Inside the Cabbage Patch Kids frenzy and Black Friday riots of 1983
Andrew Jenks, director of the “Billion Dollar Babies” documentary, talks about the viral doll that spawned a $2 billion empire.
For those who were of a certain (young) age in 1983, there’s no need to recount the phenomenon of Cabbage Patch Kids. They took the toy world by storm when they first hit the market, creating an instant obsession among kids wanting to “adopt” a scrunchy-faced, soft doll that came with adoption papers and a backstory. The demand, driven by off-the-charts FOMO, for the unconventional—the word “ugly” is often applied—dolls was so high that supplies quickly ran out, creating literal mob scenes at toy stores over Black Friday weekend and the holiday shopping season that year.
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