5 WTF Were They Thinking Toys No. 5 – The Cabbage Patch Doll

Ah… childhood memories. Back in the day, you’d enjoy things like playing Candyland in your friend’s basement, sharing Otter Pops on a hot summer day or even enjoying your small Totino’s pizza while watching The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Everything was fun and care-free. Toys you had would come to life as you’d use your GI Joe forces to try and save the world from the evil forces of Cobra or play with Barbie dolls for that …um …thing with… OK, so I liked Barbies as a kid, so what?! Ahem.

Even with all these great toys we had to play with, some, in retrospect, were not created with safety in mind. I’m not sure what the people in the Mattel R&D department were thinking, but things that can be launched at high speeds, are super sharp or could explode are generally not good for kids.

Here we’ll take a look at toys that were banned, or should be banned, from past to present.  This is just the first of several tantalizing kid’s toys, so be sure to tune in EVERY week to see the next WTF Thinking toy.

5. The Cabbage Patch toy that will EAT YOUR HAIR

Toy Factoid

So cute with their little chubby cheeks – you could pinch them right off!

These little people were created in the late 70’s by Xavier Roberts from the depths of Georgia’s swamplands (minus the swamplands) and were originally sold through the gimmicky “adopt-a-kid” tactic that’s become so wildly popular with dolls sold today. The doll sky-rocketed with their popularity during the 80s and have become one of the longest standing toy brands in America.

The range of products under the Cabbage Patch Kids brand is astounding and go on to include not only dolls, but extend to board games and even a cartoon show. The owners/producers of the doll have changed hands several times, but Mattel took over in 2009 with duties of mass producing these little money making demons.

The standard cabbage patch doll is around 14-16″ in size and variations include: NASCAR kids limited edition, Fun to Feed Cake Baby, Pop ‘N Style Cabbage Patch Kid and so much more. With names like that, no wonder they’ve been around so long.

What’s the point of these things? I have no idea. They’re dolls. Kids play with them. I’m sure their expansive imaginations fill in the gaps from there. I had one as a kid with its clothes missing and its hair mysteriously hacked away… hmmm.

So WTF?

Around the mid-90s, the birth of a toy called the “Snack Time Kids” doll was originally designed so that mommies in the making could feed their battery powered robot child “food items.” The kicker here is that there was no on/off switch or regurgitate button. I’m sure nothing bad could happen with this (sarcasm).

You would think kids would all rejoice in unison at hearing about this clever little invention, but, in reality, it was the harbinger of doom for the select few that were unfortunate to cross paths with the cabbage patch hair-nado, sucking up the hopes and dreams of children everywhere.

My first question is, where does the food go? My second, more important question is, what were they thinking would happen when they unleashed a mechanized chewing monster on the masses of children who, most of which, just learned to tie their shoes? I’ll tell you what, bad things. Very bad things!

A girl named Sarah Stevens, age 7, was unfortunate enough to be attacked by the doll’s insatiable appetite for food, fingers, hair or anything that would fit in the doll’s precious little mouth. She spent over 30 minutes at a salon removing her hair from the  Cabbage Patch doll’s mouth. Just imagine what the stylist was thinking when she saw the little girl strolling in, presumably with a tear-soaked face, with a Cabbage Patch Kid stuck to her head.

I couldn’t imagine what kind of psychological trauma this little girl endured. I don’t think she’ll be playing with dolls for a while… or ever.

Apparently, this incident has happened several times, one to a girl who was as young as three years old! No wonder this toy was banned.

Until Next Time!

Sampa Dad