Mattel announced that it will release a new "Mad Men" doll collection, which celebrates another back to the future theme. Adults, particularly baby boomers, certainly can't get enough of the television series, which follows the goings-on of the advertising world of the early ‘60s. The characters are so authentic to the period, we could all blink and be transported back in time. The series' most redeeming quality is its willingness to tell both the good and the bad of the time. Nostalgia is often told through a prism of rose-colored glasses. This series does little of that. It romanticizes the age by portraying the characters uncensored-they smoke cigarettes by the pack, drink gallons of well-shaken martinis and have affairs at the drop of a hat (the men wear fedoras -- the custom of the time). It is not the hats or the ‘50s dresses or large finned automobiles that won't work for a children's doll series. And we certainly have had superheroes -- GI Joes and other kids' toy characters -- that were not perfect role models. However, the theme of "Mad Men" is adults being adults and not children playing dress-up like ‘50s housewives or junior advertising executives of the future.

Mattel should be complimented for coming out with the dolls. Nevertheless, the company's reputation for innovation and risk-taking is misplaced in this case. The better audience for the dolls is not kids, but their parents (or grandparents in most cases) who may want to hold on to the glory days of the ‘50s and '60s when they were kids and now look back and remember when. Perhaps it is easier to see the ‘50s in retrospect as a time of clarity and certainty compared to the tumult, change and uncertainty that we all face today. The '50s and ‘60s were at the height of the Cold War, when the threat of atomic bombs was top of mind, and were, in fact, periods of great uncertainty. The Vietnam War was percolating along in its early origins, while the world was coming to nuclear standoffs on several occasions with the Soviet Union. The time's real coming of age was brought on by tragic death, the assassination of a young president, a person who embodied the promise of the future. And yet perhaps the reputation of that period looks happy and content as compared to today.

So I'd advise Mattel to put out the collection, but put it in the hands of those who yearn for the past. I think the kids of the future have better role models.