A history of holiday shopping madness: These toys triggered a frenzy

Posted by Admin December 1, 2024 Shopping

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The year was 1983. Christmas was approaching. A Connecticut toy company called Coleco came out with a line of simple, soft, squishy — some would say homely — dolls.

The company called them “Cabbage Patch Kids” after an old tale told to children to convince them they came from cabbage patches.

In a brilliant scheme, the company promoted a notion the dolls were “adopted” rather than bought. They even came with adoption certificates.

The result was a phenomenon almost unparalleled in retail history.

Kids went bonkers.

Parents went wild.

Stores went crazy.

Every kid had to have a Cabbage Patch Kid under the tree,

As sales soared, Coleco became a top performer on the stock exchange with shares rising from $6.87 to $36.75.

The dolls retailed for $21 — $67 in 2024 dollars — but sold for up to $75 — $238 in 2024 dollars— on a rapidly emerging black market.

A Cabbage Patch Kid made the cover of Newsweek magazine.

Coleco made only a couple of million dolls that first season, and the resulting shortage sparked riots or near riots at major retail chains. Parents trampled and clobbered each other to get a Cabbage Patch Kid.

In late November, the manager of Toys by Roy in Sikes Senter said he was getting about 25 phone calls per hour asking if the store had the dolls. He told a Wichita Falls Times Record News reporter he hadn’t had any in weeks.

The manager of the Wichita Falls Sears store said his store had received only 24 of them.

“I sure would love to have a truckload of them,” Geoff Sanders told TRN.

Coleco tried to duplicate the phenomenon in the years that followed but ultimately went bust in 1988.

The Cabbage Patch Kids represented the epitome of the must-have holiday shopping frenzy, but they were not the only products to send Americans elbowing into stores with credit cards in hand.

Manufacturers tried to repeat the Cabbage Patch phenomenon with offerings such as Furbies, Beanie Babies and Tickle Me Elmos.

The phenomenon of holiday shopping madness did not start with Cabbage Patch Kids.

Here are some of the other must-have, get-out-of-my-way hot gifts of Christmases past.

Lionel Trains: Joshua Cowen created the Lionel company in 1900 and built his electric trains for store window displays. But kids wanted them, so they quickly became a Christmas gotta-have. Advertisements of Santa hawking Lionel trains and swigging Coca-Cola kept sales hopping through the first half of the 20^th century.

Teddy bears: Introduced in 1910 and named for former President Theodore Roosevelt who supposedly had saved a real bear from getting shot, they’ve stayed a favorite over the decades.

Yo-yo: Just a string and a couple of wooden discs that had been around for a millennium made the must-have list in1928. Even now, it keeps coming back.

Slinky: An engineer knocked over some coiled springs and noticed they “walked” down steps rather than falling. The cheaply made toy caught on like wildfire during Christmas season of 1945. The engineer’s wife said they looked “slinky.”

Mr. Potato Head: He tumbled off the produce shelf in 1952 and into the hearts of millions with all his interchangeable anatomical parts. He soon teamed with Mrs. Potato Head.

LEGO: First scattered over the landscape in 1958 to become a holiday stalwart. After nearly going bankrupt in the early 2000s, the company reinvented itself, developed new products and strategies, and rebounded. The original LEGO building blocks are still available, though, waiting to be found on living room floors by unsuspecting barefooted parents.

Barbie: She walked onto the stage in 1959, long before Margot Robbie was born or boyfriend Ken aspired to win an Oscar. Although an anatomical impossibility when she was born at age 19, she has successfully pursued 200 careers and run for president seven times. Without a single wrinkle at age 85, she still sells well at Christmas.

G.I. Joe: He charged onto the toy battlefield in 1964 as Hasbo’s answer to Mattel’s Barbie. He came equipped with 21 moving parts and uniforms representing all U.S. service branches. Concerned that boys might not want to play with dolls, Hasbro labeled Joe as an “action figure,” a term that’s now part of the American marketing lexicon. Joe made the company $36 million in his second year on duty.

Star Wars action figures: They became a force to be reckoned with in 1977 following the success of the blockbuster movie. About a hundred movie characters were molded into plastic to squeeze the most from the craze and help earn producer George Lucas a galactic fortune.

Nintendo: The emergence of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985 is a reasonable starting point for the plethora of games, gadgets and devices that have come to dominate gifting in the 21^st century. The Mario Brothers are still hopping over Christmas trees and down chimneys.

Christmas giving is no longer as simple or cheap as Teddy bears and yo-yos, but a quick scan across the web for “hot gifts” shows many Americans will be content getting a card in 2024.

A gift card.