Cabbage Patch Kids

From Encyclopedia Jr, free information reference for Kids

Cabbage Patch Kids are a brand of doll created by Xavier Roberts. First introduced as "Little People", 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 1983. The Coleco Cabbage Patch Kids had large, round vinyl heads and soft fabric bodies, and were produced from 1983-1989. After Coleco's licensed expired, the Cabbage Patch Kids were later mass produced by other companies, including Hasbro, Mattel, Toys R Us, and currently Play Along.

The gimmicks of the dolls are their uniqueness and the fact that they were adoptable. No two were exactly alike; each doll had a different eye color, facial features, hair, and/or outfit. In the mass-produced dolls, subtle differences were introduced with a computer for each run. Each comes with a unique birth certificate signed by their creator, Xavier Roberts.

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.

Although the Cabbage Patch Kids fad has largely passed, there remain a significant number of die-hard collectors.

[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 talk 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] Controversies

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 dolls were also the basis for a number of urban legends, including accusations that owners sending back dolls to the manufacturer for repairs were issued with a death certificate, and that the dolls were deliberately designed to make the public used to the appearance of mutated children that may be born in the aftermath of a nuclear war. These and other urban legends have been subsequently debunked by the Urban Legends Reference Pages and other such authorities [1].

[edit] External links

• Play Along Cabbage Patch Kids Official Site
• Cabbage Patch Kids Official Site
• Urban Legends Reference Page on Cabbage Patch Kids legends
• Fairy Godmother's Treasures This website restores childhood Cabbage Patch Kids to their original condition including rerooting them with new hair!
• Delanea's Cabbage Patch This website displays many examples of Coleco, TRU, soft sculpture, and Play Along Cabbage Patch Kids.