It was 1983. Christmas was approaching. A Connecticut toy company called Coleco came out with a line of simple, soft, gentle – some might say homely – dolls.
The company called them “Cabbage Patch Kids,” after an old story told to children to convince them they came from cabbage patches.
In a brilliant scheme, the company promoted the idea that the dolls were ‘adopted’ rather than purchased. They even came with adoption certificates.
The introduction of Cabbage Patch Kids during the Christmas season of 1983 sparked a shopping frenzy with customers trampling each other in stores and paying exorbitant prices for the soft dolls.
The result was a phenomenon almost unprecedented in the history of retail.
Kids went crazy.
Parents went wild.
Stores went crazy.
Every child had to have a Cabbage Patch Kid under the tree,
Barbie debuted in 1959 and has been the queen of the holiday shopping list ever since.
As sales soared, Coleco became a top player on the stock market, with shares rising from $6.87 to $36.75.
The dolls sold for $21 – $67 in 2024 dollars – but were sold for up to $75 – $238 in 2024 dollars – on a burgeoning black market.
A Cabbage Patch Kid made the cover of Newsweek magazine.
Clever marketing made Lionel toy trains identified at Christmas more than a century ago. Because tracks, cars and buildings could be added over time, the company was assured of a continued market.
Coleco made only a few million dolls that first season, and the resulting shortage led to riots or near-riots at major retail chains. Parents trampled and beat each other to get a Cabbage Patch Kid.
In late November, the manager of Toys by Roy in Sikes Senter said he was getting about 25 calls an hour asking if the store had the dolls. He told a Wichita Falls Times Record News reporter that he hadn’t had one in weeks.
LEGO bricks have been around since 1958 and have seen a resurgence in popularity at Christmas in recent years.
The manager of the Wichita Falls Sears store said his store received only 24.
“I would love to have a truckload of them,” Geoff Sanders told TRN.
Coleco attempted to duplicate the phenomenon in the years that followed, but ultimately went bankrupt in 1988.
The Cabbage Patch Kids epitomized the essential holiday shopping frenzy, but they weren’t the only products Americans rushed into stores with credit cards in hand.
Manufacturers tried to repeat the Cabbage Patch phenomenon with offerings like Furbies, Beanie Babies and Tickle Me Elmos.
Although it is just two discs and a piece of string glued together, the yo-yo became a Christmas favorite in 1928.
The holiday shopping frenzy phenomenon didn’t start with Cabbage Patch Kids.
Here are some of the other must-have, special gifts from Christmas past.
Lionel Treinen: Joshua Cowen founded the Lionel company in 1900 and built his electric trains for shop windows. But kids wanted them, so they quickly became a must-have for Christmas. Advertisements of Santa Claus waving Lionel trains and drinking Coca-Cola kept sales rising through the first half of the 1920s.e century.
Nintendo was an early success in the electronic games market and is still a serious player in the Christmas market.
Teddy bears: Introduced in 1910 and named after former President Theodore Roosevelt who supposedly saved a real bear from being killed, they have remained a favorite for decades.
Yoyo: Just a piece of string and a few wooden discs that had been around for a millennium were on the must-have list in 1928. Even now it keeps coming back.
Slinky: An engineer knocked over some coil springs and noticed that they “walked” down a flight of stairs instead of falling. The cheaply made toys caught on like wildfire during the Christmas season of 1945. The engineer’s wife said they looked “sneaky.”
Mr. Potato Head: It fell off the shelf in 1952 and into the hearts of millions with all its interchangeable anatomical parts. He soon teamed up with Mrs. Potato Head.
LEGO: First spread across the landscape in 1958 to become a real holiday destination. After nearly going bankrupt in the early 2000s, the company reinvented itself, developed new products and strategies, and recovered. However, the original LEGO building blocks are still available and waiting to be found barefoot on the living room floor by unsuspecting parents.
Barbie: She walked onto the stage in 1959, long before Margot Robbie was born or boyfriend Ken aspired to an Oscar. Although this was anatomically impossible when she was born at age 19, she has successfully pursued 200 careers and run for president seven times. Without a single wrinkle at the age of 85, she still sells well at Christmas.
GI Joe: He burst onto the toy battlefield in 1964 as Hasbo’s answer to Mattel’s Barbie. It was equipped with 21 moving parts and uniforms representing all US service branches. Concerned that boys might not want to play with dolls, Hasbro labeled Joe an “action figure,” a term that is now part of the American marketing lexicon. Joe earned the company $36 million in his second year of employment.
Star Wars Action Figures: They became a force to be reckoned with in 1977, following the blockbuster success. About a hundred movie characters were cast in plastic to make the most of the craze and make producer George Lucas a galactic fortune.
Nintendo: The rise of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985 is a reasonable starting point for the plethora of games, gadgets, and devices that have come to dominate gift giving in the 21st century.st century. The Mario Brothers still jump over Christmas trees and through chimneys.
Christmas gift giving is no longer as simple or cheap as giving teddy bears and yo-yos, but a quick internet search for “hot gifts” shows that many Americans will be content with getting a card in 2024.
A gift voucher.
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: A history of holiday shopping frenzy: These toys sparked a frenzy
