Any child of the 80s remembers the Cabbage Patch Kids. Cabbage Patch Kids were perhaps one of the biggest holiday fads of the 80s. So what was the appeal of these not-so-cute baby dolls?  Why did American children (and their parents) go nuts for the pudgy-faced kids?  The answer lies in the history of the toys.

A Brief History Lesson

Cabbage Patch Kids are credited to Xavier Roberts, but the design did not originate with him.  He saw a similar handmade doll being sold by Martha Thomas.  She sold birth certificates with the dolls at craft stores.  However, she did not copyright her idea, and when she refused to partner with Roberts, he started his own store selling the same type of doll.

However, Roberts’s store was nothing like a traditional toy store.  He did not “sell” his babies, but rather put them “up for adoption.”  His store, which was located in Cleveland, Georgia, was called Babyland General Hospital.  Children loved the idea of being able to adopt their very own baby in a hospital setting, and workers were dressed as hospital staff.  Part of the appeal of these dolls was that no two were the same.  Each one had its own unique first and last name, appearance, and outfit.  Roberts started selling his handmade dolls in 1979, and a trend was born.

Part of what made the Cabbage Patch Kids such a big holiday trend was the story that Roberts created to go with them.  He said he found the babies in a cabbage patch, where he lovingly took them and brought them to his hospital, where new babies were later delivered by storks.  There they waited, until a loving family adopted them and took them home.

In 1982, Coleco purchased the rights to mass-produce Cabbage Patch Kids.  They replaced Roberts’s cloth heads with vinyl heads.  However, the faces were the same shape as those dolls created by Roberts.  The dolls still came with adoption papers, birth certificates, and unique features.  Children fell in love, and parents did too!  For more on the history of Cabbage Patch Kids, visit http://www.thedollsite.net/cabbage-patch-dolls.htm.

The Holiday Fad Hits the Shelves

The Christmas of 1983 proved that Cabbage Patch Kids were one of the hottest holiday fads.  The dolls sold for $25, but most stores could not keep them on the shelves.  When new shipments arrived, moms stormed the shelves, trying to get their hands on the first ones before they were gone.  In fact, one mom broke her leg in a stampede at a Pennsylvania Zayre store.  Read more about that event here: . http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/
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No one really knows what made Cabbage Patch Kids such a huge fad.  Perhaps it was the ugly cuteness they had.  Perhaps it was the advertising campaign by Coleco, or the storyline behind them.  Regardless of the reason, Cabbage Patch Kids came and went, and by 1988 the dolls were no longer as popular as they had been.  Modern toy manufactures are bringing the dolls back with modest success, but they are no longer the craze that they once were.  Read more about them here: http://www.bookrags.com/Cabbage_Patch_Kids.