Cabbage Patch Kids

By Leigha Michelle

  • Xavier Roberts invented Cabbage Patch Kids.

    The first cabbage patch kid was called 'little person'. The Coleco toy company liked Roberts' ideas and began mass-marketing the dolls in 1983, under the new name of 'Cabbage Patch Kids.

  • Roberts and his friends

    in 1982, Roberts and his friends were unable to keep up with the orders and thus signed a contract with Coleco, a toy manufacturer, who could mass produce the dolls, which were now to have plastic heads and be called Cabbage Patch Kids.

  • Coleco

    Coleco couldn't keep up either. Kids were demanding the doll, causing a buying frenzy at the end of 1983.

  • the Babyland General Hospital

    Roberts was a teenager when he started the Babyland General Hospital in Cleveland, Georgia, where people could adopt a baby complete with adoption papers.

  • Cabbage Patch Kids doll

    a Cabbage Patch Kids doll was a 16-inch doll, usually with a plastic head, a fabric body, and yarn hair (unless it was bald). What made them so desirable, besides the fact that they were huggable, was both their supposed uniqueness and their adoptability.

  • Cabbage Patch Kids

    when Hasbro took over manufacturing (1989 to 1994), the dolls shrunk down to 14 inches tall. Mattel, which manufactured Cabbage Patch Kids from 1994 to today also kept the smaller, 14-inch size.

  • A new Cabbage Patch Kids doll

    A new Cabbage Patch Kids doll is displayed at the Toy Industry Association & Toy Wishes Holiday Preview show October 5, 2004 in New York City.