Cabbage Patch riots occurred as parents literally fought to obtain the dolls for children. Coleco, then famous for its success with electronic toys, were sold on becoming the Master Toy licensee, including an advertising guarantee.Īt the peak of their popularity, between 19, the dolls were highly sought-after toys for Christmas. Most declined, commenting that the look of the Little People was too ugly to sell on the mass-market. Coleco's sales plummeted from over $800 million in 1986 to nothing in 1988 when the company went out of business.Īfter changing the dolls’ name to Cabbage Kids, Schlaifer contacted all the major doll companies in the country. Sales of dolls in 1984, along with Cabbage Patch branded merchandise generated $2,000,000,000 in retail sales across North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.Ĭoleco’s sales continued to climb right through 1986, when they reportedly over-shipped and lost ground in a legal battle with Schlaifer and Roberts over his introduction of “Furskins Bears”- a collection of hillbilly bears that competed with the Cabbage Patch dolls. Coleco cancelled all of its advertising as they tried to keep up with demand-shipping a doll-industry record, 3.2 million dolls. It was those comparatively inexpensive ($18 to $28) dolls, branded in packaging designed by Schlaifer and produced in Coleco’s factories in China, that succeeded commercially. In 1982, Coleco’s design team, headed by famed doll designer Judy Albert, devised an industry first: one-of-a-kind, plastic-headed Cabbage Kids dolls with cuter features, softer bodies and a normal toddler’s proportions instead of the morbidly obese bodies on Roberts’ originals. To save them from being abducted to work in the gold mines operated by the villainess Lavender McDade and her two cohorts in crime, Cabbage Jack and Beau Weasel, young Roberts tried to save them by finding loving parents who would adopt them and keep them safe in their homes. Since Roberts insisted on being a character in the story, Schlaifer created him as a curious, ten-year-old boy who discovered the Cabbage Kids by following a BunnyBee behind a waterfall into a magical Cabbage Patch, where he found the Cabbage Patch babies being born in a neglected garden. To make sense of how special cabbages gave birth to Cabbage Kids, Schlaifer invented BunnyBees - the bee-like creatures that use their rabbit ears to fly about and pollinate cabbages with magical crystals. In order to attract potential doll manufacturers and to create the entertainment and publishing businesses he envisioned, Schlaifer and his partner/wife wrote the Legend of the Cabbage Kids. As Fisher-Price owned the name "Little People", the name was changed to “Cabbage Kids.” His goal was to build the first and largest mass-market children’s brand in history. Schlaifer about licensing The Little People. In 1981, at the height of Roberts's success, he was approached by Atlanta designer and licensing agent, Roger L. The Little People were first sold at arts and crafts shows, then later at Babyland General Hospital, an old medical clinic that Roberts and his friends-turned-employees converted into a toy store, in Cleveland, Georgia. Roberts modified the look of Nelson’s dolls, birth certificate and adoption papers sufficiently to get a copyright, and told potential customers his Little People were not for sale however, they could be "adopted" for prices ranging from $60 to $1,000. With the help of artist Debbie Moorehead, he hand-stitched dolls called "The Little People".
They came with a birth certificate and adoption papers. Production history Creation and development Īccording to court records, Roberts, a 21-year-old art student at a missionary school in North Georgia, discovered craft artist Martha Nelson’s Doll Babies. Additional Cabbage Patch products include children’s apparel, bedding, infants' wear, record albums and board games. The doll brand set every toy industry sales record for three years running, and was one of the most popular lines of children’s licensed products in the 1980s and has become one of the longest-running doll franchises in the United States. Schlaifer when he acquired the exclusive worldwide licensing rights in 1982. The brand was renamed 'Cabbage Kids' by Roger L. They were inspired by the Little People soft sculptured dolls sold by Xavier Roberts as collectibles. Cabbage Kids are a line of cloth dolls with plastic heads first produced by Coleco Industries in 1982.
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