Syracuse alum behind Cabbage Patch Kids dolls to be featured on History Channel

A Syracuse University alumnus who came up with the name “Cabbage Patch Kids” will be featured in an upcoming episode of a History Channel series about iconic toys.

Cabbage Patch Kids were originally created in 1976 by Xavier Roberts as handmade, soft sculpture dolls known as “The Little People,” adapted from an idea by Martha Nelson Thomas. The collectible figures were available for “adoption” with birth certificates for “parents” to sign and a unique name, so no two dolls were the same. They were first sold in arts and crafts events, but as demand grew Roberts bought a deserted medical clinic in Georgia that became the “Babyland General Hospital” where the dolls were “born.”

Roger Schlaifer, who graduated from Syracuse in 1967 with a BFA in illustration and a master’s degree in advertising, renamed the dolls “Cabbage Patch Kids” after acquiring the exclusive worldwide licensing rights in 1982. The concept remained the same, with each doll receiving a birth certificate and adoption papers, but names were now computer generated for mass production through Coleco, according to The Strong National Museum of Play, home of the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester.

Schlaifer told the SU Alumni Association that he thought the dolls were ugly when he first saw them on Christmas Eve 1980, when his wife got a Little People doll named Lavinia Merle for their eldest daughter.

“She opened the box and I saw these shiny big eyes looking up at me, and it was the ugliest doll I’d ever seen,” Schlaifer said.

Roger Schlaifer, Cabbage Patch Kids

Roger Schlaifer, a Syracuse University alumnus who came up with the name “Cabbage Patch Kids” for the iconic dolls, is pictured in a 1985 Post-Standard file photo.

But he quickly learned that he was wrong when their child excitedly opened up her present the next morning. Three years later, Sclaifer helped make Cabbage Patch Kids the hottest toy of the 1983 holiday season; customers would get trampled in the chaos, including what a Fulton, N.Y., woman described as a “Cabbage Patch Massacre” at the Hills store at Penn-Can Mall:

“As the key appeared to unlock the door, between us and the unclaimed treasure, I felt myself being suffocated by the pressure of the aggressive hands of ‘people.’ Running only to escape the rushing tidal wave behind me, caring not for the dolls but my safety, I was suddenly pushed to the floor with my shoes flying in different directions. As I was lying on the floor being trampled and calling for help, I feared for my life. I arose stocking footed, face bleeding and knees badly bruised,” she wrote in a Dec. 9 letter to the editor.

Over six years, Cabbage Patch Kids made $4.5 billion in dolls, clothing, bedding, books and entertainment. The craze even inspired a parody line of trading cards known as “Garbage Pail Kids,” which spoofed the dolls with wacky caricatures and comical names like Adam Bomb and Up Chuck.

Schlaifer’s story will be included in season 2 of “The Toys That Built America,” an eight-part TV series on The History Channel. The sixth episode, “Cabbage Clash,” will air Sunday, Nov. 27, at 9 p.m. ET.

See a preview of the episode at history.com.

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