with the release of Magic Earring Ken in 1993. The doll’s campy look, dressed in a lavender leather vest, a netted body shirt and what looked like a mother of a cock ring draped around his neck, quickly earned him the name Cock Ring Magic Ken. Mattel hastily removed the homo hunk of dollhood from shelves in response to conservative outrage, but not before they were snapped up by gay men across the nation. Mattel, like John Travolta’s handlers, unsuccessfully tried to reshape  his image with the release of Biker Ken for the leather crowd, and then Sugar Daddy Ken in 2010 (uh, no, I’m not making that up).

Power bottom that he may be, we all know that without the right equipment you’re just a ladyboy.  So the creeptoids designers at Batkat Creations introduced a line of Ken dolls no longer sans junk. Possibly meant as training tools for TSA agents, the anatomically correct dolls are offered in a wide variety of shapes, lengths, sizes, and degrees of firmness to satisfy all tastes. As with concerns about where certain parts of your boy for the day might have been the night before, Batkat promises that each Ken has been “deboxed, modified, and never played with.”

Titling slightly off the funny meter into the land of Ewwww, we bump it up a notch with the real life story of Cindy Jackson and Tim Whitfield, who has since changed his name to Miles Kendall; “Miles”, he says, because he “looks miles better” and “Kendall for Ken-doll.”

Yes, sorry, that is where this is going . . .

When Cindy’s father died and left her a nice sum of money, she started a $100,000 + plastic surgery hobby which continues to this day. She decided she was going to make herself look like her idol, Barbie. Since 1988 Cindy has had eye lid surgery (twice), lip collagen injections (several), liposuction on her stomach, thighs (twice), her jaw, her knees (Her Knees!), a nose job, a face lift, acid face peels, breast implants, her chin bone shaved and re-sized, cheek implants, hair transplants/plugs, teeth caps, permanent makeup tattooed on, implants into her lower lip to make it fuller (twice so far), and a butt lift. Cindy is now a livin’ doll.

Tim Whitfield, who was in his early 30s, saw her on a talk show and realized that he had been living a lie: he was not Tim, but was really the “male” Barbie, Ken. Says Tim, ” I was stuck in front of my computer, bored out of my brains, looking old before my time because of my fast living. I smoked and drank a lot, and had really ruined my skin”.

Because, yes, sitting for hours in front of your computer screen is definitely livin la vida loca.

Trading one self destructive lifestyle for another, Tim/Miles embarked on a journey of plastic surgery including a nose job, eyebrow lifted, lips reshaped, dental surgeries and teeth capped, cheek implants, laser skin peels, eye shaping, jaw bone sculpting – and wears bright blue contact lenses. Tens of thousands of dollars later, Tim became Ken, or Kendall, or Barbie 2 . . .

Cindy & Tim/Miles now “tour” on behalf of the Plastic Surgery Referral Network. Claiming they “are not freaks, but designer people ahead of their time,” Cindy says they are not romantically involved, because Miles is “too young for her,” and not because Tim/Miles/Ken is just waiting for the right man.

(This blog entry started out as a one paragraph, “oh, isn’t that creepy cute” response to an item I saw on the web. Needing a good graphic set me off to Google where the ewww! factor just kept growing. Real life Ken, real life wannabe Ken, gay Ken doll, real life dead namesake Ken closeted gay, non real life Ken with penis, you don’t even wanna know what else is out there. Turns out there is an entire section of the blogosphere devoted to Ken. Just goes to show you there is no limit to the depths to which I’ll sink in order to amuse you. But then you already knew that.)