Cabbage Patch Kids craze of 1983 | From the WNEP Archives

Every year it seems like there is a “must-have toy” for Christmas.
In 1986 it was the talking little bear Teddy Ruxpin.
People went crazy for Tickle Me Elmo in 1996.
And who could forget the popularity of the Zhu Zhu pets in 2009?
For the Christmas of 1983, one toy was at the top of a little kid’s wish list … The Cabbage Patch doll.
The doll has very humble origins. Art student Xavier Roberts hand-stitched the dolls in the late 70s.
Eventually, Roberts sold the rights to Coleco, a company known mostly for computers.
Coleco mass-produced the Cabbage Patch dolls and sold them for $25.
By the winter of 1983, their popularity began to surge.
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[@chasformer3091]

Happy 40th Anniversary. A moment of silent for the moms and dads (mostly moms) that couldn't find that one cabbage patch kid.

[@galacticguardians2177]

I like the guy at the end with the bat..."Do it orderly!" 😂😂 that's the Northeast in the 80's for ya 😂

[@ADoe-yd2bc]

🤣🤣🤣

[@teresapflaumer5717]

The northeast was and still is N-U-T-S!!! I should know, I'm from Jersey!😅

[@rosannaanisi4642]

I remember being 10 years old going to consumers distributing with my parents to get one. It was crazy exactly like this video 😜 I was lucky enough to grab one that another girl tossed aside when her mom called her because she grabbed one already. I picked her up and still have my red headed girl. I feel bad now looking back putting my parents lives at risk .

[@justylex]

Omg, I forgot about Consumers! My mom got my 2nd CPK doll there, and I recall that it came in a different box, more like a shipper brown box, than the ones on store shelves. I think my mom stood in line outside Consumers that day because she heard from a friend that they were getting some that day.

[@rosannaanisi4642]

@@justylex lol 😂 yes I remember mine came in the brown shipper box from there. It had the sketch in green outside of the box with cabbage patch kid’s design. Memories.

[@shalawndillon4525]

As a kid, my aunt used to work at Best Store in Garland, Texas in Winter of 1983. She's very smart when she hid a couple of CPK for me and cousin, just in time for the Holidays!

[@godofzombi]

D'awww All those mothers and grandmothers puting in the effort to learn to make those (similar) dolls themselves. Not to mention rsiking life and limb trying to get a real one from toy store mosh pit.

[@teresapflaumer5717]

My mom was very lucky that I hated Cabbage Patch Kids (although I was 11 and too old for them anyway). She did witness a Cabbage Patch mob at the Caldor in Willingboro NJ on Black Friday. What was stranger was that a man took a hair dryer right out of my mom's cart! Not a Cabbage Patch, a HAIR DRYER! She had to threaten to get security if he didn't it back, and he did. But after that, Mom never stopped on Black Friday again!

[@teresapflaumer5717]

At the Zayres in Wilkes-Barre, those dolls being thrown to those aggressive parents was like zookeepers throwing meat to a den of hungry lions!

[@r.cjones1515]

I'm starting to think that the movie Jingle All The Way. Just instead of CPKs it was Turbo Man 😄

[@4lizlemon]

I got a home made doll my mother bought off some woman she worked with. I hated it. 😂😂😂

[@jessicadaniel5653]

My mom gave me one in the 80s, I don’t remember asking for one but apparently I did, I do remember I was happy to get one but I didn’t have many dolls.

[@trudyanderson3070]

I have 6 cabbage dolls and 2 homemade dolls.

[@jsun7972]

I used to collect Garbage Pail Kids cards to mock how silly and ugly i thought these dolls were. Fun memories as a kid in the 80's.

[@teresapflaumer5717]

I collected those too! Those were a riot!

[@misterfunnybones]

'murica