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Cabbage Patch Kids
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Cabbage Patch Kids are a brand of doll created by Xavier Roberts in 1978. The original dolls were all cloth and were available at local craft shows, and later at Babyland General Hospital in Cleveland, Georgia.
The dolls attracted the attention of toy manufacturer Coleco, who began mass producing them for the public in 1982. The Coleco Cabbage Patch Kids had large, round vinyl heads 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.
Babyland General Hospital is the 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. Although the initial fad surrounding the dolls has largely died down, Babyland General is still heavily trafficked by diehard fans, tourists, and curiosity seekers.
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The Cabbage Patch Kids name comes from the French word "chou," which means cabbage. In Francophone culture it is common for mothers to refer to their children as "mon chou," a term of endearment similar to "my dear." The Cabbage Patch Kids name is taken from this expression in order to stress the motherly love and care that is intended for the dolls.
Or it may have been a reference to folklore that states babies are found under cabbage leaves (as a way of avoiding telling the facts of life to curious children).
In 1978, artist Xavier Roberts created needle-molded fabric sculptures called Little People. In 1982, with sales for the originals falling precipitously, Roberts hired Roger Schlaifer as the doll concept's exclusive licensing agent. To build the first mass-market children's brand, Schlaifer changed the name to Cabbage Patch Kids— designing the ubiquitous graphics and logo. The plastic version of the Robert' dolls became the toy phenomenon of the eighties — with people rioting in stores to purchase the hot, new dolls — and everything else branded Cabbage Patch Kids. The "Originals" are still hand-stitched and are available exclusively from Babyland and its website. Adoption Agents administer a special Oath of Adoption ceremony for adoptive parents. Adoption fees for Originals range from $170 to $375 plus tax.
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 CPK 150 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 $2,000,000,000 in retail sales for 1984, alone. Total sales during Schlaifers' tenure exceeded $4.5 billion dollars. 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 preciptously 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.
Currently delivered by direct mail from the Danbury Mint, these dolls have a rigid fabric body with porcelain legs, arms, and head. Most Porcelains are offered from $54 to $125.
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.
Another line of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, the "Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Kids", was an incarnation designed to "eat" plastic snacks. The mechanism 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. 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.
Cabbage Patch Kids urban legends include that owners sending back dolls to the manufacturer for repairs were issued with a death certificate, and that the dolls were designed to make the public used to the appearance of mutated children that may be born in the aftermath of a nuclear war.[1]
- 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. signs a long term licensing agreement with Coleco, and the dolls are renamed Cabbage Patch Kids. They quickly become the must-have toy and parents stand in lines for hours that holiday season.
- 1985 - Cabbage Patch Kids travel into space aboard a NASA Space Shuttle.
- 1992 - Cabbage Patch Kids are named the official mascot of the 1992 US Olympic team.
- 1999 - Popular vote selects the dolls as one of the 15 commemorative US postal stamps representing the 1980s.