Cabbage Patch Kids & Rice Paddy Babies

Cabbage Patch Kid, 1985. Museum no. B.359:1-1996 (click image for larger version)

Cabbage Patch Kids were invented by the American art student Xavier Roberts in the late 1970s. They started off as 'Little People' with sculpted heads and bodies. Roberts experimented with a process called needle sculpture to make the dolls. The process is similar to quilting and can give a doll more texture and shape. In 1982 American company Original Appalachian Artworks started to mass produce the dolls with vinyl heads and soft fabric bodies.

Each Cabbage Patch Kid was unique with different hair or eye colours and different outfits and they all had different names on their birth certificates. They were marketed as dolls which needed adopting - instead of buying a Cabbage Patch Kid you simply paid the adoption fees. The dolls were instantly popular. By the end of 1983 more than three million had been sold. In 1985 a Cabbage Patch Kid even went into Space. In 1985 a series of trading cards known as the Garbage Pail Kids were issued by the American company Topps. These cards featured gross caricatures of the Cabbage Patch Kids. Nevertheless they became really popular, resulting in a film in 1987. Original Appalachian Artworks later sued the Topps company for violating the Cabbage Patch Kids trademark which led to the cards being discontinued by the end of the 1980s.

Rice Paddy Dolls were made in Hong Kong in about 1985. The Rice Paddy Dolls are known as cousins to the Cabbage Patch Kids. Each Rice Paddy Doll came with their own birth certificate and individual identity, ready for adoption by the child that bought them. The doll is made from vinyl and is stuffed with cotton. It was made by a company called Mieler Dolls.