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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's my turn. Now it's Josh and for

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Speaker 1: this episode on our Stuff you Should Know twelve Days

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Speaker 1: of Christmas Toys playlist, we're talking about cabbage Patch Kids,

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Speaker 1: one of the all time top contenders for a must

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Speaker 1: have Christmas toy. I had one. His name was Weberdino.

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Speaker 1: He was very great. We had very fun times together,

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Speaker 1: important times at any rate, whether you had a cabbage

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Speaker 1: Patch kid or not. I think you're going to enjoy

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Speaker 1: this episode. So turn up your coco. There's some marshmallows

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Speaker 1: in there and enjoy this app.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, Josh, Malcolm Clark.

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Speaker 1: There's Charles Wayne Bryant. This is Stuff you should know

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Speaker 1: about cabbage Patch Kids who have two names, which is

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Speaker 1: why I just did that. That's right.

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Speaker 2: This, uh, remarkably the third time we've talked about cabbage

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Speaker 2: Patch Kids on this show.

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Speaker 1: I only remember one other time. When was the When

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Speaker 1: was the third time or the second time?

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Speaker 2: I guess well, the last time was not even a

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Speaker 2: year ago, on our on our episode on Must Have

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Speaker 2: Christmas Gifts. And then that's all I remember yeah. And

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Speaker 2: then while I was telling the story of my Cabbage

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Speaker 2: Patch Kid experience, he said, yes, you've told everyone the

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Speaker 2: story before, so I think this will be the third

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Speaker 2: time that we hear these stories.

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Speaker 1: I thought you didn't have a Cabbage Patch kid.

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Speaker 2: So you don't remember the other two times I told

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Speaker 2: the story.

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Speaker 1: No, you got to tell it again. It's called the

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Speaker 1: It's called the hat trick. Baby.

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Speaker 2: Uh yeah. My sister has one of the first, like

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Speaker 2: seventy five of them, of the little people dolls oh wow,

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Speaker 2: that she bought in Okilja when she was a kid.

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Speaker 1: Now I know why it didn't stick with me because

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Speaker 1: I didn't understand what the heck you were talking about.

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Speaker 1: Now I totally get it, and I think it will

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Speaker 1: stay with me forever, Chuck. When we do our fourth, fifth,

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Speaker 1: and sixth podcasts on Cabbage Patch Kids, I will be

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Speaker 1: the one telling that story. How about that?

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Speaker 2: Well, and you also told the story of yours that

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Speaker 2: you rip the head off and gave it a mohawk.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for yours, weber Dino met a pretty a terrible demise.

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Speaker 2: And I have two of them myself that my mom

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Speaker 2: every once in a while says, hey, do you want these,

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Speaker 2: and I say, no, I don't. I don't think they're

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Speaker 2: worth much money. And I don't even though if My

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Speaker 2: Sisters is worth a lot of money now, even though

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Speaker 2: it's hand signed and one of the first ones. I

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Speaker 2: just I don't think the market is robust as it

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Speaker 2: was at one point.

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Speaker 1: So was hers a callco Little People or as Xavier

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Speaker 1: Roberts like original Appalachian artworks Little People?

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Speaker 2: No, hers was one of the handmade Xavier Roberts og

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Speaker 2: Kraft fair dolls.

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Speaker 1: I think those go for like one two, maybe up

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Speaker 1: two thousand dollars.

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Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I just I guess depends on where

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Speaker 2: you look. Like I saw the one that of mine

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Speaker 2: that was one of those originals, and it wasn't one

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Speaker 2: of the first one hundred, but people were asking like

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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty bucks on eBay for those.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm surprised to see that, like

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Speaker 1: from what I've seen, Like, if you really want the

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Speaker 1: big bucks, it's the original Xavier Roberts Little People. But

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Speaker 1: we're probably getting ahead of ourselves a little bit because

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Speaker 1: some people are probably like, what's the cabbage patch kid? Right?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 1: So well, we'll tell everybody what a Cabbage Patch kid

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Speaker 1: is It's a little doll that was a huge, huge

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Speaker 1: deal in the Christmas of nineteen eighty three, and like

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Speaker 1: Chuck said, we talked about this on I guess that

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Speaker 1: was our I think it was our Christmas episode or

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Speaker 1: was it a different standalone episode from last year?

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Speaker 2: Now? I think the first time we did it was

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Speaker 2: a Christmas episode, and then last year it was in November.

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Speaker 2: It was just muscle Christmas toys.

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Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha, gotcha, So that's worth listening too. But in

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Speaker 1: December of nineteen eighty three, Christmas of nineteen eighty three,

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Speaker 1: everybody was going crazy for these dolls. But at the

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Speaker 1: same time, there was like because it was such a

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Speaker 1: huge craze and they were so a part of like

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Speaker 1: popular culture at the moment. They were on the news

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Speaker 1: every night. People were doing just absolutely crazy things to

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Speaker 1: get their hands on these dolls for their kids. There

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Speaker 1: was a lot of talk about, well, what are these things?

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Speaker 1: They're so ugly that they're cute, and other people thought, well, no,

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Speaker 1: they're actually just ugly. There was a journal article that

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Speaker 1: came out in nineteen eighty six and the Semantics Journal,

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Speaker 1: et cetera, and the Cabbage Patch kids were described as open,

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Speaker 1: arm denied, seemingly dull witted, with mop haired faces only

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Speaker 1: mothers could love, which I think is pretty pretty. It's

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Speaker 1: a pretty accurate description of a cabbage patch kid, don't

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Speaker 1: you think.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so on that that was This is something I

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Speaker 2: never knew. Apparently there was a rumor years after the

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Speaker 2: fact that the design was managed by Ronald Reagan because

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Speaker 2: he wanted to get Americans used to what mutant offspring

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Speaker 2: might look like if we ever go to if the

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Speaker 2: big one ever drops and we go to war with

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Speaker 2: the Ruskies, we might want to get used to our

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Speaker 2: babies looking like this. So let's just it's sort of

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Speaker 2: in the classic Hollywood, like, you know, their theories that

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Speaker 2: that's why we make UFO movies. They're commissioned by the

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Speaker 2: government to get people sort of adjusted to the idea

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Speaker 2: that one day there's going to be aliens walking around.

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Speaker 1: Right exactly, But that's probably not the case. Ronald Reagan

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Speaker 1: probably didn't have anything to do with it. But that's

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Speaker 1: just such an eighties thing. Cabbage Patch kids, Ronald Reagan,

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Speaker 1: and nuclear war with the USSR. That's about like the

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Speaker 1: greatest eighties combination I've ever heard of. In my life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty good.

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Speaker 1: So if you go onto the Cabbage Patch Kid's website,

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Speaker 1: you'll find the enchanting, magical story of where cabbage patch

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Speaker 1: kids came from or how they came into our human world,

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Speaker 1: and it goes something like this that when he was

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Speaker 1: a young boy, Xavier Roberts was wandering around the Appalachian

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Speaker 1: mountains and he saw what is called a bunny bee,

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Speaker 1: which is a magical bee or magical bunny that can

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Speaker 1: fly around like buzzes around like a bee. And he

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Speaker 1: followed it, and the bunny bee went through a waterfall,

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Speaker 1: and Xavier Roberts went and looked and saw that behind

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Speaker 1: the waterfall there was a tunnel, and he went into

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Speaker 1: the tunnel, being an inquisitive type of Appalachian young boy,

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Speaker 1: And when he came out on the other side of

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Speaker 1: the tunnel, he was clearly in some sort of enchanted

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Speaker 1: land because there were a bunch of bunny bees flying

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Speaker 1: around over a cabbage patch, sprinkling some sort of magical dust.

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Speaker 1: An Xavier noticed that when the dust hit the cabbage,

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Speaker 1: the cabbage would start to move and a little baby

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Speaker 1: would be born from it, a cabbage patch kid. And

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Speaker 1: one of those kids a kid named Otis Lee came

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Speaker 1: up to Xavier and said, hey, will you take me

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Speaker 1: and all of my friends over to your human world

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Speaker 1: and help us find homes? And so Xavier Roberts agreed,

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Speaker 1: and he found a Babyland General Hospital for the purpose

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Speaker 1: of adopting out cabbage patch kids. And that's where it

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Speaker 1: all came from.

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Speaker 2: That's right, Babyland General, right here in Cleveland, Georgia. And

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Speaker 2: I just so happened to have driven by there but

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Speaker 2: two days ago. I went up, Oh yeah, yeah, we

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Speaker 2: went on a waterfall hike the family did on Sunday and.

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Speaker 1: Did you see a bunny bee?

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Speaker 2: Didn't see a bunny bee? But we drove right by

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Speaker 2: Babyland General and Emily was like, did you know that

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Speaker 2: was there? I was like, yeah, I've been there, so

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Speaker 2: of course I know it was there. But that's where

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Speaker 2: Xavier Roberts went to college. He went to college at

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Speaker 2: True at McConnell there in Cleveland.

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Speaker 1: So that was the connection, right right, Yeah, if you

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Speaker 1: want to, if you want to kind of take it

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Speaker 1: down a notch as far as magical enchantment goes, the

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Speaker 1: the official story is that Xavier Roberts, while he was

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Speaker 1: at True at McConnell. While he was studying art there,

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Speaker 1: he came across a German fabric sculpture technique from the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century called needle molding. And if you've ever seen,

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Speaker 1: you know, that really famous tomato pincushion Chuck in the seventies,

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Speaker 1: So you know how how like the top the creases

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Speaker 1: in the top of the tomato are made by like

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Speaker 1: like taut thread pulled through together to kind of create

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Speaker 1: that that molded look. That, from what I can tell,

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Speaker 1: is a form of needle molding. But somehow Xavier Roberts

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Speaker 1: was like, I really like sculpture, and this is a

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Speaker 1: form of soft sculpture. I also like quilting, and this

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Speaker 1: kind of has to do with quilting. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: get into this and I'm going to figure out how

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Speaker 1: to make baby dolls using this needle molding technique. And

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Speaker 1: he did just that starting in nineteen seventy seven.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And for those of you that want to throw

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Speaker 2: your car into a ditch right now because you're screaming

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Speaker 2: about the story, yeah, because you know the true story,

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Speaker 2: just put a pin in it. We're going to get

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Speaker 2: around to it.

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Speaker 1: That was very merciful of you. Chuck.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't want people to think that we didn't know.

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Speaker 2: But in nineteen seventy seven, Xavier Roberts, who sort of

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Speaker 2: looked like a sort of like a shorter haired Kenny

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Speaker 2: Rogers type, wore a cowboy hat and had this beard,

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Speaker 2: and he developed these They were, like you said, soft sculpture,

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Speaker 2: but they were dolls called little People. And here was

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Speaker 2: this sort of hitch that really drove kids wild, is

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Speaker 2: that they were not dolls that you buy. They were

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Speaker 2: little people that you adopt, so you got adoption birth certificates.

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Speaker 2: It was. It was a brilliant idea that he had

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Speaker 2: put a bin in it, right, and he sold these things,

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Speaker 2: little people originals he had. He went to arts and

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Speaker 2: craft shows, he sold them. We bought ours at Unicoy

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Speaker 2: Lodge at Unicoy State Park in a gift shop there,

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Speaker 2: so that was the kind of place that would carry

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Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. There were about forty dollars, and

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Speaker 2: I remember distinctly that my father could not imagine paying

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Speaker 2: forty dollars for a doll and I think even I

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Speaker 2: think we even left without Little Chuck. And he went

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Speaker 2: back because he felt so bad about how Cresfall and

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Speaker 2: my sister was and bought the doll later on for

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Speaker 2: a Christmas gift or something, if my memory served me,

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Speaker 2: But it was a lot of money. Forty bucks was

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Speaker 2: a lot of money for a doll back then.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was probably getting pretty close to one hundred bucks.

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Speaker 1: And I mean, who goes to Unicoy State Park's gift

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Speaker 1: shop and expects to drop one hundred bucks on a

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Speaker 1: piece of folk art that's really just a baby doll?

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Speaker 1: You know, I could kind of start as.

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Speaker 2: He thought, he's gonna have to get a Michelle miniature

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Speaker 2: license plate for two fifty.

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Speaker 1: Sure, exactly. And when you go on with an expectation

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Speaker 1: like that and you are faced with one hundred dollars

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Speaker 1: soft sculpture payment that you have to make, that's a

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Speaker 1: big shock. And sometimes somebody needs to get in their

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Speaker 1: car and drive home and think about it before they

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Speaker 1: can accept that that's right. So that, like you said,

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Speaker 1: that's exactly the kind of place you would have bought this.

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Speaker 1: You could have also found him at like craft Fares

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Speaker 1: or something. And in fact, Xavier Roberts one first place

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Speaker 1: at the Osceola Art Show in Kassimi, Florida for little

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Speaker 1: people that he named Dexter, which is one of the

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Speaker 1: most uncanny, haunting, horrid dolls you'll ever see in your life.

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Speaker 1: But it helped kind of generate some buzz and that

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Speaker 1: point he was like, you know what this is. Things

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Speaker 1: are kind of going well. People are paying forty bucks

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Speaker 1: for to adopt one of these little people. I'm winning

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Speaker 1: first place prizes. I'm gonna get together some friends and

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Speaker 1: he founded what's known as Original Appalachian Artworks and they

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Speaker 1: they are the ones that actually opened up baby Land General.

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Speaker 1: They took an old medical center in Cleveland, which is

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Speaker 1: super creepy that they they they took an abandoned hospital

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Speaker 1: and opened it for it's basically like a doll store,

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Speaker 1: really creepy if you step back and just look at

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Speaker 1: the contours of the whole thing. But it was ash. No,

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Speaker 1: no it didn't. I'm just saying, if you just look

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Speaker 1: at the words on paper, Oh you put it like that,

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Speaker 1: it does seem Yeah, it was. And it was the

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Speaker 1: opposite of creepy. Like it was delightful, and I guess

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Speaker 1: it still is because I mean it's still in operation today.

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Speaker 1: But people would show up and like there were like

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Speaker 1: the people who worked there were dressed up as nurses

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Speaker 1: and doctors, and they would help the babies be born

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Speaker 1: from cabbage from cabbages, then they would be incubated. They

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Speaker 1: were premies that were born. Like it was a big

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Speaker 1: deal operation to take this idea that you were adopting

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Speaker 1: a cabbage patch kid rather than buying a doll, and

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Speaker 1: then like adding that whole extra dimension to it of

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Speaker 1: going to Babyland general to do it really helped generate

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Speaker 1: a lot of buzz for these things.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I should say that my sister's doll, Chuck,

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Speaker 2: who was they come with their name. She didn't name

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Speaker 2: it after me, but Chuck had You know, if you

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Speaker 2: see the early versions of these things, like you said,

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Speaker 2: it was kind of horrific looking. They weren't the cutest

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Speaker 2: dolls at all. Chuck had a very crooked hairline, like

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Speaker 2: it looked like it was made by someone who didn't

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Speaker 2: fully know what they were doing. His little yarn hairline

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Speaker 2: was like a good three inches higher on one side

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Speaker 2: of his forehead than the other. Which again, further, my

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Speaker 2: dad did not see the charm in this. He was like,

256
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Speaker 2: it's not even made well. And I got to pay

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Speaker 2: forty dollars for these things. But supposedly with the premies.

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Speaker 2: Xavier Roberts has given some credit to just raising awareness

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Speaker 2: for premature babies because the pre in Cabbage Patchland were

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Speaker 2: so cute. They also had c sections cabbage sections, and

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Speaker 2: by the time nineteen eighty rolls around, he's selling a

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Speaker 2: pretty good amount of these things. But it really explodes

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Speaker 2: in popular culture from sort of the early eighties. He

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Speaker 2: was featured on the TV show Real People, which I

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Speaker 2: watched a lot as a kid, made Newsweek, made the

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Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal, and so the press is starting to

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Speaker 2: kind of come around, and these things are just getting

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Speaker 2: more and more popular at this point.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of those stories just kind of focused

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Speaker 1: on people who were paying a lot more than the

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Speaker 1: original retail price to start collecting these dolls. So there's

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Speaker 1: like a whole underground cult market that was developing around

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Speaker 1: these little people. And it became very apparent that Xavier

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Speaker 1: Roberts was not going to be able to keep up

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Speaker 1: with supply, so he started looking for some help and

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Speaker 1: he found it in nineteen eighty two. And we will

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Speaker 1: talk all about that partnership Made in Heaven starting after

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Speaker 1: these messages. Okay, Chuck, So it's nineteen eighty two, and

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Speaker 1: the little people are just going bonkers. They're flying off

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Speaker 1: of shelves. They can't keep them in stock anywhere. They're

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Speaker 1: selling them. Unicoy State Park is on the phone every

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Speaker 1: day being like, send us more, send us more. We

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Speaker 1: don't care what the hairline looks like. We got to

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Speaker 1: have them. And so Xavier Roberts started looking for some

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Speaker 1: like a legit toy manufacturer to help him out and

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Speaker 1: found it in Kaliko, who had made a name I

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Speaker 1: guess around the same time as maybe a little bit

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Speaker 1: before this year before maybe as the people who came

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Speaker 1: out with pac Man. So they were riding high by

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Speaker 1: this time, and they said, I think there's something to

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Speaker 1: these little people, and we're gonna we're gonna buy in here.

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Speaker 1: And so Xavier Roberts partnered with Kalico, and the rest

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Speaker 1: of the story just kind of takes off like a

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Speaker 1: rocket from there. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So this was in nineteen eighty two, and at first

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Speaker 2: Kaliko said, you know what, we're going to keep calling

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Speaker 2: them little People. We think that's a good name, even

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Speaker 2: though it wasn't, so they stuck with the name. They

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Speaker 2: figured out the best way to mass produce these things

300
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Speaker 2: was to get rid of that hand done hands on head.

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Speaker 2: That was a real problem. That's what took the most time.

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Speaker 2: It's also, frankly, what gave those early dolls all the personality.

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Speaker 2: A lot of that was lost when they went to

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Speaker 2: the plastic heads, but they did keep the cloth bodies.

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Speaker 2: They machine produced these vinyl heads. They sized the doll

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Speaker 2: down a little bit to about sixteen inches. The initial

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Speaker 2: dolls were pretty big. They varied in size, obviously depending

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Speaker 2: on how old they were when you adopted them, but

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Speaker 2: they were large, like Chuck was a big doll, the

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Speaker 2: two I have here big dolls.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they were like the size where if they were

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Speaker 1: possessed by a demon and came alive, they could smother

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Speaker 1: you like you'd be in big trouble if they came

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Speaker 1: alive while you were asleep.

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Speaker 2: Yes, big time. But sizing them down made a big

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Speaker 2: difference because then you could just box them up, get

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Speaker 2: more shelf space that way. Sure, and they were smart

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Speaker 2: early on too, to realize that kids wanted a lot

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Speaker 2: of variety. They wanted different ethnicities, they wanted different skin color,

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Speaker 2: different shapes. They wanted some with freckles, some with dimples, obviously,

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Speaker 2: different eye color and hair color and stuff like that.

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Speaker 2: And that was one of the big selling points, is

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Speaker 2: it wasn't just this Samesy's mass p is do all

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Speaker 2: that right. Every kid could have the same one. Every

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Speaker 2: kid wanted a different version.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Because I mean that was the part of the

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Speaker 1: whole marketing that you were adopting your own individual kid,

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Speaker 1: your own cabbage patch kid who had his or her

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Speaker 1: own name, his or her own like specific birth date.

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Speaker 1: He or she was a unique little baby that you

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Speaker 1: were adopting. So the idea that you could take different

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Speaker 1: head molds and different facial features and different types of hair,

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Speaker 1: and you had like a few different from each category.

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Speaker 1: You suddenly had like millions of combinations that you could

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Speaker 1: randomly put together. It continued that uniqueness that was like

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Speaker 1: part of the brand from the beginning, and like you said,

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Speaker 1: was like part of like the big the big thing

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Speaker 1: that like made this craze so so huge. You know,

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00:18:48,560 --> 00:18:51,800
Speaker 1: they were very smart to identify that as a big

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Speaker 1: part of the marketing and then figure out a way

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Speaker 1: to carry it on while also mass producing these things.

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Speaker 1: It was pretty clever on Kleco's part.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And it was also clever to change the name

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Speaker 2: Little People, Yeah, just didn't have legs, basically in the end,

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Speaker 2: and they thought cabbage Patch Kids, they were born in

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Speaker 2: the cabbage patch. It's and you know, looking back, it's

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Speaker 2: a pretty brilliant name because it ties into being adopted,

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Speaker 2: being born in the little cabbage patch, and it's it

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Speaker 2: was pretty brilliant. I think it was a kind of

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Speaker 2: name like that you could end up making into a

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Speaker 2: bunch of other things, which they did, and we're going

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Speaker 2: to talk about that, but I don't think little people

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Speaker 2: quite had the legs to do that.

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Speaker 1: So Kalico also figured out that there was a really

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Speaker 1: good sweet spot that even if you couldn't really afford it,

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00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:46,879
Speaker 1: you would still stretch to reach that point, and they

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Speaker 1: started adopting these. The adoption fees for Cabbage Patch Kids

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Speaker 1: came to about thirty dollars, which is seventy eight dollars

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00:19:53,760 --> 00:19:58,320
Speaker 1: in today's money. And then they took their you know,

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00:19:59,080 --> 00:20:04,000
Speaker 1: comparatively much larger clout and contacts in the media and

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00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:06,919
Speaker 1: started getting way more press for Cabbage Patch Kids than

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Speaker 1: Xavier Roberts ever managed to generate for little People, which

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Speaker 1: I have to say, looking back, though, Xavier Roberts did

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Speaker 1: some really good work as just some dude from Cleveland,

365
00:20:19,280 --> 00:20:22,520
Speaker 1: Georgia who was hand sewing dolls. I mean he got

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Speaker 1: some pretty good coverage.

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Speaker 2: It was a niche and regional.

368
00:20:28,040 --> 00:20:30,359
Speaker 1: Right exactly, and it wasn't it became a big deal,

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00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:34,439
Speaker 1: but Kalico just put it to shame. They got a

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Speaker 1: lot of press, a lot of interest drummed up for

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00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:41,280
Speaker 1: Cabbage Patch kids, and all of that kind of culminated

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00:20:41,320 --> 00:20:46,399
Speaker 1: in a December twelfth to a nineteen eighty three edition

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Speaker 1: of Newsweek when there was a cabbage pet, a little

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Speaker 1: girl with her Cabbage Patch kid on the cover of

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Speaker 1: that edition, just in time for the Christmas buying season.

376
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Speaker 2: That's right, because every kid in America was reading Newsweek

377
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:03,119
Speaker 2: and saying, Mom, Dad, look, it's on the cover. We

378
00:21:03,240 --> 00:21:03,960
Speaker 2: have to get one.

379
00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:07,000
Speaker 1: Yep. And that was at the very quaint time when

380
00:21:07,080 --> 00:21:09,840
Speaker 1: you would you would just start Christmas shopping two weeks

381
00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:12,960
Speaker 1: before Christmas rather than eight months before Christmas.

382
00:21:13,920 --> 00:21:17,000
Speaker 2: So Clico and by the way, just to save listener mails,

383
00:21:17,600 --> 00:21:19,840
Speaker 2: Clico did not make back man, and we'll just want

384
00:21:19,840 --> 00:21:22,960
Speaker 2: to save you from that fate, because is it right, Yeah,

385
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:25,680
Speaker 2: I think it was Namco if I remember correctly.

386
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Speaker 1: Oh man, I.

387
00:21:27,119 --> 00:21:28,480
Speaker 2: Mean they did do video games.

388
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Speaker 1: But okay, well thanks for saving me.

389
00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:33,119
Speaker 2: No, no, no, there'll be plenty of people that write

390
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:36,000
Speaker 2: that probably sent the email before I even got to this,

391
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:40,800
Speaker 2: and that want to retrack the email. But that's okay.

392
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:44,159
Speaker 2: So they started selling these things like hotcakes. They sold

393
00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:48,160
Speaker 2: three million plus by the end of nineteen eighty three,

394
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:53,480
Speaker 2: and like so many Christmas items that came before and after,

395
00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:56,840
Speaker 2: it is sort of the frenzy is determined by availability

396
00:21:56,920 --> 00:22:00,800
Speaker 2: and supply, and they were underprepared and they could not

397
00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:04,520
Speaker 2: keep up with demand. They weren't like the Rubik's Cube,

398
00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:07,439
Speaker 2: where they just made, you know, millions and millions and

399
00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:10,800
Speaker 2: millions of these things, and it became a supply problem

400
00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:13,600
Speaker 2: and it became a really big deal. And this is

401
00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:16,920
Speaker 2: this is the first toy where people were angry because

402
00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:18,359
Speaker 2: there weren't enough of them to go around.

403
00:22:18,920 --> 00:22:21,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean they still made three million of

404
00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:24,920
Speaker 1: them and they ran out like very quickly. And when

405
00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:28,439
Speaker 1: you say people were angry, like they were throwing elbows,

406
00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:33,520
Speaker 1: they were pushing one another, they were getting physical trying

407
00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:36,320
Speaker 1: to get these dolls. And now it's like, well, yeah,

408
00:22:36,359 --> 00:22:39,680
Speaker 1: that sounds like a Christmas like must have Christmas toy.

409
00:22:40,119 --> 00:22:42,320
Speaker 1: People hadn't done that up to this point. This is

410
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:45,600
Speaker 1: very new and so in addition to you know, the

411
00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:48,920
Speaker 1: normal press they were getting, these dolls were also ending

412
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:52,280
Speaker 1: up on like the Nightly News a lot that December

413
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:56,600
Speaker 1: with stories about how parents were like driving across state

414
00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:59,960
Speaker 1: lines to get one of those Cabbage Patch Kids. Or

415
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:04,360
Speaker 1: there was a story about a post carrier in Kansas

416
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,960
Speaker 1: City I think who flew to London to buy one,

417
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:10,760
Speaker 1: which I don't understand why, because London had its own

418
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:14,280
Speaker 1: frenzy going on as well. There was a whole lot

419
00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:17,119
Speaker 1: of stuff going down that hadn't really gone down before

420
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:20,359
Speaker 1: Cabbage Patch Kids came along that Christmas.

421
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:23,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder if that became a technique to sell

422
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:30,520
Speaker 2: more things, was to either falsely kind of falsely say

423
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:31,960
Speaker 2: that you don't have enough.

424
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:35,240
Speaker 1: I think we covered that and the Must Have Toys

425
00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:38,719
Speaker 1: episode that that is a technique that they use that

426
00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:42,960
Speaker 1: they purposefully underproduce to create scarcity.

427
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:45,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then you can't sell as many. I would

428
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:48,000
Speaker 2: think it'd be better to produce the regular amount and

429
00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:50,679
Speaker 2: then just say you didn't and then they're like, but

430
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 2: we found a warehouse that we didn't know about, right exactly,

431
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:56,119
Speaker 2: because you still want to move these dolls. I mean

432
00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:59,679
Speaker 2: Rubik's Cube. They sold two hundred million rubbs cubes in

433
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:02,080
Speaker 2: the years. I know that's nuts because they were just

434
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:03,160
Speaker 2: pumping those things out.

435
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, at the very least, I think Calico was

436
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:10,199
Speaker 1: genuinely caught under prepared. I don't think it was in

437
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 1: any way, shape or form a purposeful scarcity. I think

438
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 1: it was just straight up scarcity. And there was there was.

439
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:27,480
Speaker 1: There's this footage from Zale's Department No, sorry, Zayer Department store, Wilkesbury, Pennsylvania. Right,

440
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: this is in wilkes wilkes Bury, Pennsylvania or Wilkes Barra.

441
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: I've also seen Pennsylvania. But there's this manager who I

442
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 1: know we talked about before. But you got to see

443
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 1: this guy. He's the manager of the Zai department store

444
00:24:42,119 --> 00:24:44,800
Speaker 1: in December nineteen eighty three at least. And this guy

445
00:24:44,880 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 1: is like unhinged. Have you seen footage of him?

446
00:24:47,560 --> 00:24:49,040
Speaker 2: Yeah? I saw him last year.

447
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 1: Okay, you got to see him again. I gotta describe

448
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:55,199
Speaker 1: again because I I he struck a chord with me

449
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:57,919
Speaker 1: this year. They didn't last year. But he's he's holding

450
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:00,760
Speaker 1: a baseball bat very famously. But if you listen to

451
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: what he's doing, shouting at the customers. He's like, shut up,

452
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,359
Speaker 1: listen to May and he's like waving this baseball bat.

453
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 1: And there's this crowd of people filling every available inch

454
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 1: of this department store wanting cabbage patch kids, and this

455
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:19,040
Speaker 1: guy decides that the way to satisfy the need is

456
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:22,600
Speaker 1: to just start tossing them into the crowd. So the

457
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:25,320
Speaker 1: crowd is like jostling, going crazy trying to catch these

458
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:28,160
Speaker 1: cabbage patch kids while the manager of the department store

459
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 1: is screaming at them holding a baseball fat It's one

460
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:36,639
Speaker 1: of the worst forms of crowd management anyone's ever attempted ever,

461
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:38,280
Speaker 1: and it was caught on film and you got to

462
00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 1: see it yourself.

463
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was. He wasn't doing his best work that day.

464
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 1: I really was agreed.

465
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:51,119
Speaker 2: A lot of times, the problems were so big that

466
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:53,719
Speaker 2: they didn't even want people in the stores, so they

467
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:56,400
Speaker 2: would say, like, we can't have another fistfight in here.

468
00:25:56,880 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 2: So what you do is you can arrive and get

469
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:01,439
Speaker 2: a coupon and then you go round back to the

470
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 2: loading dock and we'll distribute them there. The secondary market

471
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:09,400
Speaker 2: started booming. There were actual stores that were buying them.

472
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:12,119
Speaker 2: Up and then marking them up, and then there was

473
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:16,440
Speaker 2: the black market that really really marked them up. And

474
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:20,520
Speaker 2: this was not WKRP in Cincinnati, but it was very

475
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 2: much in that rich tradition of DJ's kind of conning

476
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:29,960
Speaker 2: people into acting like fools. And this happened in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,

477
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:33,119
Speaker 2: when some local DJs there said there's going to be

478
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:35,679
Speaker 2: a B twenty six bomber plane and it's going to

479
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 2: drop two thousand dollars over the Brewers Baseball Stadium and

480
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:42,360
Speaker 2: all you got to do is show up with your

481
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 2: baseball glove to catch these babies and hold up your

482
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 2: credit cards so the pilot can take a picture and

483
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 2: charge you for it. And of course this is the

484
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:53,439
Speaker 2: dumbest thing you've ever heard, but that still didn't stop

485
00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:56,439
Speaker 2: a couple of dozen people from showing up with their

486
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 2: baseball glove and credit card.

487
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, and negative seven degree wind chill, which is very cold.

488
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: If you're in the centigrade parts of the world, that's

489
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:10,200
Speaker 1: very cold. They're used to it, I guess so. But

490
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:13,439
Speaker 1: the yeah, the fact that people would would do that

491
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 1: is it's like, I double check to make sure that

492
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:18,199
Speaker 1: that wasn't an urban legend, and it definitely is not

493
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: like that was that really did happen in Milwaukee in

494
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three. That was like the level the craze reached.

495
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: And what's really to cale Eco's credit is they managed

496
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: to keep the party going for a full another year

497
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:36,200
Speaker 1: because in Christmas nineteen eighty four, Cabbage Patch Kids were

498
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: again the must have toy, and in just nineteen eighty

499
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: four alone, not nineteen eighty three Christmas season, in nineteen

500
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:46,640
Speaker 1: eighty four. That year they sold two billion dollars worth

501
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:49,399
Speaker 1: of Cabbage Patch Kids in nineteen eighty four money.

502
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:52,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this was I think one of the

503
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 2: things that made it truly unique is like I said,

504
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:59,199
Speaker 2: the Rubikskub was really hot for a few years. But generally,

505
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 2: as these things go, it's sort of like the you

506
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:05,399
Speaker 2: can count on the one Christmas season. If you're overlapping

507
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 2: to the next Christmas season, that is a grand slam

508
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 2: home run as far as toys go.

509
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 1: Absolutely so. One of the one of the outcomes of

510
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 1: that of being a toy that managed manages to span

511
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:23,479
Speaker 1: two Christmas seasons that at thoroughly as they become you know,

512
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 1: iconic and they start popping up in other places like

513
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 1: there was one named Christopher Xavier, who's a very famous

514
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: cabbage patch kid, I guess, as cabbage patch kids can

515
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:37,919
Speaker 1: be famous. And he actually rode on the Space Shuttle

516
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:41,720
Speaker 1: on a on a genuine, legit NASA Space Shuttle mission

517
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five, and that reminds me, Chuck, have

518
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 1: you seen the mini doc about about the Challenger? No?

519
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 2: Not yet. It's good.

520
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 1: Oh boy, it is really good. I mean it's a

521
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 1: it's a high, high caliber documentary to begin with, but

522
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 1: then like the the emotional that it manages to dredge

523
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: up is really it's a really well done documentary in

524
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: every every way. I highly recommend it. Where's that showing

525
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 1: that one's on Netflix? I believe almost positive and I

526
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:16,959
Speaker 1: think it's just called Challenger and then probably colon something.

527
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: But it's good. It was it's by I think JJ

528
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: isn't bad Robot JJ Abrams production company. Yeah, they did it.

529
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 1: They were one of the companies that handled it. But

530
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: it was it's very good.

531
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 2: I did watch, and Nola Holmes on your recommendation.

532
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 1: Yes, what'd you think?

533
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 2: I liked it a lot. It was good. It was

534
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 2: just a good, breezy, light fun movie to watch, which

535
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 2: is just what we needed to tonight.

536
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 1: We watched it for sure, and and but it was

537
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: smart too, wasn't it. Yeah? It was.

538
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 2: It was smart enough. And she's just great Millie Bobby

539
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:52,959
Speaker 2: Brown is. She's just she's got a lot of personality

540
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,840
Speaker 2: and lovable charisma, so she's she's great to watch and

541
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 2: it's fun to see her outside of playing eleven with

542
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 2: all her person able to come out like that.

543
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, Well, I'm very glad that you liked it,

544
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: because I think we would have had some sort of

545
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 1: awkward wedge between us for the rest of our lives.

546
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 2: As you know that you haven't seen the Octopus stock yet,

547
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 2: No I did. Oh okay, So I think if we're

548
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 2: going to talk about octopus, my octopus teacher, you should

549
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 2: just turn down your volume for about a minute and

550
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 2: you won't have it spoiled.

551
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 1: All right, fair enough, fair enough? And actually I think

552
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: that guy is terrible. I think is a terrible human

553
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: being for not rescuing his companion friend for on two

554
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 1: different occasions. Really, yes, And I know that he's a documentarian,

555
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: so they're not supposed to interfere. I've seen drop dead gorgeous.

556
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 1: I know the rules, but this is different. He crossed

557
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 1: the line, he crossed boundaries when he became friends with

558
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 1: that octopus. He stopped being a documentary and started being

559
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 1: its friend. And then he as his friend, wasn't there

560
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 1: for his friend when it was attacked, not once, but twice.

561
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 1: And I really dislike that for that reason.

562
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, Well I don't concur but I guess that's

563
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 2: part of the beauty of that movie. You can have different,

564
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 2: different takes.

565
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:10,479
Speaker 1: So but there's not a gulf between us a wedge

566
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: between us, now, is there?

567
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 2: I mean, did you hate the documentary?

568
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: No? I otherwise thought it was amazing, all right, Well,

569
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 1: then there's no amazing. It really was really was great,

570
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: except for that one thing time too. All right, no way,

571
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 1: So let's see back to Cabbage Patch Kids. There was

572
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 1: another kind of landmark they reached in nineteen ninety two

573
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:34,959
Speaker 1: when they became I think maybe Christopher Xavier became the

574
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: official mascot of the US Olympic team and got to

575
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 1: go to Barcelona with them. Yeah, I mean, this is

576
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 1: pretty impressive.

577
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 2: This is ten plus years after these things were the

578
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:49,360
Speaker 2: hot ticket, you know, which is crazy, crazy time they

579
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 2: were on a postage stamp. Eventually, of course, though his

580
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 2: star will not his star. It was more than Christopher Xavier,

581
00:31:56,840 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 2: but their collective star was going to fade. Like all

582
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,640
Speaker 2: toys and all dolls. We've all seen toy story. We

583
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:05,360
Speaker 2: know what happened. We know what happens in the end.

584
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 2: It never completely went away though, they you know Kaliko,

585
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 2: and then eventually was like, you know, we got to

586
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 2: offload these guys. We're going to sell it. We're in

587
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 2: the video game industry like big time, and so we got.

588
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: A have you heard of pac Man?

589
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 2: Well, the video game industry starts tanking, so they're trying

590
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 2: to guess recoup some money on their investments. So they

591
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 2: sell the Cabbage Patch Kid license and then you know,

592
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 2: this is not before trying a few things they tried

593
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 2: like talking Cabbage Patch Kids and stuff like that, but

594
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:43,840
Speaker 2: eventually they went bankrupt in the eighties and the license

595
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 2: moved on to different people over the years. Mattel Hasbro Toys,

596
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 2: r Us and then right now it's owned by play Along, Inc.

597
00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 2: Which it just seems like those are seems like there's

598
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 2: a lot of toy companies named weird things like that.

599
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:03,600
Speaker 1: Now agree, I agree, and I find it unsettling like

600
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:06,600
Speaker 1: their slogan should be we're watching you.

601
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 2: It just seems like we talk about those a lot.

602
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 2: Like there's still the giants like Hasbro and Mattel, but

603
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:15,920
Speaker 2: I feel like when we've done our toy podcast, it

604
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 2: seems like the newer ones they don't have these sort

605
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 2: of name brands that you that you think of as toys.

606
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:25,840
Speaker 1: No. I know, they all sound like Russian fronts. It's

607
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 1: really weird and unsettling and kind of off putting.

608
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 2: And all the c's are k's. It's really strange.

609
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 1: It's very sinister. So yeah, along the along the lines,

610
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: like all of these companies were like, we've got to

611
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: figure out a way to capture lightning in a bottle

612
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 1: again a second time. That just doesn't happen. It's hard

613
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: enough the first time. And so they tried different things,

614
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 1: Like you said, Kalico tried that talking one didn't work.

615
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:54,760
Speaker 1: I think Hasbro had one that swam, which is kind

616
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 1: of impressive, sure, and then Mattel had one that they

617
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 1: had to withdraw. It was all cabbage patch snack time kids,

618
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 1: and they these things would like eat like they came

619
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 1: with like French fries or something, and you'd put like

620
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:11,320
Speaker 1: the French fry in their mouth and they'd start chewing

621
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: and the French fe would go down their throat and

622
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:15,319
Speaker 1: actually come out the back of their head and fall

623
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:17,360
Speaker 1: into their backpack, and then you could feed it to

624
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:20,279
Speaker 1: them again, which is great and fine, but if you're

625
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:22,000
Speaker 1: a little kid and you get your fingers in there

626
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: or your hair in there, that cabbage patch dolls just

627
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: kind of keep eating and eating, and you're going to

628
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:28,839
Speaker 1: start screaming and your parents are going to be like,

629
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,760
Speaker 1: I don't want this doll anymore, give me my money back.

630
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:35,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, And these things also declined in quality. Think of

631
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 2: the mid nineties. Mattel shrunk them even more down to

632
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 2: fourteen inches and they were like, forget these cloth bodies

633
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 2: even we're gonna make the whole thing vinyl. And people

634
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 2: didn't like that at all. And it took I think

635
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:52,359
Speaker 2: the twentieth anniversary in two thousand and three. It took

636
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 2: Toys r Us, who took over the rights at that point,

637
00:34:55,680 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 2: to jack these things back up to eighteen inches. They

638
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 2: had cloth bodies. I think they had an eighteen inch

639
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 2: and a twenty inch and then they finally brought back

640
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:09,239
Speaker 2: those cloth bodies, which were a big deal, and they

641
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 2: debuted them at their flagship store in New York City,

642
00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 2: and they sort of recaptured the magic a little bit.

643
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:18,640
Speaker 2: And it's about this time and I think a year

644
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 2: later is when play Along licensed it. But it's about

645
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 2: this time that people started buying them again a little

646
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 2: bit for nostalgia, Like kids that grew up with them

647
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:32,319
Speaker 2: were now buying them for their kids. And I think

648
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 2: you know, they sold Okay, it's nothing like they were

649
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:36,640
Speaker 2: at first, but they're still around.

650
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:39,480
Speaker 1: No, yeah, and I play a long ink if that

651
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 1: is their real name. Was very wise to basically recreate

652
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:48,319
Speaker 1: the original nineteen eighty three style cabbage patch kids, like

653
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 1: they're basically indistinguishable from the ones that the people who

654
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 1: are buying them now for their kids had when they

655
00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 1: were kids. And it's like you said, it's all nostalgia

656
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: and they're doing pretty good trade on it with without

657
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 1: having to reinvent the wheel.

658
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 2: That's right. A little quick stat before we take a

659
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:09,480
Speaker 2: break that is remarkable. Over the past thirty two years,

660
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:11,839
Speaker 2: there have been one hundred and thirty million of these

661
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:15,760
Speaker 2: babies born, which would if they were real little people,

662
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:18,480
Speaker 2: it would make them the tenth most populous country in

663
00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 2: the world, with one being born every six point eight seconds.

664
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:25,760
Speaker 2: But having said that, we're gonna take a little break

665
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 2: and right after this we're going to tell you the

666
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:32,240
Speaker 2: true origin story of the Little People.

667
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, I'm curious, why did you say true like that?

668
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 2: Well, if you listen to the show a year ago,

669
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:05,280
Speaker 2: it's already ruined. But we didn't go into that much depth.

670
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:11,280
Speaker 2: Here's what really happened, though. Xavier Roberts ripped off a lady.

671
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:14,759
Speaker 2: That's the easiest way to say it. There was a

672
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 2: very kind hearted, soft spoken folk artist named Martha Nelson

673
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:22,680
Speaker 2: Thomas went to art school in the seventies. She experimented

674
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 2: with the same exact German soft sculpture molding, and she

675
00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:30,400
Speaker 2: created what was called little doll babies. If you google

676
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 2: Martha Nelson Thomas little Dolls, and you see this very

677
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:38,400
Speaker 2: now famous picture when it hasn't been swept under the

678
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:42,239
Speaker 2: rug by Xavier Roberts people and maybe Kaliko's people, This

679
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,239
Speaker 2: black and white picture of this woman surrounded by what

680
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:49,319
Speaker 2: are clearly and obviously cabbage patch kids.

681
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:53,360
Speaker 1: Yes, and there's actually funny enough. There's another famous picture

682
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: of Xavier Roberts, taken probably about ten years after that

683
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:01,440
Speaker 1: and he's surrounded by straight up cabbage Patch kids, you know,

684
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 1: with the vinyl heads and everything. But the fact that

685
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 1: that picture was taken of Martha and Nels Nelson Thomas

686
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy five is photographic documentary evidence that she

687
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:16,359
Speaker 1: is the person who came up with cabbage Patch Kids.

688
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 1: Not cabbage Patch kids, but what cabbage Patch Kids were

689
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:22,839
Speaker 1: based on. And if that were it, if that were

690
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 1: the photo, if that was the only evidence whatsoever, you'd

691
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 1: be like, that's a I don't know. People can have

692
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:33,479
Speaker 1: similar ideas. You know, there's only one you know, old

693
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: German technique called needle molding. Other people could have found it,

694
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:39,720
Speaker 1: but that is not the only evidence. And in fact,

695
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 1: Xavier Roberts has gone on public record saying that he

696
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 1: was inspired by Martha Nelson Thomas, but he changed it enough.

697
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 1: But if you go and look at the actual story

698
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:53,440
Speaker 1: in the facts along the way, and there's actually a

699
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 1: pretty good sixteen minute long vice documentary on this whole

700
00:38:57,320 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 1: thing that you will see that it went way beyond

701
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 1: him just being inspired by Martha Nelson Thomas's work, and

702
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:06,959
Speaker 1: in fact, like you said, he basically ripped her off.

703
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:10,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he from what I could tell, and there's

704
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:13,960
Speaker 2: a bunch of different sort of versions of this online.

705
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 2: But from what I saw is they actually did have

706
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 2: an agreement early on that he would sell these for her.

707
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 2: He said, hey, these are great. Can I take some

708
00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 2: of these to my gift shops and sell them for you?

709
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:27,399
Speaker 2: And I think I could sell a lot more than

710
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:29,880
Speaker 2: you could, And for a little while they did have

711
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 2: an agreement, but as it turns out, he ended up

712
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:35,880
Speaker 2: marking them up and charging too much money, and she

713
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 2: wasn't happy about that. She was like, no, they shouldn't

714
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:42,399
Speaker 2: cost forty dollars. It's you know, it's nineteen seventy eight.

715
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:45,879
Speaker 2: For God's sake, that's a doll And he's like, yeah, but.

716
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 1: There, well, you think this is Unicoy State Park.

717
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 2: They're a handmade and you know, you should put a

718
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 2: value on your talents. And they had a disagreement about that,

719
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:57,839
Speaker 2: and she said, you know what, forget it. I don't

720
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:00,640
Speaker 2: want you to sell these anymore. He follows up with

721
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:02,879
Speaker 2: a letter saying, well, you know what, if you don't

722
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:06,719
Speaker 2: let me sell your dolls, he basically said, I'm just

723
00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 2: going to start making my own and that's exactly what

724
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 2: he did.

725
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 1: Supposedly he wrote her a letter, and I don't remember

726
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 1: who mentions it in the Vice documentary, but basically they

727
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 1: said that in the letter he said, if I can't

728
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 1: sell your dolls, I will sell something just like them.

729
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:24,759
Speaker 1: And she apparently was like whatever, just went her own way.

730
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:27,200
Speaker 1: She was satisfied to have her dolls back and probably

731
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 1: thought she was done with the matter. And then supposedly

732
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 1: one of her friends said, hey, I saw your little

733
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: doll babies for sale at the Atlanta Airport. Way to go.

734
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:38,840
Speaker 1: She said, I'm not selling these at the Atlanta Airport.

735
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 1: And apparently that's when she knew she had a big

736
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 1: problem on her hands and found out that Xavier Roberts

737
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: had come up with the little people dolls that were

738
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 1: just the spinning image of her little doll babies.

739
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:55,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, so she filed a lawsuit that went on for years.

740
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 2: I think by the time they were selling out in

741
00:40:58,719 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 2: stores in nineteen eighty three, she was about seven years

742
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:04,439
Speaker 2: into this lawsuit. And for her, it wasn't She asked

743
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:06,920
Speaker 2: for I think a million dollars, but she said it

744
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:08,719
Speaker 2: wasn't about the money. She was like, I don't want

745
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 2: to see this as a commodity. And I don't want

746
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 2: to be ripped off, and I don't want this guy

747
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:17,240
Speaker 2: to come along and basically not have the same respect

748
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:20,160
Speaker 2: for these little dolls that I had. And if you

749
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:22,719
Speaker 2: look at the court case, you think, you know, open

750
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:25,759
Speaker 2: and shut. She's got this picture from seventy five. They

751
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:29,920
Speaker 2: had a prior relationship. She's got this letter that says

752
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:31,919
Speaker 2: where he basically says he's going to rip her off.

753
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 2: But she didn't copyright these things. And you would have

754
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:38,040
Speaker 2: had to copyright because they were all handmade and they

755
00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 2: were all I guess, unique into themselves. You would have

756
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:44,920
Speaker 2: had to copyright and sign or stamp each doll, and

757
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 2: she didn't want to do that, and he had no

758
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:50,360
Speaker 2: problem doing it. Ours little Chuck has an Xavier Robert's

759
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 2: hand signature on his butt if you pull down his

760
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:54,280
Speaker 2: little corduroy shorts.

761
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of the famous things about Cabbage Patch kids,

762
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 1: aside from their distinctive faces, is that each one of

763
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 1: them has Xavier Roberts signature stamped onto it's butt. And

764
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:06,880
Speaker 1: I guess Martha Nelson Thomas was like, there's no place

765
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 1: to put a signature on a child, and these are

766
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 1: like children to me. That's why I adopt them out

767
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 1: rather than sell them. So I'm not going to sign this.

768
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:18,279
Speaker 1: I'm not going to copyright them. And that basically so

769
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: you would think it would have sunk her case. And

770
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 1: after almost eight years, Exavier Roberts finally said, okay, fine,

771
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:31,440
Speaker 1: let's settle this. I suspect it had to do with

772
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:34,319
Speaker 1: he sold out at some point in the eighties he

773
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: sold his portion, and I would guess he probably needed

774
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 1: that court case to go away to finalize that sale,

775
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 1: and for whatever the reason, in nineteen eighty five he

776
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 1: was suddenly ready to settle, and they settled for an

777
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:51,480
Speaker 1: undisclosed sum that apparently Martha Nelson Thomas was satisfied with.

778
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he also said, and hey, lady, you say

779
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:57,839
Speaker 2: you can't copyright these things, you can sign it right

780
00:42:57,880 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 2: next to their little butthole.

781
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 1: Right. He sent a cockney there for a second cockney

782
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 1: Like I started to get nervous, like, oh my god,

783
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:07,239
Speaker 1: why does he sound cockney? And then you pulled it

784
00:43:07,239 --> 00:43:10,319
Speaker 1: out with the real Appalachian Mountain folk twist at the

785
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:10,759
Speaker 1: end there.

786
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:13,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he he settled as shit was enough money

787
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:16,920
Speaker 2: to put her kids through college. She said, uh, it's

788
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:18,799
Speaker 2: still sort of a sad story to me that you

789
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 2: know this. You know, man came along and ripped off

790
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:25,880
Speaker 2: this lady's design and then later on complained that he

791
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:29,520
Speaker 2: was getting ripped off. He complained about knockoffs and said,

792
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:32,280
Speaker 2: you know, my point is not not take my product

793
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:33,799
Speaker 2: to my creation and tarnish it.

794
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, which was pretty audacious because he said this, like,

795
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:41,200
Speaker 1: you know, I believe it right when he was settling

796
00:43:41,239 --> 00:43:43,279
Speaker 1: with this other case in which a part of the

797
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:45,800
Speaker 1: settlement was he had to acknowledge that that he had

798
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:51,439
Speaker 1: taken her idea, and for him to be complaining about

799
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:54,600
Speaker 1: this on TV, it was a little audacious, especially if

800
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: you know that you know the full story. But the

801
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 1: even though it was a open secret or even a

802
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 1: widely known tale in the toy industry and even some

803
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:07,359
Speaker 1: parts of the press. Even still today, everybody thinks of

804
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:11,239
Speaker 1: Xavier Roberts as the creator of Cabbage Patch Kids, and

805
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: technically he was because he came up with Cabbage Patch

806
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:20,920
Speaker 1: Kids and Martha Nelson Thomas came up with Little doll Babies.

807
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he sold it to well, he didn't come

808
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:25,879
Speaker 2: up with cabbage Patch Kids. He sold it to pac Man,

809
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 2: and pac Man named him cabbage patch Kids.

810
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:31,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess so, I hadn't thought about that. So

811
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 1: one of the groups he was complaining about was tops

812
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:38,319
Speaker 1: trading cards, Tops trading cards around the still in the

813
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 1: height of the cabbage patch kid craze in nineteen eighty five,

814
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 1: came out with one of the greatest parodies anyone's ever

815
00:44:45,640 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 1: come out, with the beloved garbage pale Kids series.

816
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:55,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wasn't endo these. I was a little too old. Yeah, certainly,

817
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:59,839
Speaker 2: I was fourteen. I certainly remember them in the zeitgeist,

818
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 2: and I knew it was a very big deal. But

819
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:06,439
Speaker 2: this was probably more for kids, probably around your age.

820
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 2: I imagine you were probably into these.

821
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 1: Right, I loved garbage pail Kids. I believe that you

822
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 1: had a pretty impressive garbage pail kid collection herself. Oh

823
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:17,279
Speaker 1: really yeah, and she actually, yeah, she actually bought me

824
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:20,440
Speaker 1: a couple of garbage pail kids that I have somewhere.

825
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:24,840
Speaker 1: I think one is squashed, Josh, I can't remember the

826
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,400
Speaker 1: other one. But they are for people who don't know

827
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:31,000
Speaker 1: what a garbage pail kid is. Go look up gp

828
00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: K dot com and I think it's like g E

829
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:37,040
Speaker 1: E p e e ka y dot com. I'm not sure,

830
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 1: but they have every single series scanned, so you can

831
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:44,799
Speaker 1: see all fifteen series that came out between nineteen eighty

832
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:47,640
Speaker 1: five and nineteen eighty eight, and they're just awesome. But

833
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:53,799
Speaker 1: they're basically like if garbage If Cabbage Patch Kids were

834
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 1: meant to get us used to what mutant offspring of

835
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 1: nuclear war survivors would look like, Garbage Pail Kids were

836
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:04,399
Speaker 1: the mutated version of that.

837
00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:07,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good way to say it. They were.

838
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:11,960
Speaker 2: They were deformed, and they were plagued and diseased, and

839
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 2: they had names like Adam Baum and Bony Tony and

840
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 2: I guess squashed Josh and yeah roomy Umie. I don't know. No,

841
00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:24,360
Speaker 2: they didn't have they didn't have names for everyone, but

842
00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 2: it was it was a big deal. They sold a

843
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:30,920
Speaker 2: ton of them, and Xavier Roberts was was not happy

844
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 2: with this, and I think ended up in the lawsuit

845
00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 2: being successful and getting them just to change enough to

846
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 2: where it didn't look like it was officially tied to

847
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 2: the Cabbage Patch Kids.

848
00:46:45,640 --> 00:46:47,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, like they had the cat you know where how

849
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 1: it says like on the box for the Cabbage Patch Kid,

850
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:52,680
Speaker 1: It's like in a banner kind of like semi circle

851
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:55,600
Speaker 1: banner they had that originally as Garbage Pail Kids. They

852
00:46:55,600 --> 00:46:57,919
Speaker 1: had to turn that into a straight bar. They made

853
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 1: them look less like lifelike and more like plastic dolls.

854
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:05,279
Speaker 1: In the later series. There were a few changes, but

855
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:07,399
Speaker 1: I mean, it was still pretty clear what the whole

856
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:09,560
Speaker 1: thing was a riff off of. But one thing I

857
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 1: didn't realize is that one of the art directors who

858
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:18,279
Speaker 1: helped conceptualize Garbage Pale Kids from the outset was Art Spiegelman,

859
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:19,800
Speaker 1: who created Mouse.

860
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:22,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you know that? I Mean, I've heard of

861
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 2: Art Spiegelman, but I really don't know anything about him,

862
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:26,879
Speaker 2: So I didn't know that, But I know the name.

863
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 1: I've not read Mouse, but I know it's like it's

864
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:34,399
Speaker 1: like a like a just a legendary graphic novel about fascism.

865
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: But that guy helped create Garbage Pale Kids just a

866
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:40,720
Speaker 1: couple of years before he created Mouse.

867
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:45,080
Speaker 2: Amazing, and there was a bad TV show that eventually

868
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:48,239
Speaker 2: only aired in Europe. That was a bad movie that

869
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 2: is pretty legendarily bad, but it was a big deal.

870
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 2: Though they sold a ton of them, they didn't quite

871
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:58,839
Speaker 2: have the spinoff power of the cpks, but the gpks

872
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:00,200
Speaker 2: did okay for themselves.

873
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:02,399
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean like that really goes to show you

874
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 1: just how big cabbage Patch Kids were that it could

875
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:09,560
Speaker 1: sustain a cottage industry for a parody. Even that's how

876
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:13,560
Speaker 1: big cabbage Patch Kids were in the yeah piece. So

877
00:48:13,719 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 1: hats off to cabbage Patch Kids. I can't wait to

878
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 1: talk about them again next year in another episode. It'll

879
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 1: be great, we'll figure it out. We'll spend twenty twenty

880
00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 1: one figuring out how to do that, Chuck. And in

881
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:29,200
Speaker 1: the meantime, everybody, since we're thinking about how to talk

882
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:33,320
Speaker 1: about cabbage Patch Kids so more, it's time for listener mail.

883
00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:38,840
Speaker 2: That's right. Before we do listener mail, real quick, I

884
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:40,760
Speaker 2: just want to give a shout out to the Budge family.

885
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 2: Not really going to get into what's going on with them,

886
00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:46,400
Speaker 2: but just want them to know that we're thinking about

887
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:49,879
Speaker 2: them and sending them lots of love and support over

888
00:48:49,920 --> 00:48:56,640
Speaker 2: the internet airwaves. But this email is called oh I know,

889
00:48:56,719 --> 00:49:00,160
Speaker 2: I'm going to call it the beev this is about

890
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:04,240
Speaker 2: beavers again. And it starts out as this is seriously

891
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:06,759
Speaker 2: not a please read me on the air email, And

892
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:08,319
Speaker 2: that's a pretty good way to get on the air.

893
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 2: By the way, thanks for the amazing show. Been a

894
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:14,960
Speaker 2: listener since they were paltry twenty minutes. Love everyone, keep

895
00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 2: me company while walking, driving, cleaning, cooking, and providing an

896
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:21,600
Speaker 2: endless source of interesting topics for my English students in Spain.

897
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 2: I kind of think Chuck is my podcast soulmate, as

898
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 2: we grow up in much the same circumstances around the

899
00:49:27,560 --> 00:49:30,800
Speaker 2: same age. We have very similar cultural outlook on different things.

900
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:33,799
Speaker 2: I do have a small difference of opinion, though your

901
00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:36,799
Speaker 2: Bigfoot podcast was great and I was happy to hear

902
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 2: you say the possibility exists. Did we say that?

903
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, I think we were. I don't know

904
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:46,400
Speaker 1: if it was we so much as you.

905
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe so, But a while back you were just teasing.

906
00:49:50,520 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 1: I think it was we.

907
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:55,239
Speaker 2: You were adamant that NeSSI does not exist, buddy show

908
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:59,200
Speaker 2: NeSSI some love. Wouldn't it be amazing if she did exist?

909
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:01,840
Speaker 2: So she has her fingers crossed on that. But the

910
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:04,359
Speaker 2: real reason she wrote in she listened to the beaver

911
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:10,399
Speaker 2: episode and came across Beav the beaver, So just get

912
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:14,080
Speaker 2: online and google bev. It was this beaver that was found,

913
00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:17,880
Speaker 2: I think, abandoned by its parents and then adopted as

914
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 2: a young baby. And then raised for a while to

915
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:23,720
Speaker 2: eventually be putting maybe a while life center or something.

916
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:26,240
Speaker 2: But the long and short of it is Beav makes

917
00:50:26,640 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 2: dams in their house. So there are all these pretty

918
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:35,719
Speaker 2: cute videos of Bev dragging stuff into this one specific

919
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:38,680
Speaker 2: doorway that Beav is trying to dam up and like

920
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:45,560
Speaker 2: dragging a shoe rack, pillows, tissue boxes, like anything Beef

921
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 2: can get a hold of in his little paws and teeth.

922
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:51,120
Speaker 2: He'll drag over to this doorway and try and dam up.

923
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:54,399
Speaker 2: And it's really one of the cutest, funniest things I've

924
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:54,839
Speaker 2: ever seen.

925
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:57,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is very cute because he looks like, should

926
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:01,320
Speaker 1: this go here? Maybe a little bit to the left? Okay,

927
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:03,200
Speaker 1: that's all right right there. They were like when he

928
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:05,960
Speaker 1: brought the pillow over, He's like, oh, this is very useful.

929
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:08,719
Speaker 1: I can just squish this into place. It was very

930
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:09,759
Speaker 1: cute to watch him do that.

931
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:12,360
Speaker 2: It is amazing. And that email, by the way, was

932
00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:13,360
Speaker 2: from Carrie Keeley.

933
00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:17,280
Speaker 1: Thanks Carrie, that was a great email. And yes, way

934
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:19,360
Speaker 1: to get it on the air by saying it's not

935
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:22,680
Speaker 1: meant to be on the air. We fall for stuff

936
00:51:22,719 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 1: like that all the time. And if you want to

937
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:26,919
Speaker 1: try to make us fall for something. Have at us.

938
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:29,839
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to stuff podcast at

939
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:34,880
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio dot com.

940
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:37,759
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

941
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

942
00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:43,240
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.