Billion Dollar Babies
It sounds like this could have been an episode of 'The Toys That Made Us,' but the documentary makes a meal out of this moment in pop culture history.
Billion Dollar Babies
Doll hospitals, cabbage “births,” a four-year legal battle over the origin of the idea and a BILLION-dollar toy brand that put the wheels of modern-day Black Friday shopping riots into motion.
Before the Cabbage Patch Kids, no one could have imagined a world where police would need to break up fights between rampaging adults in toy stores. But after the Cabbage Patch Kids, every manufacturer in the world was desperate for their own “riot-worthy” toy. Everything had changed, and we were never going back.
BILLION DOLLAR BABIES: THE TRUE STORY OF THE CABBAGE PATCH KIDS is the evolution of that change, told through the lens of what is arguably the most beloved toy of the 1980s. It’s one filled with doll hospitals with delightfully attentive staff tending to every need of the “babies” birthed from a cabbage patch before their adoptions, dangerous counterfeit dolls and intense U.S. Customs raids, inevitable black-market sales, a glut of spin-off products, severe doll shortages and a rabid media frenzy that gave rise to a BILLION-dollar toy brand unlike anything the world had ever seen. Oh, and did we mention the “custody battle” over the origin of the idea? An unassuming and relatively unknown artist from rural Kentucky filed suit claiming she was the true creator of the dolls, setting off a contentious four-year legal battle over the Kids.
This is the story you never knew about the dolls that stole America’s heart… and turned us all into total maniacs.
Before the Cabbage Patch Kids, no one could have imagined a world where police would need to break up fights between rampaging adults in toy stores. But after the Cabbage Patch Kids, every manufacturer in the world was desperate for their own “riot-worthy” toy. Everything had changed, and we were never going back.
BILLION DOLLAR BABIES: THE TRUE STORY OF THE CABBAGE PATCH KIDS is the evolution of that change, told through the lens of what is arguably the most beloved toy of the 1980s. It’s one filled with doll hospitals with delightfully attentive staff tending to every need of the “babies” birthed from a cabbage patch before their adoptions, dangerous counterfeit dolls and intense U.S. Customs raids, inevitable black-market sales, a glut of spin-off products, severe doll shortages and a rabid media frenzy that gave rise to a BILLION-dollar toy brand unlike anything the world had ever seen. Oh, and did we mention the “custody battle” over the origin of the idea? An unassuming and relatively unknown artist from rural Kentucky filed suit claiming she was the true creator of the dolls, setting off a contentious four-year legal battle over the Kids.
This is the story you never knew about the dolls that stole America’s heart… and turned us all into total maniacs.
Genre
Documentary,
Pop Culture
Runtime
100
Language
English
Director
Andrew Jenks
Cast
Neil Patrick Harris (narrator)
Played at
Monica Film Center 11.24.23 - 11.30.23
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