Marketing, Adoption Papers, and Consumer Frenzy

During this holiday season, it seems like the perfect time to bring you the story of one of the bestselling toys ever - Cabbage Patch Kids! Inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame in 2023, Cabbage Patch Kids set every toy industry sales record for three years running from 1983-86, and has become one of the longest-running doll franchises in the United States. How did a Connecticut company produce the hottest toy of the 1980s - and then go broke?

The license to produce Cabbage Patch Kids has gone through a record 7 toy companies. This episode is on the Coleco years - the toymaker with their headquarters in West Hartford. Host Mary Donohue will share her experience buying the dolls and Natalie Belanger, Grating the Nutmeg producer from the Connecticut Museum of Culture & History, her own childhood experience playing with the Cabbage Patch Kids.

It's hard to believe after such a successful toy, but Coleco Industries were bankrupt by 1989. The Hartford Courant published numerous full-page stories about what had gone wrong. The Courant reported that "With its revenues dropping and its debt mounting, Coleco faced some critical decisions. Toy industry analysts said the company should have slowed its spending, cut expenses and waited for sales to improve. Instead, Coleco chose to borrow more and spend more, trying to develop a product to rival Cabbage Patch Kids. But the new toys it introduced-Rambo action figures, Furskins stuffed bears, a talking Cabbage Patch doll and Starcom space toys for boys sold only moderately well."

Find out more in this episode!

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We did it! Thanks to our listeners, Grating the Nutmeg is celebrating our 10th anniversary. With over 200,000 streams, over 200 episodes and heard in over 50 countries, Grating the Nutmeg brings CT's big stories to listeners around the world! We're planning our 2026 calendar now and need your support. Help us celebrate our 10th anniversary milestone by pledging $10 a month or making a $100 donation now on our website at ctexplored.org. History matters-be part of it!

This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan at https://www.highwattagemedia.com/ Follow GTN on our socials-Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky.

Follow executive producer Mary Donohue on Facebook and Instagram at West Hartford Town Historian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. Thank you for listening!