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2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about
3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Cabbage Patch Kids? Wrong! If the Cabbage Patch Kids is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Cabbage Patch Kids then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Cabbage Patch Kids? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Cabbage Patch Kids and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Cabbage Patch Kids wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Cabbage Patch Kids then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Cabbage Patch Kids site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Cabbage Patch Kids, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Cabbage Patch Kids, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
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.
Although the Cabbage Patch Kids
fad has largely passed, there remain a significant number of die-hard collectors.
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.
Gimmicks
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.
Little People Originals
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.
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 CPK 150 licenses for products ranging from the first childrens diapers and low-sugar cereal to clothing, backyard pools and thousands of other childrens 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.
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. Most Porcelains are offered from $54 to $125.
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.
Controversies & Hoaxes
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.
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. 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 Winter holiday season#Shopping.
- 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 Games team.
- 1999 - Popular vote selects the dolls as one of the 15 commemorative US postal stamps representing the 1980s.
References
External links
- Play Along Cabbage Patch Kids Official Site
- Cabbage Patch Kids memories
- Cabbage Patch Kids Official Site
- Cabbage Patch Kids Restoration Site
- Urban Legends Reference Page on Cabbage Patch Kids legends
- Urban Legends Reference Page on Cabbage Patch death certificates
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.
Although the Cabbage Patch Kids fad has largely passed, there remain a significant number of die-hard collectors.
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.
Gimmicks
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.
Little People Originals
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.
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 CPK 150 licenses for products ranging from the first childrens diapers and low-sugar cereal to clothing, backyard pools and thousands of other childrens 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.
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. Most Porcelains are offered from $54 to $125.
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.
Controversies & Hoaxes
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.
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. 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 Winter holiday season#Shopping.
- 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 Games team.
- 1999 - Popular vote selects the dolls as one of the 15 commemorative US postal stamps representing the 1980s.
References
External links
- Play Along Cabbage Patch Kids Official Site
- Cabbage Patch Kids memories
- Cabbage Patch Kids Official Site
- Cabbage Patch Kids Restoration Site
- Urban Legends Reference Page on Cabbage Patch Kids legends
- Urban Legends Reference Page on Cabbage Patch death certificates
Cabbage Patch Kids
Provides history of the original dolls and their creator, Xavier Roberts. Offers Babyland Hospital tour, schedule of chat sessions, message forum, news, and gift shop.
Cabbage Patch Kids
For details on how you could win an autographed original soft-sculpture Cabbage Patch Kid (Click here) Welcome to the OFFICIAL CABBAGE PATCH KIDS WEB-SITE.
Cabbage Patch Kids - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cabbage Patch Kids are a 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 ...
BBC - h2g2 - Cabbage Patch Kids
h2g2 is the unconventional guide to life, the universe and everything, a guide that's written by visitors to the website, creating an organic and evolving encyclopedia of life
Cabbage Patch Kids
Cabbage Patch Kids® ©2007 Original Appalachian Artworks, Inc. Play Along® & ©2007 Play Along, a division of JAKKS Pacific, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Cabbage Patch Kids : Kids
Cabbage Patch Kids® ©2007 Original Appalachian Artworks, Inc. Play Along® & ©2007 Play Along, a division of JAKKS Pacific, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Cabbage Patch Kids
Cabbage Patch Kids Dolls and Collectibles
Cabbage Patch Kids & Rice Paddy Babies - V&A Museum of Childhood
Cabbage Patch Kid, 1985. Museum no. B.359:1-1996 (click image for larger version)
Cabbage Patch Kids & Cabbage Patch Dolls Message Board
Cabbage Patch Kids & Cabbage Patch Dolls information and message board ... If you would like to sponsor this message board, please contact us. Welcome to the Cabbage Patch Kids ...
Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Dolls Refund
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Originally issued January 6, 1997 Revised May 9, 2005 Release #97-055: CONTACT CPSC: (301) 504-7908 CONTACT MATTEL: Lisa McKendall