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Cabbage Patch Kids
The Cabbage Patch Kids have their origin with the bestselling
1901 novel by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice, Mrs. Wiggs and
the Cabbage Patch. Mrs. Wiggs, whose husband had "traveled
to eternity by the alcohol route," was left to raise
her 5 children alone is a Louisville shantytown named
Cabbage Patch. The unbridled optimism with which she faces
adversity was inspiration to many women readers of the
time. Charles Panati in his 1991 Panati's Parade of Fads,
Follies and Manias likens Alice Rice to an Oprah of her
time and the Cabbage Patch to a Louisville tourist attraction
not unlike "Cheers" in Boston. The story was
made into a movie on at least 4 separate occasions.
In 1983 Xavier Roberts began marketting
the "Cabbage Patch Kids" as a series of dolls
produced from 1983-1989 by Coleco. They had large, round
vinyl heads and soft fabric bodies.
The gimmick of the dolls was their uniqueness.
No two were exactly alike; each doll had a different eye
color, facial features, hair, and outfit. The subtle differences
were introduced with a computer for each run. Each came
with a unique birth certificate signed by their creator.
They were the must-have toy one 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.
Cabbage Patch Kids were later parodied with the typically
grotesque Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. The parody
led 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.
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