December 2, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Jonathan Alexandratos 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-day Black Friday.
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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 of the baby doll was here.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
It was a cloth body.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
And at a sculpted head that was painted typically what
one might think of when they think of the baby doll.
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
(01:19):
looking at the baby doll and she's wondering what she
could add to this genre of toy and what she
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,
(01:39):
so you're kind of sewing it so that the features
are all evident in the ultimate soft sculpture. That's Martha
Nelson's interest. She makes these off of input from kids
that she knew at the time.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
So she actually asked kids in her community, you.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Know, what they would like to see in a baby doll,
and she made those.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Those are called doll babies.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Martha Nelson Thomas originally sold those in Appalachian craft fairs.
She's from Kentucky, and she would go to those regional
craft fairs and sell them. But by nineteen seventy six,
she meets Xavier Roberts at the craft fair who ultimately says, hey,
I would really like to start selling these on a
(02:24):
bigger scale. And initially Martha is kind of interested in this,
but after about a year, she's not so psyched about it.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
She's kind of losing interest in that.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
So as a result, Xavier Roberts says to her, well,
I'm going to keep selling them, whether you want me
to or not. And what he does is he doesn't
call them doll babies.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
He calls them little people.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
And Little People are supposed to be different than doll babies,
yet when you put their picture side by side, they actually.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Look pretty similar.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
The features are the same, the scale is the same,
you know, the huffy cheeks.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
All of that is the same.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
And Martha and Nelson Thomas and Xavier Roberts when they meet.
Martha is more or less just out of school. Xavier
is a little bit older than that. Xavier is a
heavily talented man in his own right. So I think
one of the misconceptions that sometimes happens in this story
(03:33):
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, he actually is
a pretty talented like Wiltmaker, He's done artistic endeavors on
his own, so it's not so much random outsider.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
This is actually somebody who knows the world pretty well.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
So by nineteen seventy eight, Xavier Roberts is out selling
his Little People. He's doing well with that, but by
nineteen eighty two, Calico approaches him for a license because
these are selling so well, and by then the Little People,
(04:20):
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 now. The thing with cabbage
Patch Kids that is unique is from Martha Nelson Thomas's
(04:40):
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 dolls would come with
birth certificates.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
They would be unique.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Again, this goes all the way back to Martha's idea.
Xavier Roberts keeps that 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, and the
modern incarnation back to nineteen twenty. So these are things
(05:23):
that parents would reasonably see, 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
for my kids.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
So the way in.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
So who could resist that.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So 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.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Not just fade away. She actually fought for her creation.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
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. So
(06:42):
throughout the eighties, the cabbage Patch kid takes on. 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 cabin 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 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.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Mom got one mad so much more than what the
product actually was.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Again going back to this idea of a status symbol.
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 at the end of the day and bring it
home victorious. That said something about how much that parent
loved their kid, how much they were willing to do.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
How much they were willing to fight through.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And we've been listening to Jonathan Alex Indrados. 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
(08:51):
cabbage Patch hysteria. 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
(09:13):
just fights over these dolls, 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
(09:39):
returned to our American Stories 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. My husband
works here, and I can't even get what I want.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
I'm miss work. I'm late for work to get this
for my little girl. I'm not going to tell my boss.
I'm trying to get there now.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Up. 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 within.
Speaker 7 (10:32):
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 3 (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.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
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 3 (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 (11:19):
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. In many ways,
every holiday season there's one toy everyone has to have.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
I want the turbol mass I figure with the ars
like that move your jetpack and the flooring sooner.
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 1 (11:57):
Right?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Is this father's nightmare? I don't get that 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 of.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
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 frandic 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 Marsmen, so you know, they get changed as
well to kind of play on this whole craze that's happening.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
So this is a sensation. The other thing that.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Happens, which is interesting just from a toy creation standpoint,
is Colico actually thinks about how to replicate, at least
in some ways, the craft arteisonal nature of what was
one to the doll Baby, in that they made a
computer program that actually created individually unique heads for each
(13:48):
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. That's the whole point of
that action figure. If you buy a cabbage Patch Kid, though,
you are the only person who has the cabbage Patch
Kid with that exact sculpt and pain application. So for example,
the dimples and the birthmarks and things like that, that's
(14:20):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
The names when you.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Actually look at the birth certificates contain names that are
culturally distinct there, you know, from lots of different places,
at least in terms of the way they sound.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
This is all new.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
So when cabbage Patch Kids first came out, Kalico, by
no means had enough stock to keep pace with the demand.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So while all.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Those riots are happening, Kaliko is like, wait, wait, wait, no,
we're opening up another factory.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
We promise more is coming.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
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. They were
actually doing their best, Kaliko, but it's hard to convey
that to a public pre Internet, pre social media. You
can't tweet about this stuff in the nineteen eighties, so
(15:27):
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 that people are willing to engage with.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
That would be.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Still this girl's mother bought seventeen hundred dollars worth. It
defies all reason. It's the American way. I'm crazy, right,
anything of my grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
It doesn't bother you to spend that much money on
dogg but I sure did my usbence. 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
(16:13):
what he was up to, which is interesting because you know,
by the way, Ty Warner was the same thing of
Beanie Babies fame pretty reclusive, didn't give extensive interviews, which
is actually what makes Billion Dollar Babies the true story
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 Larkin 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.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Martha Nelson Thomas.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
By the way, she died in twenty thirteen, and for
her entire.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Life created art.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I mean, she never stopped being an artist, that's for sure,
even though she was sort of burned.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
By this experience.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
So Black Friday, 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
(17:40):
over toys in a store isn't really that surprising. You
don't hear about it pre cabbage Patch, but after that
you certainly do. And again I go back to the
movie jingle all the way that 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, you 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 eelmos being ripped
off in the Ninetiesicko the Beanie Babies thing on its
(18:30):
own was you know 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 Batch 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.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
People don't necessarily know that.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
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 enthusiasm that they garnered in
the eighties burned so white hot that today there's no
(19:23):
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 for 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 of the baby doll was here.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
It was a cloth body.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
And at a sculpted head that was painted typically what
one might think of when they think of the baby doll.
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
(01:19):
looking at the baby doll and she's wondering what she
could add to this genre of toy and what she
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,
(01:39):
so you're kind of sewing it so that the features
are all evident in the ultimate soft sculpture. That's Martha
Nelson's interest. She makes these off of input from kids
that she knew at the time.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
So she actually asked kids in her community, you.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Know, what they would like to see in a baby doll,
and she made those.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Those are called doll babies.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Martha Nelson Thomas originally sold those in Appalachian craft fairs.
She's from Kentucky, and she would go to those regional
craft fairs and sell them. But by nineteen seventy six,
she meets Xavier Roberts at the craft fair who ultimately says, hey,
I would really like to start selling these on a
(02:24):
bigger scale. And initially Martha is kind of interested in this,
but after about a year, she's not so psyched about it.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
She's kind of losing interest in that.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
So as a result, Xavier Roberts says to her, well,
I'm going to keep selling them, whether you want me
to or not. And what he does is he doesn't
call them doll babies.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
He calls them little people.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
And Little People are supposed to be different than doll babies,
yet when you put their picture side by side, they actually.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Look pretty similar.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
The features are the same, the scale is the same,
you know, the huffy cheeks.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
All of that is the same.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
And Martha and Nelson Thomas and Xavier Roberts when they meet.
Martha is more or less just out of school. Xavier
is a little bit older than that. Xavier is a
heavily talented man in his own right. So I think
one of the misconceptions that sometimes happens in this story
(03:33):
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, he actually is
a pretty talented like Wiltmaker, He's done artistic endeavors on
his own, so it's not so much random outsider.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
This is actually somebody who knows the world pretty well.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
So by nineteen seventy eight, Xavier Roberts is out selling
his Little People. He's doing well with that, but by
nineteen eighty two, Calico approaches him for a license because
these are selling so well, and by then the Little People,
(04:20):
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 now. The thing with cabbage
Patch Kids that is unique is from Martha Nelson Thomas's
(04:40):
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 dolls would come with
birth certificates.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
They would be unique.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Again, this goes all the way back to Martha's idea.
Xavier Roberts keeps that 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, and the
modern incarnation back to nineteen twenty. So these are things
(05:23):
that parents would reasonably see, 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
for my kids.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
So the way in.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
So who could resist that.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So 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.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Not just fade away. She actually fought for her creation.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
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. So
(06:42):
throughout the eighties, the cabbage Patch kid takes on. 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 cabin 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 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.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Mom got one mad so much more than what the
product actually was.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Again going back to this idea of a status symbol.
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 at the end of the day and bring it
home victorious. That said something about how much that parent
loved their kid, how much they were willing to do.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
How much they were willing to fight through.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And we've been listening to Jonathan Alex Indrados. 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
(08:51):
cabbage Patch hysteria. 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
(09:13):
just fights over these dolls, 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
(09:39):
returned to our American Stories 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. My husband
works here, and I can't even get what I want.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
I'm miss work. I'm late for work to get this
for my little girl. I'm not going to tell my boss.
I'm trying to get there now.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Up. 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 within.
Speaker 7 (10:32):
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 3 (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.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
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 3 (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 (11:19):
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. In many ways,
every holiday season there's one toy everyone has to have.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
I want the turbol mass I figure with the ars
like that move your jetpack and the flooring sooner.
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 1 (11:57):
Right?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Is this father's nightmare? I don't get that 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 of.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
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 frandic 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 Marsmen, so you know, they get changed as
well to kind of play on this whole craze that's happening.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
So this is a sensation. The other thing that.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Happens, which is interesting just from a toy creation standpoint,
is Colico actually thinks about how to replicate, at least
in some ways, the craft arteisonal nature of what was
one to the doll Baby, in that they made a
computer program that actually created individually unique heads for each
(13:48):
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. That's the whole point of
that action figure. If you buy a cabbage Patch Kid, though,
you are the only person who has the cabbage Patch
Kid with that exact sculpt and pain application. So for example,
the dimples and the birthmarks and things like that, that's
(14:20):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
The names when you.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Actually look at the birth certificates contain names that are
culturally distinct there, you know, from lots of different places,
at least in terms of the way they sound.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
This is all new.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
So when cabbage Patch Kids first came out, Kalico, by
no means had enough stock to keep pace with the demand.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So while all.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Those riots are happening, Kaliko is like, wait, wait, wait, no,
we're opening up another factory.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
We promise more is coming.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
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. They were
actually doing their best, Kaliko, but it's hard to convey
that to a public pre Internet, pre social media. You
can't tweet about this stuff in the nineteen eighties, so
(15:27):
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 that people are willing to engage with.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
That would be.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Still this girl's mother bought seventeen hundred dollars worth. It
defies all reason. It's the American way. I'm crazy, right,
anything of my grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
It doesn't bother you to spend that much money on
dogg but I sure did my usbence. 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
(16:13):
what he was up to, which is interesting because you know,
by the way, Ty Warner was the same thing of
Beanie Babies fame pretty reclusive, didn't give extensive interviews, which
is actually what makes Billion Dollar Babies the true story
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 Larkin 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.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Martha Nelson Thomas.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
By the way, she died in twenty thirteen, and for
her entire.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Life created art.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I mean, she never stopped being an artist, that's for sure,
even though she was sort of burned.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
By this experience.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
So Black Friday, 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
(17:40):
over toys in a store isn't really that surprising. You
don't hear about it pre cabbage Patch, but after that
you certainly do. And again I go back to the
movie jingle all the way that 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, you 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 eelmos being ripped
off in the Ninetiesicko the Beanie Babies thing on its
(18:30):
own was you know 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 Batch 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.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
People don't necessarily know that.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
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 enthusiasm that they garnered in
the eighties burned so white hot that today there's no
(19:23):
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 for 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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