Cabbage Patch Kids

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Cabbage Patch Kids are doll brand created by Xavier Roberts in 1978. The original dolls were all cloth and sold at local craft shows, then later at Babyland General Hospital in Cleveland, Georgia.^[1]

The dolls attracted the attention of toy manufacturer Coleco, who began mass-production in 1982. The Coleco Cabbage Patch Kids had large, round vinyl heads, (originally of a different, hard plastic), and soft fabric bodies, and were produced from 1982–1989. After Coleco went bankrupt, the Cabbage Patch Kids were later mass produced by other companies, including Hasbro, Mattel, Toys R Us, and currently Play Along. Mattel started producing them after cancelling production of My Child dolls.

At the peak of their popularity, the dolls were a must-have toy for Christmas. Parents across the United States flocked to stores to try to obtain one of the Cabbage Patch Kids for their children, with fights occasionally erupting between parents over the hard-to-find dolls. In later years, Coleco introduced variants on the original Cabbage Patch Kids, and derivatives of the original line of dolls continued to be marketed.

1 Toy Cabbage Patch Kids
2 Porcelain Cabbage Patch Kids
3 Talking Cabbage Patch Kids
4 Babyland General Hospital
5 Controversies and hoaxes
6 Timeline
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Toy Cabbage Patch Kids

The original 1982 Cabbage Patch Kids license agreement with Coleco Industries was negotiated and signed by Schlaifer Nance & Company, the exclusive worldwide licensing agency for Roberts' company. SN&C was responsible for originating the name, graphics and Legend of the Cabbage Patch Kids — all created by SN&C president Roger Schlaifer and wife/partner, Susanne Nance Schlaifer. Following their signing of Coleco, Schlaifer Nance & Company signed over one hundred and fifty licenses for products ranging from the first children's diapers and low-sugar cereal to clothing, backyard pools and thousands of other children's products — generating over $2 billion in retail sales for 1984, alone. Total sales during the Schlaifers' tenure exceeded $4.5 billion. After SN&C sold its exclusive rights back to Roberts' company, rights to the dolls were acquired by Hasbro and a succession of other toy companies. While sales of the dolls and other licensed products declined precipitously after the sale, the dolls have become, as Schlaifer predicted in 1982, a mainstay of the toy industry, and one of the few long-running doll brands.

[edit] Porcelain Cabbage Patch Kids

Currently delivered by direct mail from the Danbury Mint, these dolls have a rigid fabric body with porcelain legs, arms, and head.

[edit] Talking Cabbage Patch Kids

A notable extension to the line was the "Talking Cabbage Patch Kid", equipped with a voice chip, touch sensors, and an infrared device for communicating with other such dolls. The touch sensors enabled the toy to detect when and how the toy was being played with in response to its vocalizations, e.g. the doll might say "hold my hand" and give an appropriate speech response when the touch sensor in the hand detected pressure. A more remarkable effect occurred when one doll detected the presence of another through its IR transmitter/receiver. The dolls were programmed to signal their "awareness" of each other with a short phrase, e.g. "I think there's someone else to play with here!", and then to initiate simple conversations between the dolls themeselves with enough randomness to sound somewhat natural.

The product success was limited; some reasons offered at the time were the high price of the item ($100 or more); the need to have multiple dolls to take advantage of the full conversational effect; for some people the spookiness of having dolls converse with each other without human intervention; and the limited play value of a talking doll over its silent counterpart.

[edit] Babyland General Hospital

Babyland General Hospital is the soi-disant birthplace of Cabbage Patch Kids located in Cleveland, Georgia. Roberts converted an old clinic into a facility from which to sell his dolls, originally called "Little People." The facility is presented as a birthing, nursery, and adoption center for premium Cabbage Patch Kids, in going with the theme, the people who work there dress and act as doctors and nurses caring for the dolls as if they are real children. Although the initial fad surrounding the dolls has largely died down, Babyland General is still heavily trafficked by diehard fans, tourists, and curiosity seekers.

[edit] Controversies and hoaxes

One line of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, the Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Kids, was designed to "eat" plastic snacks. The mechanism enabling this was a pair of one-way metal rollers behind a plastic slot and rubber lips. The dolls were withdrawn from the market after several incidents where children accidentally got their fingers or hair stuck in the doll's mouth.^[2] This set of circumstances created a brief meme that was exploited for its comedy value by, among other things, standup comics and the cartoon Pinky and the Brain.

Cabbage Patch Kids were later parodied with the typically grotesque Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. The parody led Xavier Roberts to sue Topps, the maker of Garbage Pail Kids, for trademark infringement. The parties eventually settled out of court, with Topps agreeing to redesign the cards so that the artwork would not resemble Cabbage Patch Kids so closely.

Among Cabbage Patch Kids urban legends are that owners sending dolls to the manufacturer for repairs are issued death certificates, and that the dolls were designed to desensitize the public to the appearance of mutated children born in the aftermath of a nuclear war.^[3]

[edit] Timeline

1978 - First "Little People Originals" are delivered by Xavier Roberts, who incorporates Original Appalachian Artworks, Inc.
1981 - Coverage of the dolls' popularity in Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and Atlanta Weekly.
1982 - Original Appalachian Artworks, Inc. signed a long term licensing agreement with the licensing and creative development company, Schlaifer Nance & Company to create a new brand for their Little People, soft sculpture property. Schlaifer signed Coleco Industries to produce the dolls in August of 1982.
1983 - Cabbage Patch Kids were introduced with great fanfare at the International Toy Fair in NYC. By October riots were occurring in stores around the country. The dolls made the cover of Newsweek before Christmas and stories of their success were heralded around the world.
1984 - Sales for Cabbage Patch Kidsbranded products--from toys to children's apparel, came close to the record setting $2,000,000 d mark. The CPK record produced by the Chapin Brothers for Parker Brothers' music, went Gold and Platinum.
1985 - Cabbage Patch Kids low-sugar cereal and real children's diapers were introduced. The Cabbage Patch Kids Christmas Special was number one in its time slot on ABC.
1986 - The first talking Cabbage Patch Kids
1988: OAA buys the licensing rights for Cabbage Patch Kids from Schlaifer Anance. Cabbage Patch doll licensee, Coleco Industries files for bankruptcy but dolls continue to be made, the contract going to Hasbro Industries and later to Mattel.
1992 - Cabbage Patch Kids are named the official mascot of the 1992 US Olympic team and each member of team is given their own doll to take to the games.
1999 - Popular vote selects the dolls as one of the 15 commemorative US postal stamps representing the 1980s.