Word: patches
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Quite a creation. Coleco, which introduced the Cabbage Patch Kids last February, expects to sell 2.5 million of them this year, which would be a record for any doll in its first year. Nobody knows how many more Coleco could have sold had it not been caught unprepared by its own success. The company says it is chartering planes to bring in 200,000 more dolls a week from factories in Hong Kong. And faced with a false-advertising charge by the consumer affairs department of New York's Nassau County, which accuses Coleco of "harassing" children by advertising...
Actually, the $25 price is just for openers. Like Ken and Barbie of an earlier mania, the Cabbage Patch Kids are mannequins waiting to be outfitted with all the costumes and accouterments that Daddy can afford. There is a Cabbage Patch folding stroller for $14, a Snuggle-Close Carrier for $10 and an array of wardrobes that include School Days, Nightie-Night, Country Kid, Winter Warmer and so on, at about $9 apiece. Still ahead lie Cabbage Patch T shirts, shoes, games and who knows what else from other licensees. All of it, according to one perhaps rosy estimate...
...minute too soon. While Coleco has been reveling in the profits and publicity growing out of its cabbage patch, it has also been afflicted by delays and criticisms of its promising Adam home computer. There have been rumors (hotly denied by Greenberg) that the cost of launching Adam has left the company grievously short of cash...
...Adam will live up to its promise, however, and by last week Coleco said belated deliveries were running at 2,000 a day. And the stock, which had sunk in pre-doll times, gained 5⅛ points in two days, in large part because of the mysterious Cabbage Patch mania...
Psychologists offer their usual blizzard of explanations. One theory is that the very homeliness of the dolls is appealing. "It is comforting," wrote Dr. Joyce Brothers, "to feel the Cabbage Patch doll can be loved with all your might-even though it isn't pretty." Still another theory emphasizes the doll's adoption ritual. The computers have given each doll a mellifluous name like Cornela Lenora or Clarissa Sadie, and each comes with its own birth certificate and adoption papers, ready to be signed. "Most children between the ages of six and twelve fantasize that they were really...