November 27, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, when the Cabbage Patch Kids hit store shelves in 1983, parents felt a pull they hadn’t sensed from a toy before. Crowds formed before sunrise, and the pressure inside those shops grew in a way that felt unfamiliar for the holiday season. What started as a rush for one doll ended up reshaping the way Americans braced for the day after Thanksgiving. Toy historian Jonathan Alexandratos shares the story behind the craze and the shift it set in motion.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Jonathan Alexandrados is
a toy historian whose knowledge was featured in the film
Billion Dollar Babies, The True Story of the Cabbage Patch Kids.
Here's Jonathan with the story of the Cabbage Patch Kids
and how they set the wheels in motion for modern
(00:31):
day Black Friday.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
So at eighteen fifty, way back, the US met its
first baby doll, and instantaneously the baby doll was not popular.
It took until the late eighteen hundreds for the thing
to actually catch on, but by nineteen twenty, the modern conception.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Of the baby doll was here.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It was a cloth body at a sculpted head that
was painted typically what one might think of when.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
They think of the baby doll.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That model stayed fairly popular throughout the twentieth century. Once
we get to nineteen seventy one, we meet an artist
Martha Nelson Martha Nelson Thomas soon to be and she's
looking at the baby doll and she's wondering what she
could add to this genre of toy and what she
(01:26):
reaches for is something called soft sculpture. So soft sculpture
is basically the act of conceiving of a sculpted head.
Let's say that's made out of some sort of cloth material,
so you're kind of sewing it so that the features
are all evident in the ultimate soft sculpture. That's Martha
(01:47):
Nelson's interest. She makes these off of input from kids
that she knew at the time. So she actually asked
kids in her community, you know, what they would like
to see in a baby doll, and she made those.
Those are called doll babies. Martha Nelson Thomas originally sold
those in Appalachian craft fairs. She is from Kentucky, and
(02:11):
she would go to those regional.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Craft fairs and sell them.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
But by nineteen seventy six, she meets Xavier Roberts at
the craft fair who ultimately says, hey, I would really
like to start selling.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
These on a bigger scale.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And initially Martha is kind of interested in this, but
after about a year, she's not so psyched about it.
She's kind of losing interest in that. So as a result,
Xavier Roberts says, she her, well, I'm going to keep
selling them, whether you want me to or not. And
(02:48):
what he does is he doesn't call them doll babies.
He calls them little people and Little People are supposed
to be different than doll babies, yet when you put
their picture side by side, they actually look pretty similar.
The features are the same, the scale is the same,
you know, the huffy cheeks, all of that is the same.
(03:11):
And Martha Nelson Thomas and Xavier Roberts when they meet.
Martha is more or less just out of school.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Xavier is a little bit older than that.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Xavier is a heavily talented man in his own right.
So I think one of the misconceptions that sometimes happens
in this story is it becomes the story of an
artist and the person who stole the art, which, yes,
there is an element of that, but with Xavier Roberts,
(03:44):
he actually is a pretty talented like Wiltmaker, He's done
artistic endeavors on his own, so it's not so much
random outsider. This is actually somebody who knows the world
pretty well. So by nineteen seventy eight, Xavier Roberts is
out selling his Little People. He's doing well with that,
(04:09):
but by nineteen eighty two, Kalico approaches him for a
license because these are selling so well, and by then
the Little People, presumably because Little People is a brand
made by Fisher Price since nineteen fifty nine have changed
to being called cabbage Patch Kids something different.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
The thing with Cabbage Patch Kids that is unique is
from Martha Nelson Thomas's early days. She wanted these creations
to be closer to actually adopting a baby rather than
getting a doll. So as a result of that, these
(04:56):
dolls would come with birth certificates.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
They would be unique.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
But again this goes all the way back to Martha's idea.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Xavier Roberts keeps that.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Going, so that these dolls have that novelty, but they're
also hearkening back to a very familiar play pattern. Remember
I had said that these dolls go as far back
as the eighteen hundreds, in the modern incarnation back to
nineteen twenty. So these are things that parents would reasonably see,
(05:25):
look at go oh, I played with something like that.
But the way these are kind of updated is cool.
I want to have that.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
For my kids.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
So the way in which parents kind of were directed
towards the ultimate Cabbage Patch Kid is totally understandable because
it's an item they recognized with a little bit of
added novelty to it, So who could resist that. So
(05:55):
nineteen eighty two, Calico gets the license from Xavier Roberts.
That's where you see the cabbage Patch kids that we
all know, the ones that have Exavier Roberts signature right
there on the rear end, you know, like those are
the cabbage Patch kids. It's important to note that Martha
Nelson Thomas did not.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Just fade away.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
She actually fought for her creation. In nineteen seventy nine,
she launched her first lawsuit against Xavier Roberts for this.
It was settled for an undisclosed amount, so we actually
don't know how much she got from that. I think
by all accounts it was probably not enough. Given the
ensuing craze that was going to happen.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
So throughout the eighties.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
The cabbage Patch kid takes off, you see riots essentially
breaking out in stores over them.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
It was an unusual draw. The box was full of ballots,
more than four hundred of them. But if your name
was pulled, you didn't win a cabbine Patch doll. You
only won the chance to buy one. It's a roundabout
way of selling the dolls, but the store's manager says
it's the best way to avoid trouble.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
About three weeks ago, we had a sale on cabbage
patch and we had about two hundred people at the
front door, and we had thirty six dolls, and we
had a near riot. So this way we decided to
have a draw and be more orderly.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Kids are getting them, not even necessarily because they like them,
but because they represent a higher status. When you're at school,
you know you've got a cabbage patch kid. They weren't cheap,
you know, they were like thirty bucks at the time,
which is quite a lot actually, if you adjust for
inflation I think that brings it to around eighty today, maybe.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
A little more.
Speaker 6 (07:46):
Getting a cabbage patch kid became more enviable than actually
having and keeping a cabbage patch kid in the sense
of the fact that mom got one so much more
than what the product actually was.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Again going back to this idea of a status symbol.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
The fact that mom.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Managed to or dad or whoever, managed to fight through
the crowds, fight through the riot, fight through the guy
with the baseball dat and actually get a cabbage patch kid.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
At the end of the day and bring it home victorious.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
That said something about how much that parent loved their kid,
how much they were willing to do, how much they
were willing to fight through.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And we've been listening to Jonathan Alexandrados. He's a toy
historian who knows a heck a lot of about the subject.
And by the way, we learned a bunch toys as
we know it, dolls, baby dolls as we know them,
didn't really come into existence truly in American life till
the late nineteenth century. There's some innovation, but not a
lot and income. Those Cabbage Patch kids and cabbage Patch hysteria.
(08:53):
And for any of you who lived during that time period,
what moms and dads would do the ends of the earth.
They'd go to to get this toy, this doll for
their kids was unlike anything I'd ever seen. It was
almost embarrassing. Sometimes waiting on lines, you heard thirty dollars,
two hundred people showing up, not just fights over these dolls,
(09:15):
but riots and all so there could be that special
Christmas present for the kids. When we come back more
of the story of the Cabbage Patch Kids here on
our American Stories. And we returned to our American Stories
(09:41):
into the story of the Cabbage Patch Kids told by
toy historian Jonathan Alexandrados, beginning with a news report from
December of nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 7 (09:54):
Once the coupons were given out to those few parents
who would be allowed to buy a doll was given out,
that the dolls would be given out behind the store,
out back at the freight entrance, and then the race
was on. Otherwise dignified, calm, mannerly parents broke into a sprint.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
Well, I had to take what they gave me, and
they gave me a boy, and I wanted a girl.
I said, this is my second trip around.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
My husband works here, and I can't even get what
I want. I'm miss work.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I'm late for work to get this for my little girl.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
I'm not going to tell my boss. I'm trying to
get there now. You're so excited.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
We waited here since seven point thirty, and I was
just ecstatic the fact I ran around and got another
ticket and.
Speaker 7 (10:32):
Within a matter of minutes it was over. You did
not get a cabbage punch doll this morning, No, I
did not. How badly do you want one?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Very very badly?
Speaker 7 (10:43):
One woman told us she's going to call her sisters
in Nebraska in Illinois to see if they can get
her a doll. If not, she's going to drive to Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
It's what is it two hours to go to Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I think it's worth going there.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
If not, I'll try California. I have a niece that
lives in California.
Speaker 7 (11:01):
Why are full grown adults fighting over these Well, here's
one reason I want.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
To get it.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Look, this is something that consistently we see throughout pop
culture front cabbage Patch forward.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Remember Jingle all the Way.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
That's a comedy, right, And that's a comedy that's made
about a guy who basically does the same thing these
parents were doing when they were looking for Cabbage Patch kids.
He was finding Turboman to show that he was the Turboman,
he could be the best dad ever. And that's what
these parents were looking to do too.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
In many ways, every holiday season there's one toy everyone
has to have.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
I want the Turbo mass I figure with the oss
that move and gar jetpacked and the floors.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Getting it is every child's dream.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Whoever doesn't can be a real loser finding it.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
You got the doll?
Speaker 5 (11:57):
Right?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Is this father's nightmare?
Speaker 5 (12:00):
I don't get that.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Toy, I promise.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
When I was a kid, it was power Rangers. Power
Rangers were the thing that when they first came out,
nobody invested in power Rangers except for Toys r US,
and Toys r US sold out.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Of them very, very very quickly.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
My uncle to this day insists he paid a guy
in a parking lot one hundred bucks to get one
for me for Christmas, and.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Man I loved that thing, And man I loved that uncle.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
So I can imagine go back to the eighties, you'll
see exactly the same thing, the same story of the
way fads work and permeate the culture like that, where
it almost doesn't matter what the object is. I mean,
people will fight over it.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
It's something that we all have gone through as a parent.
You know, this franding shopping.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
So to get a cabbage patch kid really said something
about you know, who you were as a kid. It
was something that culturally we riffed on as well. You
might be familiar with the garbage pail kids, you know,
those were the sort of reaction to the cabbage patch kid.
Let's take this thing that's meant to be wholesome and
let's make it real ugly. You know, even sour patch kids, right,
(13:11):
the candy that's a riff on those Before then they
were called mars Men, so you know, they get changed
as well to kind of play on this whole craze
that's happening. So this is a sensation. The other thing
that happens, which is interesting just from a toy creation standpoint,
is Colico actually thinks about how to replicate, at least
(13:35):
in some ways the craft arteisonal nature of what was
once to the doll baby, in that they made a
computer program that actually created individually unique heads for each
cabbage Patch Kid.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Cabbage Patch Kids are each different as can be.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
So this idea that in the world of mass produced toys,
you know, if you buy Duke from Gi Joe, Duke
always looks exactly the same.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
That's the whole point of that action figure.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
If you buy a cabbage Patch Kid, though, you are
the only person who has the cabbage Patch Kid with
that exact.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Sculpt and pain application.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So for example, the dimples and the birthmarks and things
like that, that's all programmed to be unique. So then
you have this sensation of people going into stores looking
for specific Cabbage Patch Kids that maybe look like them.
The names, when you actually look at the birth certificates
contain names that are culturally distinct there, you know, from
(14:40):
lots of different places, at least in terms of the
way they sound. This is all new. So when Cabbage
Patch Kids first came out, Kalico, by no means had
enough stock to keep pace with the demand. So while
all those riots are happening, Kaliko is like, wait, wait, wait,
I know we're opening up another factory. We promise more
(15:03):
is coming. Meanwhile, folks in the stores are like, yeah, right, buddy, whatever,
I'm getting this one. I'd rather have that cabbage Patch
than wait for you. I don't believe you.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
They were actually doing their best, Khaligo, but it's hard
to convey.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
That to a public pre Internet, pre social media. You
can't tweet about this stuff in the nineteen eighties, so
you basically just have people wondering if they'll ever get
one of these toys without any real way of knowing
whether or not they will. So that right there ups
the level of fighting.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
That people are willing to engage with.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
That were the still this girl's mother bought seventeen hundred
dollars worth. It defies all reason. It's the American way.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
I'm crazy, right, anything with my grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
It doesn't bother you to spend that much money on dog,
but I sure did my husband. Since doing Cabbage Patch
Kids in the eighties, Xavier Roberts became more and more
reclusive throughout the year, so much so that for the
longest time he didn't really give extensive interviews about what
(16:14):
he was up to, which is interesting because you know,
by the way Ty Warner was the same thing of
Beanie Baby's fame, pretty reclusive, didn't give extensive interviews, which
is actually what makes Billion Dollar Babies the true story
of the Cabbage Batch Kids pretty novel, because in that documentary,
Xavier Roberts for the first time sat down and did
(16:34):
an extensive, in depth interview about his life and what
he's kind of been through, and it actually really helps
to shed some light on his perspective in this whole thing.
Of course, he doesn't see it the same way as
perhaps I would. I've got my own biases when I
think about it. For him, you know, he openly admits
that Cabbage Patch would have been impossible about Martin Nelson Thomas,
(16:58):
and in his view, he took it to a different level.
That's kind of his story. He's essentially retired Martha Nelson
Thomas by the way she died in twenty thirteen, and
for her entire life created art. I mean, she never
stopped being an artist, that's for sure, even though she
was sort of burned by this experience. So Black Friday,
(17:21):
despite being around in the nineteen fifties and onward, never
was the violent sensation that it became post cabbage Patch.
And it is true that once the quote cabbage Patch
riots happened, it became normalized. When you think about future
toy fads, the idea of people fighting over toys in
a store isn't really that surprising. You don't hear about
(17:45):
it pre cabbage Patch, but after that you certainly do.
And again I go back to the movie jingle all
the way that you know doesn't actually critique the process
of fighting over a fad toy. It actually says, go
fight over it. That's that's fantastic, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yes, your Christmas spirit.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
So from the cabbage Patch kids' riots of the eighties,
as we can kind of dramatically call them, we then
see a cascade after that of other toy fads that
kind of come along and occupy that space culturally. So
we may remember legs of Tickle the Elmos.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Being ripped off in the nineties. The Beanie Baby's thing
on its own was you know.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
A good example, Ferbie, you know to pokem on. Throughout
the thousands kind of takes that space at different times,
but none of them why get to the level of
where cabbage Patch was. Where for the first time we
saw on the news recorded footage of just people going
nuts inside of a kmart.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
That's new and that's unique to cabbage Patch.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
So today cabbage Patch Kids are still around. People don't
necessarily they know that they've changed hands a few times
from different companies, from Calico to Mattel to Hasbro and others,
and they basically look more or less as they did.
They're a little smaller, down, a little cheaper. But the
(19:15):
enthusiasm that they garnered in the eighties burned so white
hot that today there's no way it could sustain after
all these years.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
Jonathan Alexandronos. He's a toy historian whose knowledge was featured
in the film Billion Dollar Babies. The True story of
the Cabbage Patch Kids and what a story we heard,
and my goodness, I never thought about Black Friday before
(19:48):
like this, And indeed it's true. This was the first
time in American history that people were fighting over a
toy the day after Thanksgiving and waiting in line in
mass were a product. There wasn't enough of the true
story of the Cabbage Patch Kids.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Here on our American stories.
And we continue with our American stories. Jonathan Alexandrados is
a toy historian whose knowledge was featured in the film
Billion Dollar Babies, The True Story of the Cabbage Patch Kids.
Here's Jonathan with the story of the Cabbage Patch Kids
and how they set the wheels in motion for modern
(00:31):
day Black Friday.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
So at eighteen fifty, way back, the US met its
first baby doll, and instantaneously the baby doll was not popular.
It took until the late eighteen hundreds for the thing
to actually catch on, but by nineteen twenty, the modern conception.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Of the baby doll was here.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It was a cloth body at a sculpted head that
was painted typically what one might think of when.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
They think of the baby doll.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That model stayed fairly popular throughout the twentieth century. Once
we get to nineteen seventy one, we meet an artist
Martha Nelson Martha Nelson Thomas soon to be and she's
looking at the baby doll and she's wondering what she
could add to this genre of toy and what she
(01:26):
reaches for is something called soft sculpture. So soft sculpture
is basically the act of conceiving of a sculpted head.
Let's say that's made out of some sort of cloth material,
so you're kind of sewing it so that the features
are all evident in the ultimate soft sculpture. That's Martha
(01:47):
Nelson's interest. She makes these off of input from kids
that she knew at the time. So she actually asked
kids in her community, you know, what they would like
to see in a baby doll, and she made those.
Those are called doll babies. Martha Nelson Thomas originally sold
those in Appalachian craft fairs. She is from Kentucky, and
(02:11):
she would go to those regional.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Craft fairs and sell them.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
But by nineteen seventy six, she meets Xavier Roberts at
the craft fair who ultimately says, hey, I would really
like to start selling.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
These on a bigger scale.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And initially Martha is kind of interested in this, but
after about a year, she's not so psyched about it.
She's kind of losing interest in that. So as a result,
Xavier Roberts says, she her, well, I'm going to keep
selling them, whether you want me to or not. And
(02:48):
what he does is he doesn't call them doll babies.
He calls them little people and Little People are supposed
to be different than doll babies, yet when you put
their picture side by side, they actually look pretty similar.
The features are the same, the scale is the same,
you know, the huffy cheeks, all of that is the same.
(03:11):
And Martha Nelson Thomas and Xavier Roberts when they meet.
Martha is more or less just out of school.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Xavier is a little bit older than that.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Xavier is a heavily talented man in his own right.
So I think one of the misconceptions that sometimes happens
in this story is it becomes the story of an
artist and the person who stole the art, which, yes,
there is an element of that, but with Xavier Roberts,
(03:44):
he actually is a pretty talented like Wiltmaker, He's done
artistic endeavors on his own, so it's not so much
random outsider. This is actually somebody who knows the world
pretty well. So by nineteen seventy eight, Xavier Roberts is
out selling his Little People. He's doing well with that,
(04:09):
but by nineteen eighty two, Kalico approaches him for a
license because these are selling so well, and by then
the Little People, presumably because Little People is a brand
made by Fisher Price since nineteen fifty nine have changed
to being called cabbage Patch Kids something different.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
The thing with Cabbage Patch Kids that is unique is
from Martha Nelson Thomas's early days. She wanted these creations
to be closer to actually adopting a baby rather than
getting a doll. So as a result of that, these
(04:56):
dolls would come with birth certificates.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
They would be unique.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
But again this goes all the way back to Martha's idea.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Xavier Roberts keeps that.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Going, so that these dolls have that novelty, but they're
also hearkening back to a very familiar play pattern. Remember
I had said that these dolls go as far back
as the eighteen hundreds, in the modern incarnation back to
nineteen twenty. So these are things that parents would reasonably see,
(05:25):
look at go oh, I played with something like that.
But the way these are kind of updated is cool.
I want to have that.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
For my kids.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
So the way in which parents kind of were directed
towards the ultimate Cabbage Patch Kid is totally understandable because
it's an item they recognized with a little bit of
added novelty to it, So who could resist that. So
(05:55):
nineteen eighty two, Calico gets the license from Xavier Roberts.
That's where you see the cabbage Patch kids that we
all know, the ones that have Exavier Roberts signature right
there on the rear end, you know, like those are
the cabbage Patch kids. It's important to note that Martha
Nelson Thomas did not.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Just fade away.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
She actually fought for her creation. In nineteen seventy nine,
she launched her first lawsuit against Xavier Roberts for this.
It was settled for an undisclosed amount, so we actually
don't know how much she got from that. I think
by all accounts it was probably not enough. Given the
ensuing craze that was going to happen.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
So throughout the eighties.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
The cabbage Patch kid takes off, you see riots essentially
breaking out in stores over them.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
It was an unusual draw. The box was full of ballots,
more than four hundred of them. But if your name
was pulled, you didn't win a cabbine Patch doll. You
only won the chance to buy one. It's a roundabout
way of selling the dolls, but the store's manager says
it's the best way to avoid trouble.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
About three weeks ago, we had a sale on cabbage
patch and we had about two hundred people at the
front door, and we had thirty six dolls, and we
had a near riot. So this way we decided to
have a draw and be more orderly.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Kids are getting them, not even necessarily because they like them,
but because they represent a higher status. When you're at school,
you know you've got a cabbage patch kid. They weren't cheap,
you know, they were like thirty bucks at the time,
which is quite a lot actually, if you adjust for
inflation I think that brings it to around eighty today, maybe.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
A little more.
Speaker 6 (07:46):
Getting a cabbage patch kid became more enviable than actually
having and keeping a cabbage patch kid in the sense
of the fact that mom got one so much more
than what the product actually was.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Again going back to this idea of a status symbol.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
The fact that mom.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Managed to or dad or whoever, managed to fight through
the crowds, fight through the riot, fight through the guy
with the baseball dat and actually get a cabbage patch kid.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
At the end of the day and bring it home victorious.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
That said something about how much that parent loved their kid,
how much they were willing to do, how much they
were willing to fight through.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And we've been listening to Jonathan Alexandrados. He's a toy
historian who knows a heck a lot of about the subject.
And by the way, we learned a bunch toys as
we know it, dolls, baby dolls as we know them,
didn't really come into existence truly in American life till
the late nineteenth century. There's some innovation, but not a
lot and income. Those Cabbage Patch kids and cabbage Patch hysteria.
(08:53):
And for any of you who lived during that time period,
what moms and dads would do the ends of the earth.
They'd go to to get this toy, this doll for
their kids was unlike anything I'd ever seen. It was
almost embarrassing. Sometimes waiting on lines, you heard thirty dollars,
two hundred people showing up, not just fights over these dolls,
(09:15):
but riots and all so there could be that special
Christmas present for the kids. When we come back more
of the story of the Cabbage Patch Kids here on
our American Stories. And we returned to our American Stories
(09:41):
into the story of the Cabbage Patch Kids told by
toy historian Jonathan Alexandrados, beginning with a news report from
December of nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 7 (09:54):
Once the coupons were given out to those few parents
who would be allowed to buy a doll was given out,
that the dolls would be given out behind the store,
out back at the freight entrance, and then the race
was on. Otherwise dignified, calm, mannerly parents broke into a sprint.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
Well, I had to take what they gave me, and
they gave me a boy, and I wanted a girl.
I said, this is my second trip around.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
My husband works here, and I can't even get what
I want. I'm miss work.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I'm late for work to get this for my little girl.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
I'm not going to tell my boss. I'm trying to
get there now. You're so excited.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
We waited here since seven point thirty, and I was
just ecstatic the fact I ran around and got another
ticket and.
Speaker 7 (10:32):
Within a matter of minutes it was over. You did
not get a cabbage punch doll this morning, No, I
did not. How badly do you want one?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Very very badly?
Speaker 7 (10:43):
One woman told us she's going to call her sisters
in Nebraska in Illinois to see if they can get
her a doll. If not, she's going to drive to Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
It's what is it two hours to go to Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I think it's worth going there.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
If not, I'll try California. I have a niece that
lives in California.
Speaker 7 (11:01):
Why are full grown adults fighting over these Well, here's
one reason I want.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
To get it.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Look, this is something that consistently we see throughout pop
culture front cabbage Patch forward.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Remember Jingle all the Way.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
That's a comedy, right, And that's a comedy that's made
about a guy who basically does the same thing these
parents were doing when they were looking for Cabbage Patch kids.
He was finding Turboman to show that he was the Turboman,
he could be the best dad ever. And that's what
these parents were looking to do too.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
In many ways, every holiday season there's one toy everyone
has to have.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
I want the Turbo mass I figure with the oss
that move and gar jetpacked and the floors.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Getting it is every child's dream.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Whoever doesn't can be a real loser finding it.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
You got the doll?
Speaker 5 (11:57):
Right?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Is this father's nightmare?
Speaker 5 (12:00):
I don't get that.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Toy, I promise.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
When I was a kid, it was power Rangers. Power
Rangers were the thing that when they first came out,
nobody invested in power Rangers except for Toys r US,
and Toys r US sold out.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Of them very, very very quickly.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
My uncle to this day insists he paid a guy
in a parking lot one hundred bucks to get one
for me for Christmas, and.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Man I loved that thing, And man I loved that uncle.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
So I can imagine go back to the eighties, you'll
see exactly the same thing, the same story of the
way fads work and permeate the culture like that, where
it almost doesn't matter what the object is. I mean,
people will fight over it.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
It's something that we all have gone through as a parent.
You know, this franding shopping.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
So to get a cabbage patch kid really said something
about you know, who you were as a kid. It
was something that culturally we riffed on as well. You
might be familiar with the garbage pail kids, you know,
those were the sort of reaction to the cabbage patch kid.
Let's take this thing that's meant to be wholesome and
let's make it real ugly. You know, even sour patch kids, right,
(13:11):
the candy that's a riff on those Before then they
were called mars Men, so you know, they get changed
as well to kind of play on this whole craze
that's happening. So this is a sensation. The other thing
that happens, which is interesting just from a toy creation standpoint,
is Colico actually thinks about how to replicate, at least
(13:35):
in some ways the craft arteisonal nature of what was
once to the doll baby, in that they made a
computer program that actually created individually unique heads for each
cabbage Patch Kid.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Cabbage Patch Kids are each different as can be.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
So this idea that in the world of mass produced toys,
you know, if you buy Duke from Gi Joe, Duke
always looks exactly the same.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
That's the whole point of that action figure.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
If you buy a cabbage Patch Kid, though, you are
the only person who has the cabbage Patch Kid with
that exact.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Sculpt and pain application.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So for example, the dimples and the birthmarks and things
like that, that's all programmed to be unique. So then
you have this sensation of people going into stores looking
for specific Cabbage Patch Kids that maybe look like them.
The names, when you actually look at the birth certificates
contain names that are culturally distinct there, you know, from
(14:40):
lots of different places, at least in terms of the
way they sound. This is all new. So when Cabbage
Patch Kids first came out, Kalico, by no means had
enough stock to keep pace with the demand. So while
all those riots are happening, Kaliko is like, wait, wait, wait,
I know we're opening up another factory. We promise more
(15:03):
is coming. Meanwhile, folks in the stores are like, yeah, right, buddy, whatever,
I'm getting this one. I'd rather have that cabbage Patch
than wait for you. I don't believe you.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
They were actually doing their best, Khaligo, but it's hard
to convey.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
That to a public pre Internet, pre social media. You
can't tweet about this stuff in the nineteen eighties, so
you basically just have people wondering if they'll ever get
one of these toys without any real way of knowing
whether or not they will. So that right there ups
the level of fighting.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
That people are willing to engage with.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
That were the still this girl's mother bought seventeen hundred
dollars worth. It defies all reason. It's the American way.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
I'm crazy, right, anything with my grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
It doesn't bother you to spend that much money on dog,
but I sure did my husband. Since doing Cabbage Patch
Kids in the eighties, Xavier Roberts became more and more
reclusive throughout the year, so much so that for the
longest time he didn't really give extensive interviews about what
(16:14):
he was up to, which is interesting because you know,
by the way Ty Warner was the same thing of
Beanie Baby's fame, pretty reclusive, didn't give extensive interviews, which
is actually what makes Billion Dollar Babies the true story
of the Cabbage Batch Kids pretty novel, because in that documentary,
Xavier Roberts for the first time sat down and did
(16:34):
an extensive, in depth interview about his life and what
he's kind of been through, and it actually really helps
to shed some light on his perspective in this whole thing.
Of course, he doesn't see it the same way as
perhaps I would. I've got my own biases when I
think about it. For him, you know, he openly admits
that Cabbage Patch would have been impossible about Martin Nelson Thomas,
(16:58):
and in his view, he took it to a different level.
That's kind of his story. He's essentially retired Martha Nelson
Thomas by the way she died in twenty thirteen, and
for her entire life created art. I mean, she never
stopped being an artist, that's for sure, even though she
was sort of burned by this experience. So Black Friday,
(17:21):
despite being around in the nineteen fifties and onward, never
was the violent sensation that it became post cabbage Patch.
And it is true that once the quote cabbage Patch
riots happened, it became normalized. When you think about future
toy fads, the idea of people fighting over toys in
a store isn't really that surprising. You don't hear about
(17:45):
it pre cabbage Patch, but after that you certainly do.
And again I go back to the movie jingle all
the way that you know doesn't actually critique the process
of fighting over a fad toy. It actually says, go
fight over it. That's that's fantastic, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yes, your Christmas spirit.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
So from the cabbage Patch kids' riots of the eighties,
as we can kind of dramatically call them, we then
see a cascade after that of other toy fads that
kind of come along and occupy that space culturally. So
we may remember legs of Tickle the Elmos.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Being ripped off in the nineties. The Beanie Baby's thing
on its own was you know.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
A good example, Ferbie, you know to pokem on. Throughout
the thousands kind of takes that space at different times,
but none of them why get to the level of
where cabbage Patch was. Where for the first time we
saw on the news recorded footage of just people going
nuts inside of a kmart.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
That's new and that's unique to cabbage Patch.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
So today cabbage Patch Kids are still around. People don't
necessarily they know that they've changed hands a few times
from different companies, from Calico to Mattel to Hasbro and others,
and they basically look more or less as they did.
They're a little smaller, down, a little cheaper. But the
(19:15):
enthusiasm that they garnered in the eighties burned so white
hot that today there's no way it could sustain after
all these years.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
Jonathan Alexandronos. He's a toy historian whose knowledge was featured
in the film Billion Dollar Babies. The True story of
the Cabbage Patch Kids and what a story we heard,
and my goodness, I never thought about Black Friday before
(19:48):
like this, And indeed it's true. This was the first
time in American history that people were fighting over a
toy the day after Thanksgiving and waiting in line in
mass were a product. There wasn't enough of the true
story of the Cabbage Patch Kids.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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