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Man-Eating Cabbage Patch Kids and other stuff
12 years ago
It's been a while since I told you a story, so here are a bunch of vignettes concerning dolls. What got me started was Rear Guard Action - Trailer Trash Version. It made me remember something that happened a while ago.
Back in the 1990s, I made "artist dolls" for sale at doll shows. I did exclusively Anthro or feral animals, usually horses, but also unicorns, dragons and that sort of thing. I heard a fair number of stories at these shows. Usually about Barbies, Barbie being one of the few mass-collectible dolls that has survived for over fifty years.
Out Of San Francisco
About twenty years ago in San Francisco there was this private company that made what, today, would be called an "artist interpretation" of a classic doll, which they were offering for sale over the internet. These were not intended as toys, but were jokes marketed to adults. Each was custom-altered from the original and delivered in a custom box --which would make them collectible as hell today, if you can find one. There were about half a dozen dolls in the series, but I can only remember two of them: Trailer Trash Barbie, complete with a cigarette in her mouth and brown roots to her blond hair, and Cross-Dresser Ken, complete with Ru Paul makeup.
Needless to say, Mattel was not amused and forced the company out of business. If you can find one of these dolls, hang onto it.
The Incredible Invisible Barbie
In doll collecting --in a lot of collecting, really-- there is this thing called MIB. This does not mean Men in Black, of course. It means Mint In Box. And never mind that today toys don't usually come in boxes. Most come in plastic-fronted blister packs.
Once upon a time, though, box meant box and in 1959, when Barbie was first released in the US the box she came in did not even have a window in it. It was a solid box of shirt-grade cardboard with a kind of wrapping paper glued to it with the name "BarbieBarbieBarbie" printed in diagonal lines all over it. You could not see the doll unless you opened the box and that was impossible to do without breaking the seal. You see, the "Barbie" wrapping paper extended down beyond the edges of the upper half of the box. These were then folded over and glued to the bottom half. So you had to cut the seal in order to open the box at all and purists would say this ends your MIB rating, which means you would sacrifice about half the doll's value.
Anyway, in the doll world MIB is very important and most doll-sellers who deal in collectibles know this. The lady who had the booth across from mine once told me that she went shopping for herself at one show and ran across one of these MIB 1959 Barbies. The price on this doll was $300 and she jokingly remarked that this was a lot to pay for a doll you could not even see. The seller became incensed and said that anyone who knew the true value such an old MIB Barbie would be *happy* to pay that much for it. My friend then retreated to her booth.
Later that show, she chanced to run across another MIB 1959 Barbie and was astounded. The chances of finding a second one at the same show were very small. So she asked that seller if she had bought the thing from that other exhibitor and the woman said yes, so my friend looked at the price tag and found the doll was now going for $500.
This MIB Barbie changed hands two more times and when last seen she was up to $1500. All this for a doll that has not been seen since 1959. A doll that has never seen the light of day and probably never will.
Kinda makes you feel sorry for the poor thing, don't it?
Man-Eating Cabbage Patch Kids.
First off, a bit of history: The original Cabbage Patch Kids were OOAK soft-body cloth dolls with needle-sculpted faces. They were all individual, they had belly-buttons and they came with an adoption/birth certificate. They were even hand-delivered, some of them, in a bassinet to the new adoptive parents. These dolls were human-sized, meaning that the owner could shop for clothes at yard sales like real parents did and the whole business was so successful, Mattel bought it.
The first thing Mattel did was make the doll less than human-sized, so people would be forced to buy Mattel clothing for them. They also replaced the cloth needle-sculpted head with a machine-produced vinyl one, but the body was still cloth, the Kids still had a belly button and they still came with a birth certificate and individualized features. By this time these dolls had been profiled on the news and, suddenly, there was a feeding frenzy for them. It's hard to describe this. The lines over new i-phones and other mecha pale in comparison. Kids were so hot, there were these little complimentary cottage industries that began to pop up, including one where you could spend $200 to send your Kid to camp. I KID YOU NOT. Someone came, picked up your Kid and took it away to camp. A week later the Kid was returned with a bag full of cheap souvenirs and half a dozen photos of your Kid doing "camp things" like playing tennis, sitting around a campfire and lounging by a pool.
Naturally this fad, like all fads, burned itself out and Mattel tried to come up with new ideas to rekindle the feeding frenzy. They developed pets for your Cabbage Patch Kid. And Ponies. And Cabbage Patch Premies. They even tried going the collectible route with sports teams and personalities, but they were never able to get back that first mad rush and all the money it generated.
There is something rather pathetic about a toy industry giant trying to suck the last dollar out of parent's wallet. Especially when the result is about as good as the lame sequel to a blockbuster movie. And there are times when I wonder where the Mattel's R&D department's head is at. In their rush to create the next trend, they forgot that a toy is a plaything, not a science project and in doing so all but killed the franchise.
The thing I'm talking about was called the Snack and Go Kid. This was a Kid that could actually "eat" food. Plastic food that is, Supplied by Mattel. And I'm sure they had wet dreams imagining all the new packages of "food" they were going to sell to the beleaguered parents. This Kid had an open mouth and a screw-feed mechanism in its gullet. When the "food" was pressed against the mouth, the screw-feed mechanism started to work. It took hold of this "food" and passed it through the doll into a backpack the kid was wearing. This backpack could then be opened and the "food" claimed for reuse. The "food" was supposed to be good for several dozen feedings before it was too mangled to be useful.
The way to disable this feeding mechanism was to pull the backpack off, but NOWHERE on the package or on the doll was this information available.
The brain-trust at Mattel had totally forgotten that they made toys. Toys are played-with by kids and kids are curious. The first victim of these new man-eating Kids was fascinated by the fact that her doll could "eat" and so stuck her finger into the doll's mouth to see where the food had gone. Immediately the screw-feed mechanism clamped down on her finger and started to gnaw and because that finger was attached and couldn't pass into the backpack, it kept gnawing.
Of course the child started to scream, which brought her parents running. Frantically those parents looked for the off button, but there was no off button and no instruction to pull the backpack off in order to stop the screw-feed. So they started dismantling the doll and eventually they turned the feed mechanism off, but this still did not allow the feed to release what it had already clamped down on and the kid and her parents ended up going to the hospital to get what remained of the doll cut off.
The second victim had the audacity to want to sleep with her doll. As she cuddled the doll in her sleep, her head came into contact with the doll's mouth and it started to "eat". It had swallowed a fair amount of hair and was gnawing on the girls scalp before she awoke and start shrieking. There followed a scenario very much like the first one, that began with a screaming kid and ended with the doll being ripped to pieces.
Of course lawsuits were brought and probably settled quietly out of court, but the Cabbage Patch franchise was badly damaged. It had pretty much run its course anyway and now Cabbage Patch Kids are a footnote in most toy stores.
In the process, however, they did create a *real* collectible. The Snack and Go Kids were pulled off store shelves, of course, returned to Mattel and destroyed. So if you should happen to find one, MIB or not, grab the little fucker.
Back in the 1990s, I made "artist dolls" for sale at doll shows. I did exclusively Anthro or feral animals, usually horses, but also unicorns, dragons and that sort of thing. I heard a fair number of stories at these shows. Usually about Barbies, Barbie being one of the few mass-collectible dolls that has survived for over fifty years.
Out Of San Francisco
About twenty years ago in San Francisco there was this private company that made what, today, would be called an "artist interpretation" of a classic doll, which they were offering for sale over the internet. These were not intended as toys, but were jokes marketed to adults. Each was custom-altered from the original and delivered in a custom box --which would make them collectible as hell today, if you can find one. There were about half a dozen dolls in the series, but I can only remember two of them: Trailer Trash Barbie, complete with a cigarette in her mouth and brown roots to her blond hair, and Cross-Dresser Ken, complete with Ru Paul makeup.
Needless to say, Mattel was not amused and forced the company out of business. If you can find one of these dolls, hang onto it.
The Incredible Invisible Barbie
In doll collecting --in a lot of collecting, really-- there is this thing called MIB. This does not mean Men in Black, of course. It means Mint In Box. And never mind that today toys don't usually come in boxes. Most come in plastic-fronted blister packs.
Once upon a time, though, box meant box and in 1959, when Barbie was first released in the US the box she came in did not even have a window in it. It was a solid box of shirt-grade cardboard with a kind of wrapping paper glued to it with the name "BarbieBarbieBarbie" printed in diagonal lines all over it. You could not see the doll unless you opened the box and that was impossible to do without breaking the seal. You see, the "Barbie" wrapping paper extended down beyond the edges of the upper half of the box. These were then folded over and glued to the bottom half. So you had to cut the seal in order to open the box at all and purists would say this ends your MIB rating, which means you would sacrifice about half the doll's value.
Anyway, in the doll world MIB is very important and most doll-sellers who deal in collectibles know this. The lady who had the booth across from mine once told me that she went shopping for herself at one show and ran across one of these MIB 1959 Barbies. The price on this doll was $300 and she jokingly remarked that this was a lot to pay for a doll you could not even see. The seller became incensed and said that anyone who knew the true value such an old MIB Barbie would be *happy* to pay that much for it. My friend then retreated to her booth.
Later that show, she chanced to run across another MIB 1959 Barbie and was astounded. The chances of finding a second one at the same show were very small. So she asked that seller if she had bought the thing from that other exhibitor and the woman said yes, so my friend looked at the price tag and found the doll was now going for $500.
This MIB Barbie changed hands two more times and when last seen she was up to $1500. All this for a doll that has not been seen since 1959. A doll that has never seen the light of day and probably never will.
Kinda makes you feel sorry for the poor thing, don't it?
Man-Eating Cabbage Patch Kids.
First off, a bit of history: The original Cabbage Patch Kids were OOAK soft-body cloth dolls with needle-sculpted faces. They were all individual, they had belly-buttons and they came with an adoption/birth certificate. They were even hand-delivered, some of them, in a bassinet to the new adoptive parents. These dolls were human-sized, meaning that the owner could shop for clothes at yard sales like real parents did and the whole business was so successful, Mattel bought it.
The first thing Mattel did was make the doll less than human-sized, so people would be forced to buy Mattel clothing for them. They also replaced the cloth needle-sculpted head with a machine-produced vinyl one, but the body was still cloth, the Kids still had a belly button and they still came with a birth certificate and individualized features. By this time these dolls had been profiled on the news and, suddenly, there was a feeding frenzy for them. It's hard to describe this. The lines over new i-phones and other mecha pale in comparison. Kids were so hot, there were these little complimentary cottage industries that began to pop up, including one where you could spend $200 to send your Kid to camp. I KID YOU NOT. Someone came, picked up your Kid and took it away to camp. A week later the Kid was returned with a bag full of cheap souvenirs and half a dozen photos of your Kid doing "camp things" like playing tennis, sitting around a campfire and lounging by a pool.
Naturally this fad, like all fads, burned itself out and Mattel tried to come up with new ideas to rekindle the feeding frenzy. They developed pets for your Cabbage Patch Kid. And Ponies. And Cabbage Patch Premies. They even tried going the collectible route with sports teams and personalities, but they were never able to get back that first mad rush and all the money it generated.
There is something rather pathetic about a toy industry giant trying to suck the last dollar out of parent's wallet. Especially when the result is about as good as the lame sequel to a blockbuster movie. And there are times when I wonder where the Mattel's R&D department's head is at. In their rush to create the next trend, they forgot that a toy is a plaything, not a science project and in doing so all but killed the franchise.
The thing I'm talking about was called the Snack and Go Kid. This was a Kid that could actually "eat" food. Plastic food that is, Supplied by Mattel. And I'm sure they had wet dreams imagining all the new packages of "food" they were going to sell to the beleaguered parents. This Kid had an open mouth and a screw-feed mechanism in its gullet. When the "food" was pressed against the mouth, the screw-feed mechanism started to work. It took hold of this "food" and passed it through the doll into a backpack the kid was wearing. This backpack could then be opened and the "food" claimed for reuse. The "food" was supposed to be good for several dozen feedings before it was too mangled to be useful.
The way to disable this feeding mechanism was to pull the backpack off, but NOWHERE on the package or on the doll was this information available.
The brain-trust at Mattel had totally forgotten that they made toys. Toys are played-with by kids and kids are curious. The first victim of these new man-eating Kids was fascinated by the fact that her doll could "eat" and so stuck her finger into the doll's mouth to see where the food had gone. Immediately the screw-feed mechanism clamped down on her finger and started to gnaw and because that finger was attached and couldn't pass into the backpack, it kept gnawing.
Of course the child started to scream, which brought her parents running. Frantically those parents looked for the off button, but there was no off button and no instruction to pull the backpack off in order to stop the screw-feed. So they started dismantling the doll and eventually they turned the feed mechanism off, but this still did not allow the feed to release what it had already clamped down on and the kid and her parents ended up going to the hospital to get what remained of the doll cut off.
The second victim had the audacity to want to sleep with her doll. As she cuddled the doll in her sleep, her head came into contact with the doll's mouth and it started to "eat". It had swallowed a fair amount of hair and was gnawing on the girls scalp before she awoke and start shrieking. There followed a scenario very much like the first one, that began with a screaming kid and ended with the doll being ripped to pieces.
Of course lawsuits were brought and probably settled quietly out of court, but the Cabbage Patch franchise was badly damaged. It had pretty much run its course anyway and now Cabbage Patch Kids are a footnote in most toy stores.
In the process, however, they did create a *real* collectible. The Snack and Go Kids were pulled off store shelves, of course, returned to Mattel and destroyed. So if you should happen to find one, MIB or not, grab the little fucker.
Kinda makes you feel sorry for the poor thing, don't it?[/barbie]
There is an entire Toy Story 4 plot in there about freeing the doll that has been in solitary confinement for decades. Toys want to be played with.
I break seals, I play with the toys. That is why I buy the toys.
[quote]In the process, however, they did create a *real* collectible. The Snack and Go Kids were pulled off store shelves, of course, returned to Mattel and destroyed. So if you should happen to find one, MIB or not, grab the little fucker.
Just don't feed it after midnight.
P.S.: I could type better if there wasn't a cat laying on my left arm.
I don't quite remember those terrible Snack and Go models at the time they were making trouble. But I did read about them once at the TV Tropes website, and I was shocked. It's another example of when exeutives of a business lose sight of what the product they are selling and think of a new idea the atrract the audience some more, no matte how bad the idea is.
As for the story with the Barbie doll, well, I would hate to be in that doll's shoes. The idea that people keep buying and keeping a doll you cannot see seems kind of creepy.
Having been involved in multiple collector's circles for most of my life, I would never pay for a sealed package where the contents cannot be confirmed to be real and intact.
(I was burned once for a plastic model kit that had what certainly looked like intact factory shrink wrap plastic...And upon opening at home, turned out to be a half built kit missing most of the important parts.)
Theres other examples that have not happened to me- But the important thing is, all of the collectables markets are shark tanks that you swim in at your own risk.
Because fraud within them is rampant and often incredibly brazen.
For the Cabbage Patch Kids....
I remember those things with existential horror and a bit of confusion over why they became such a phenomenon.
(I do actually know the reason, as I read quite a few articles about them back in the day....But since they had absolutely no appeal to me, I just didn't "get it".)
I recall the cannibal cabbage kid incident with the finger- Don't remember the hair one, but its no surprise.
I also remember the Teddy Ruxpin dolls...And the stories about home made tapes being slipped into them in store displays.
-Badger-
I remember similar stories about those talking Tickle Me Elmo dolls sometimes ending up with speaking tapes that contained some unusual and offensive comments
Supposedly, the person I am thinking of actually got access to the coding that controlled the Teddy Ruxpin eye and body movements- so it wasn't just an off color narrative- The bear actually moved, blinked and otherwise acted exactly as it would normally.
Except for one part- Where the story had him experiencing an orgasm, and the code addition made the doll twitch, rapidly blink and shake like an epileptic as he did a series of moans and groans.
I'm withholding the person's name just in case its not something he wants known....But he put the tape in and walked away far enough to be able to watch people's reactions for a while.
-Badger-
Somebody needs to get on the movie rights to that.
And this is what I mean about the R&D dept having their heads up their butts. It's a DOLL. What makes you think some kid isn't going to cuddle it?
I still think the idea could work.