Our Favorite Toy Crazes: Cabbage Patch Kids Birthed New Tactics in 1983

There are thousands of toys on the market, so what leads to one becoming a holiday toy craze? Cabbage Patch Kids were the most wanted toy of the holidays in 1983. These dolls were marketed as “unique, adoptable babies” – and each came with adoption papers and no two were the same. Some stores even simulated the birth of these dolls by pulling them out of a “cabbage patch,” putting a diaper on them, and handing them over to their new kid-parent. 

Kids begged their parents for this plain-looking doll because of these entrancing marketing tactics. The dolls were in such high demand that people broke bones, the law and bank accounts to get their hands on a Cabbage Patch Kid. The dolls made Caleco $2 billion in sales by the end of 1984. No matter how simple a toy is, it could become the next craze of the holiday shopping season through some strategic marketing and a little dumb luck.