Who doesn’t remember the Cabbage Patch dolls that hit the market back in 1982? The doll set every toy industry sales record for 3 years running and was one of the most popular lines of children’s products in the 1980s. In 1994, Mattel acquired the licensing rights to the dolls, and their first Cabbage Patch Kids dolls hit stores in 1995. One of Mattel’s Cabbage Patch Kids — the Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kids — was designed to “eat” plastic snacks. The mechanism enabling this was a pair of one-way smooth metal rollers behind plastic lips. The snacks would exit the doll’s back and “magically” appear in a backpack. The mechanism could be de-activated by releasing the backpack. However, in 1997, Thomas and Genie Taylor filed suit against Mattel after their 9-year-old daughter was “attacked” by one of the dolls. Jessica woke up early one morning screaming to find the Cabbage Patch doll she received for Christmas had consumed her hair down to her scalp. Mattel pulled the Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Kids doll from the market after about 100 reports of children getting hair and fingers caught in the battery-operated mouths. The company offered a $40 refund to the doll owners. In the end, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said it tested the doll and found it posed no serious safety hazard and the lawsuit was dismissed.
