Gay Bob

{{Short description|Gay doll}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2022}}

Image:giz-Gaybob.jpg

Gay Bob is a doll created in 1977 and billed as the world's first openly gay doll. Bob was created by former advertising executive Harvey Rosenberg and marketed through his company, Gizmo Development. Gay Bob was bestowed with an Esquire magazine "Dubious Achievement Award" for 1978.{{cite magazine

| title =It's Ten P.M. Do you know where your Ken doll is?

| magazine = Esquire

| date =January 2, 1978

}}

Bob stands {{convert|13|in|cm}} tall and was presented clothed in a flannel shirt, tight jeans and cowboy boots. He has one ear pierced. Bob's packaging box is decorated like a closet and included a catalog from which additional outfits could be ordered. Creator Rosenberg described the doll as resembling a cross between Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Bob is anatomically correct.{{cite news

| title =It's the Gay Bob doll, out of his own closet

| publisher =Associated Press

| date =August 1, 1978

}}

Gay Bob sparked outrage in at least one Ann Landers reader, who was inspired to write to decry the doll and predict that it would lead to the acceptance of other "disgusting" dolls like "Priscilla the Prostitute" and "Danny the Dope Pusher". Rosenberg had announced plans for a line of "permissive dolls",{{cite magazine

| title =Doll Lib

| magazine =Time

| date =August 14, 1978

| url =http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,947000,00.html

| archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20070930041352/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,947000,00.html

| url-status =dead

| archive-date =September 30, 2007

| access-date = December 18, 2007}} but no drug dealers or prostitutes. Ann replied that she would believe such a doll existed when she saw it in the stores, but that she was unlikely to see it in the sort of "respectable" stores she patronized.{{cite news

| last =Landers

| first =Ann

| title =Ann Landers Answers

| publisher =Field Newspaper Syndicate

| date =December 26, 1978

}}