The 80s Club

I never had a Cabbage Patch doll.

You simply cannot realize the terror, the horror, the absolute grief of that statement unless you were a little girl in the 80s.

(Or of course, a little boy of the type so inclined to play with dolls, like my cousin Jesse. Jesse ended up, surprisingly, not as a female impersonator in Vegas, but as a rather successful porn star with the stage name Zeus Goldenrod, which pretty much makes him the most successful member of our family ever. But I digress.)

You have no idea how insane people were for these dolls. The company was freakin’ brilliant, announcing that there was a shortage of dolls, and pretty much implying that if you didn’t have one you Totally Sucked, and if you were a parent who didn’t get one for your child, you Totally Sucked Too.

People STAMPEDED into the store at Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa time to desperately make a grab for a doll. I saw this once, and was forever scarred by the experience. A crowd of about sixty women crowded against the closed doors of Woolworth’s, waiting for the store to open.

When the manager came to unlock the door, the women rushed forward and several had their faces smooshed against the glass. One woman screamed. Then the doors opened, and the bloodbath ensued. I even saw one woman push a little girl out of the way.

Anyhow, my mother was not the violent type and I never got the coveted doll. (I still remember the name of the one I especially wanted: Molly Louise.)

Somehow, my best friend’s mother scored three dolls, which was unheard of. I believe that record still holds to this day.

They happened to be the trashiest family in our neighborhood, and I can say that without malice because of my background. ) There, in their living room with the sagging couch and overflowing ashtrays, was a glass case that housed the three dolls. My friend Holly never even got to play with them; they just remained on display as both a testament and a taunt.

In fact, Holly knew this was my sore spot and whenever she was mad at me she’d rub it in that she had three Cabbage Patches and I’d never have any. One day, that led to physical altercation that left me with a split lip and Holly with a tooth knocked out, and we weren’t allowed to play together any more.

Luckily, my obsession soon transferred itself to Strawberry Shortcake dolls, which were plentiful.

But anyway, my point is that 80s toys were AWESOME. So awesome, they could incite riots. Let’s see a toy today accomplish that.

Not me. Obviously.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 10th, 2006 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Gnarly Toys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.