Stock Clerk Stripped of His Job in Cross-Dressing of a Ken Doll

A Ken doll dressed in Barbie’s clothing wasn’t a manufacturing mistake after all. It was a stock clerk’s prank.

A clerk at a Toys R Us store acknowledged Tuesday that he redressed the doll one night while goofing off. The store fired him when he confessed.

“We always did crazy things like that,” Ron Zero said of the antics of the store’s late-night stockers. “We’d hang dolls in the aisle or put Ken and Barbie in the Barbie house with Barbie spanking Ken.”

Carina Guillot bought the Ken doll in the Tampa store last month while visiting from New Jersey. It was dressed in a purple tank top and a lace-covered purple and turquoise skirt.

The doll quickly became a national spectacle--spoofed by Arsenio Hall, featured on “The Joan Rivers Show” and in Newsweek and Fortune magazines.