Cabbage Patch Kids Yellow

Yellow background with diagonal green stripes. Green text outlined in white around the top of an illustration depicting an open green cabbage head behind a baby with blue eyes looking through its legs, showing the closed drop-seat of its blue footed pajamas.

The Cabbage Patch Kids sprung from the imagination of art school student Xavier Roberts in 1978. His signature is, in fact, stamped on each doll's behind. As "Chief of Staff" of Babyland General Hospital, it is also printed on the "official" birth certificate packaged with each doll sold. The dolls had vinyl heads, cloth bodies, and yarn for hair. Children were asked to mail in adoption papers to register.

The dolls are a product of the late 1970s American folk art movement. What started out as handmade dolls at craft fairs, morphed into Little People and hit their popularity peak around 1983. That year's holiday season sent parents into the trenches to wrestle over the small supply of dolls stores had to sell. The following year they launched the Preemie line, recognizable at the time for their lack of yarn hair. 

The original dolls were manufactured by Coleco who filed for bankruptcy in 1988. Over the years the dolls have been in the care of toy makers Hasbro, Mattel, and Toys-R-Us. Play Along Toys currently holds exclusive licensing rights. The popularity of the 1980s has not returned, but the Cabbage Patch Kids continue to be one of the longest-lived doll franchises, reporting over 124 million adoptions.