Remembering the Cabbage Patch Kids Craze

In February of 1984, my daughter only wanted one thing for her seventh birthday, a Cabbage Patch Kid. It was probably the only gift that was virtually impossible to obtain. The 1983 Christmas demand for these homely, simple dolls had caused riots in malls and toys stores as parents fought one another to buy the dolls for their kids. It was marketing genius. Create a demand by advertising the dolls as the must-have toy and limit the supply so they were hard to obtain.

The appeal of these dolls was their uniqueness (supposedly no two were alike) and their backstory. They had to be adopted by the lucky kids whose parents could obtain them. They came complete with a name and birth certificate. The demand was so high that by Thanksgiving, desperate parents were camping overnight at toy stores, snatching dolls from one another, and paying ridiculous sums to buy dolls from the clever folks who had bought them up in anticipation of making a huge profit reselling them.

I wanted to fulfill my daughter’s dream, but how could I get my hands on a doll? I was not willing or able to pay hundreds of dollars for a $30 item. In today’s money, that was slightly less than purchasing an American Girl doll, which I did for her daughter as a grandmother with more disposable income. I scoured every Toys-R-Us within driving distance with no success. You had to be there as…