Doll:Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Kid

Created by a 21-year old art student, Cabbage Patch Kids had a comparatively quiet beginning as handcrafted cloth dolls available in Southern gift shops and at craft fairs. Xavier Roberts gathered some friends and began producing the dolls using a German technique of fabric sculpture. Roberts supplied his cute but homely dolls with names, birth certificates, and adoption papers. Roberts dolls caught the attention of toy manufacturer Coleco Industries, which began mass-producing CPKs economically with vinyl heads and cloth bodies in the early 1980s. The popularity of the doll in 1983 led to a number of ugly scenes at toys stores and department stores. Coleco could hardly supply the millions of Cabbage Patch Kids wanted by eager customers who had often waited in lines for hours to purchase the dolls. The doll line has stayed in production into the 21st century. This particular doll, a CPK Snacktime Kid appeared briefly in the 1990s. The doll came with plastic snacks which the doll munched when the food was set in its open lips. The food moved through the mouth on metal rollers and exited into a backpack on the doll's back. The rollers, however, also worked when foreign objects like a kid's finger or lock of hair got stuck in the doll's mouth. Mattel voluntarily withdrew the doll in 1997. The doll represents the nation's concern for toy safety.