Editing Cabbage Patch Kids (section)

===Creation and development===
According to court records,<ref name=":0">{{cite web|title=The Cabbage Patch Kids' Twisted History|date=April 24, 2015 |url=https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/the-cabbage-patch-kids-twisted-history-117266351832.html}}</ref> Roberts, a 21-year-old art student at a missionary school in North Georgia, discovered craft artist [[Martha Nelson Thomas|Martha Nelson]]'s Doll Babies. They came with a birth certificate and adoption papers. With the help of artist Debbie Moorehead,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Deborah Morehead Obituary - 2023 - The Standard Cremation & Funeral Center |url=https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/27307609/deborah-morehead |access-date=2024-06-28 |website=www.tributearchive.com}}</ref> he hand-stitched dolls called "The Little People". Roberts modified the look of Nelson's dolls, birth certificate and adoption papers sufficiently to get a copyright, and told potential customers his Little People were not for sale; however, they could be "adopted" for prices ranging from $60 to $1,000.<ref name=":1" />

The Little People were first sold at arts and crafts shows, then later at [[Babyland General Hospital]], an old medical clinic that Roberts and his friends-turned-employees converted into a toy store, in [[Cleveland, Georgia]].<ref name="history">{{cite web|url=http://www.cabbagepatchkids.com/pages/History_folklore/Milestones/milestones.html |title=Our History |access-date=February 22, 2008 |publisher=Babyland General Hospital |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080218053854/http://www.cabbagepatchkids.com/pages/History_folklore/Milestones/milestones.html |archive-date=February 18, 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In 1981, at the height of Roberts's success, he was approached by [[Atlanta]] designer and licensing agent, Roger L. Schlaifer<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> about licensing The Little People. As [[Fisher-Price]] owned the name "Little People", the name was changed to "Cabbage Patch Kids". His goal was to build the first and largest mass-market children's brand in history. In order to attract potential doll manufacturers and to create the entertainment and publishing businesses he envisioned, Schlaifer and his partner/wife wrote the ''Legend of the Cabbage Patch Kids''. To make sense of how special cabbages gave birth to Cabbage Patch Kids, Schlaifer invented BunnyBees—the bee-like creatures that use their rabbit ears to fly about and pollinate cabbages with magical crystals. Since Roberts insisted on being a character in the story, Schlaifer created him as a curious ten-year-old boy who discovered the Cabbage Patch Kids by following a BunnyBee behind a waterfall into a magical Cabbage Patch, where he found the Cabbage Patch babies being born in a neglected garden. To save them from being abducted to work in the gold mines operated by the villainess Lavender McDade and her two cohorts in crime, Cabbage Jack and Beau Weasel, young Roberts tried to save them by finding loving parents who would adopt them and keep them safe in their homes.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}

In 1982, Coleco's design team, headed by famed doll designer Judy Albert, devised an industry first: one-of-a-kind, plastic-headed Cabbage Patch Kids dolls with cuter features, softer bodies and a normal toddler's proportions instead of the obese bodies of Roberts' originals.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hays |first=Constance L. |date=1998-08-01 |title=Judith Albert, 59, Toy Designer Whose Doll Led to Buyer Frenzy |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/01/business/judith-albert-59-toy-designer-whose-doll-led-to-buyer-frenzy.html |access-date=2024-06-28 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> It was those comparatively inexpensive ($18 to $28) dolls, branded in packaging designed by Schlaifer and produced in Coleco's factories in China, that succeeded commercially.<ref name=CabDolls.NW83/> Coleco cancelled all of its advertising as they tried to keep up with demand—shipping a doll-industry record, 3.2 million dolls.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}} Sales of dolls in 1984, along with Cabbage Patch branded merchandise generated $2,000,000,000 in retail sales across North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}

Coleco's sales continued to climb right through 1986, when they reportedly over-shipped and lost ground in a legal battle with Schlaifer and Roberts over his introduction of "Furskins Bears"—a collection of hillbilly bears that competed with the Cabbage Patch dolls. Coleco's sales plummeted from over $800 million in 1986 to nothing in 1988 when the company went out of business.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}