Cabbage Patch Kids

Creation and development

According to Roberts, as a 21-year-old art student, he utilized the quilting skills he learned from his mother and the historic technique of "needle molding" to develop his own line of fabric sculptures. He called these hand-stitched, one-of-a-kind, soft fabric sculptures "The Little People". (Other soft sculpture dolls dating back to the 19th century were created using similar needle molding techniques.) His Little People were not offered for sale, but were "adopted" each with their own individual name and birth certificate. Instead of paying a purchase price, buyers of Little People would have to pay an adoption fee.^[2]

The Little People were first sold at arts and crafts shows, then later at Babyland General Hospital, an old medical clinic that Roberts and his friends-turned-employees converted into a toy store, in Cleveland, Georgia.^[3]

An early transaction at Babyland General Hospital worth noting is the sale of the only Little People quintuplets ever made at the facility. Bennie and Jeannie Shelton of Cumming, Georgia paid $5,000 to buy the one-of-a-kind set of five identical dolls. Also worth noting is one of Roberts' very first Little People dolls he ever created sold at an auction in Virginia in the early 80's for $3,000.

The following is an abbreviated version of the origin story Roberts came up with for his Little People:

"Xavier Roberts was a ten-year-old boy who discovered the Cabbage Patch Kids by following a BunnyBee behind a waterfall into a magical Cabbage Patch, where he found the Cabbage Patch babies being born. To help them find good homes he built BabyLand General in Cleveland, Georgia where the Cabbage Patch Kids could live and play until they were adopted.

BunnyBees are bee-like creatures with rabbit ears they use as wings. They pollinate cabbages with their magic crystals to make Cabbage Patch babies.

Colonel Casey is a large stork who oversees Babyland General Hospital. He's the narrator of the Cabbage Patch Kids' story.

Otis Lee is the leader of the gang of Cabbage Patch Kids that befriended Xavier."

(This discovery legend would be reproduced on every Cabbage Patch Kids product from 1983 onward.)

Coleco years

The name change to Cabbage Patch Kids was made in 1982 when Xavier's company, Original Appalachian Artworks, began to license a smaller version of the handmade creations to a toy manufacturer named Coleco which began mass production the same year.^[4] 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 to 1989, many at a factory in Amsterdam, New York. The first two years production was all from the Far East, with nine head variations produced and computer-matched with bodies to ensure each doll was "different". It was, in fact, a marketing ploy that worked quite well as a wide range of variations resulted. (Source: Larry Moniz, then senior account supervisor for the Coleco account at Richard Weiner Public Relations in NYC.)

At the peak of their popularity, the dolls were a must-have toy for Christmas.^[5][6] 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.

International variations

In the 1980s when Coleco was producing the dolls for the North American market, the global craze was fulfilled by other companies:

• Jesmar Toy Company made the dolls for the European Market, Including Spain, Italy and Germany.
• Lili Ledy Toy Company made the dolls for Mexico and South America.
• Triang-Pedigree Toy Company made the dolls for South Africa.
• Tsukuda Toy Company manufactured the dolls for Japan and Asia.^[7]

The Dolls manufactured by each of these companies, and along with the factories that produced the dolls for North America, produced dolls that were slightly different from one another. Dolls that were made for consumers in other countries than the United States hold a higher value in the eye of some American collectors.

Hasbro years

Hasbro took over the rights to produce Cabbage Patch dolls in 1988 after Coleco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy,^[8] and continued to make the dolls with various gimmicks, including dolls that played kazoos. Some of the more popular doll lines to come out under the Cabbage Patch Kids name included the "Birthday Kids", "Splash 'n' Tan Kids", and "Pretty Crimp and Curl". Hasbro gradually began making the dolls for younger children, which led to smaller and smaller dolls. Although Cabbage Patch dolls were still best selling toys, Hasbro never really revitalized the Cabbage Patch market. In 1994, Mattel acquired the licensing rights to the dolls from Original Appalachian Artworks.

Mattel years

In 1994, Mattel took over the Cabbage Patch brand, including production. The first Mattel Cabbage Patch dolls hit the stores in 1995.

The Mattel Cabbage Patch dolls are not limited to cloth bodies and included dolls made from vinyl, which produced a more durable play doll. The Mattel dolls are mostly sized 14" or smaller, and most variants were individualized with a gimmick to enhance their collectibility, e.g. some dolls played on water-toys, swam, ate food, or brushed their teeth.

Some memorable Mattel lines include the updated Kids line of basic cloth dolls that came with birth certificates, the OlympiKids that were made to coincide with the 1996 Olympics, and the Cabbage Patch Fairies. Additionally, to celebrate the dolls' 15th anniversary, Mattel created a line of exclusively female dolls with a new molded fabric face, dressed in a custom outfits and packaged in collectible boxes. These were 16 inches tall, the same measurement of the first Coleco Cabbage Patch Kids.

Toys "R" Us Kids

In 2001, retailer Toys "R" Us took over the Cabbage Patch brand from Mattel, producing 20-inch Kids and 18-inch babies, both with cloth bodies and vinyl heads. They were packaged in cardboard cabbage leaf seats. In 2001, the 20-inch dolls debuted in the Times Square flagship store. These were created to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the line, and were available both online and in stores around the US.

Play Along Toys

The Toys "R" Us line lasted until Play Along toys obtained exclusive licensing rights to produce the Cabbage Patch Kids doll line. In 2003, Play Along launched a Cabbage Patch Kids 25th Anniversary collection using some of the original head sculpts from the very first Coleco editions. Play Along also partnered with Carvel Ice Cream in a co-branding campaign. The resulting co-branded Cabbage Patch Kids were packaged with a Carvel-branded ice cream cone.

Jakks Pacific

JAKKS Pacific acquired Play Along Toys and assumed the master toy licensee (c2011) for the Cabbage Patch Kids. Jakks introduced a 14-inch Cabbage Patch Kids Fashionality(TM) line and other Cabbage Patch Kid products. In 2013 Jakks Pacific released the Celebration edition to commemorate the 30th Birthday of the licensed Cabbage Patch Kids.

Wicked Cool Toys

Wicked Cool Toys is now the current master toy licensee for the Cabbage Patch Kids.^[9]

In this line, WCT released new additions like Little Sprouts, a toyline of tiny collectable dolls, and Adoptimals, plush pets who interact with the Kids.

Lawsuits

Though Xavier Roberts is the creator of the Cabbage Patch Kids brand, many of the brand's defining characteristics, such as the dolls' overly round faces and that they came with an adoption certificate, can be traced back to Martha Nelson Thomas, an American folk artist from Kentucky. Before Roberts ever became involved in the toy industry, Thomas created and marketed her own line of dolls, called Doll Babies, which she sold at local arts and craft shows and markets. The two crossed paths at a state fair in 1976 and Roberts began purchasing her dolls to sell at a profit at his own store in Georgia. ^[11][12][13] Thomas eventually confronted Roberts about his unethical business practices and ceased to sell additional dolls to him, prompting him to turn to a manufacturing company in Hong Kong to mass produce dolls similar in appearance to Thomas' at a cheaper cost to him.^[14] Thomas brought suit against Roberts and eventually settled with him out of court for an undisclosed amount in 1985. She and her husband, Tucker Thomas, told the press that she was more upset by the corruption of her dolls, for which she cared deeply, than the money she'd lost as the result of Roberts' actions.^[15][16] Thomas died in 2013, at the age of 62, with her most favorite dolls attending her funeral alongside her family members and friends.^[17]

Then Xavier Roberts himself brought a $30 million lawsuit against Topps, the company that produced grotesque trading cards parodying his company's dolls called the Garbage Pail Kids, for copyright infringement.^[18][19] In 1987, in the midst of the legal proceedings, the makers of the Garbage Pail Kids announced their decision to cease parodying the Cabbage Patch Kids, to which Roberts commented to the press "I could scream I'm so excited."^[20]

Product safety

One line of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, the Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kids, was designed to "eat" plastic snacks. The mechanism enabling this was a pair of one-way smooth metal rollers behind plastic lips. The snacks would exit the doll's back and "magically" appear into a backpack. The mechanism could be de-activated by releasing the backpack.^[21] They were extremely popular during Christmas 1996. The line was voluntarily withdrawn from the market following an agreement between Mattel and the Consumer Product Safety Commission in January 1997 following several incidents where children got their fingers or hair stuck in the dolls' mouths leading to safety warnings from Connecticut's consumer protection commissioner, Mark Shiffrin.^[22]