Barbie has appeared in a media franchise produced by American toy and entertainment company Mattel since the late 1980s. The franchise encompasses a series of computer-animated films that later expanded to several other audiovisual media, revolving around the fashion doll often being portrayed as a modern girl playing various roles. Referred to among fans as the "Barbie Cinematic Universe", it has become one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. From 2002 until 2017, the films aired regularly on Nickelodeon in the United States. Since then, they have instead been released on streaming services like Netflix, Google Play and Apple TV+. In 2020, the films got revamped into streaming television films, which are marketed by Mattel as "specials" and picked up for television broad