What Mattel did to Tyco

Well, maybe things will be quiet around here and maybe they won't.  True, I won't be reviewing stuff left and right like I did, but that makes room for more "just for the helluvit" posts.  This post concerns a random picture I recently took, of these three.

From left, Marta Angela, Shelley Fred, and Olivia Reese.  These three are staying at Casa del Luna unless I say different, and as far as I know they're disinfected and ready to move to Rent House.  Disinfecting consisted of dumping rubbing alcohol on both Marta and Olivia, and as a result they're still damp to the touch and slightly smelling of chemicals, but then I happen to like the smell of rubbing alcohol.  I don't know if dousing my dolls with it will keep mold from spreading or even if these two were moldy; the mold in my house is pretty fickle.  It only wants...IT ONLY WANTS MY VINTAGE DOLLS, DAMMIT!!!  Why, why, WHYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem, where was I?  Oh yeah, the bulk of this post will concern the unusual relationship (or lack thereof) between the Cabbage Patch Kids and Cuddle On Delivery, but Mel Birnkrant-designed dolls are like Christmas lights.  When one goes out they all go out.  Photo op!

Dammit, Moon Girl, get to the point!  Ardent followers of this blog probably know a little history of the Cabbage Patch Kids by now.  Initially produced by Coleco, became ridiculously popular in 1983, stayed popular throughout the eighties, Coleco went under in 1988, Hasbro took over production of the Cabbies, all that jazz.  I'd estimate that about half of my Patch is from the Coleco era, largely because they're the easiest to find at a reasonable price!  LOL, people were killing each other to get just ONE of these dolls in 1983, and now they're pretty much everywhere.  Shelley Fred, Cara Raelean, and Hugo Jack are just three of mine!

Hmmm...there's them three, then there's Idalia Gale, Andrea Doria, Valencia Rose, and Stella Rae.  Seven Coleco Kids, in a Patch that will soon number twenty-one.  So a third of my Cabbies are Coleco, not half.  As I've said before, I'm not particularly picky with my Cabbies.  I will admit though that I prefer the ones with yarn hair...or with short hair, like Leslie Emily and Kory Aryan have.  Short hair is easy to maintain, as is yarn hair.  Just ask Olivia Reese.

Not that I hate Cornsilk Kids, of course!  They're just a little higher maintenance. 

Back on topic, Cuddle On Delivery didn't pop out of their magic mailboxes until 1997.  <pauses to think>  I think I was in third grade by then, but I don't s'pose that matters much, LOL.  Anyway, Tyco was the toymaker who took on the Cuddle On Delivery gang.  They had a lot of similarities to the Cabbage Patch Kids, being soft dolls with vinyl heads that came from some magical, far-off venue, but they weren't dead ringers.  See?  It's easy to tell them apart.

Expression is kinda a big deal for me, so I'll note that both Cabbies and C.O.D.s had plenty of that.  I think Marta's brothers and sisters had...eleven or twelve different heads.  I counted twelve, but two of the heads are the same, and two of the heads were prototypes so I guess technically there were ten heads.  And I don't know how many heads Mattel had for the Cabbies, but they also varied a lot.  None of them were ever sad, though.  Some Cuddle On Delivery dolls had sad little pouts.  Or they lolled their tongues out like Idalia Gale does, OR they have their first tooth, like Hugo Jack does.  Marta Olivia is one of those last ones.  

Like Cabbies, Cuddle On Delivery had codes assigned to their varying head molds, though they utilized letters instead of numbers.  Hugo Jack has a #4 head, while Marta's head is Cuddles Mold A.  PrillyCharmin says this mold is called So Innocent, though I think she may have done that to tie Cuddle On Delivery in with their Baby Face cousins.

The Cuddle On Delivery dolls were ridiculously popular.  As far as I know parents weren't getting into fights in stores over these, but they WERE good sellers.  Mattel didn't like that.  By 1997 they had the rights to the Cabbage Patch Kids, and while people weren't fighting each other in the isles for Cabbies by then the chipmunk-cheeked poppets were still pretty darn popular.  But mystery names and genders were unheard of for Cabbies; indeed, it would be another twelve years before dolls like Taniyah Yasmin popped out of Mother Cabbage.  Cuddle On Delivery dolls, on the other hand...their gender was a secret when they were in their box, and so was their name.  If you reread my review of Marta Angela, then you will know that the stamps on C.O.D.s' diapers were what determined gender.  Blue was for boys, and pink was for girls.

On the doll's wrist is a...well, it's kinda like a hospital bracelet, but I don't remember any of mine having that long of a tag.  Either way the name had opaque tape on it, and one had to peel the tape off to reveal the doll's name.

The name "Marta Angela" pleased me greatly, by the way.  I have a good friend named Marta, and I once had a good friend named Angela.  I don't know where the hell Angela is now, but I certainly wish her the best.  We were both about twenty when we saw each other last.  ANYWAY, the doll also came with a little baby book that could be decorated with stickers, and I don't know if the stickers varied from character to character, but it was still a cute touch.  

So that was all stuff that Cuddle On Delivery had and the Cabbage Patch didn't, and Mattel didn't like that.  Not one little bit.  Soooooo, 1997 rolls around, Mel Birnkrant and Tyco have some awesome things planned for Cuddle On Delivery...and then Mattel took Tyco over.  They bought Tyco, laid off a good portion of Tyco's original employees, and put an end to the Cuddle On Delivery bunch.  Keep in mind that Tyco was the third largest toy company in the U.S. at the time!  They were by no means crashing and burning, the way ValuJet (literally) was when they merged.  Oh, they still exist...as a branch of Mattel.  But Cuddle On Delivery can only be found on the secondary market now.  In-box examples aren't too hard to find, as my review of Marta showed.  Suddenly those Cabbie eyes look kinda sinister...

Or not.  LOL, I don't think Cabbie eyes can ever look sinister.  But yeah, the hypothesis is that Mattel dropped the axe on Cuddle On Delivery because they HAD outsold the Cabbage Patch Kids.  I don't know if that's true or not, but the timing is kinda convenient.  We all know that Mattel just HAS to be on top, after all!  If they're not they find some way to make trouble, as they did with MGA Entertainment and the Bratz.

Alright, alright, I'm positive that Cuddle On Delivery's success wasn't the only reason why Mattel bought out Tyco.  Oh nooooo, far from it!  I suspect that Tickle Me Elmo might've also been a factor.  Tickle Me Elmo was THE TOY for Christmas of 1996, just as Cabbage Patch Kids were for Christmas of '83.  Guess who produced Tickle Me Elmo?  Tyco.  Tickle Me Elmo DID survive to see the 1997 Christmas season, and...yeah.  I remember Daddy laughing that year because the stores were full of Tickle Me Elmos, but the hype had died down.  Neither my sister nor I ever wanted a stinkin' Tickle Me Elmo, by the way.  That was the year that Daddy moved Heaven and Earth to find my sister a stuffed Wishbone.  It took him the better part of the Christmas season, but by jove, my sister got that Wishbone!

Interestingly, Play Along found room in their roster for both the Cabbage Patch Kids AND the Play Along Club!  The Play Along Club didn't sell anywhere near as well as Cuddle On Delivery did, but the coexistence of the two lines shows what Mattel COULD have done.

Seriously, if Mattel had let Cuddle On Delivery survive they could've made a killing.  But nooooo, I guess they were expecting to make a killing with just the Cabbies.  I don't really know if Mattel DID make a killing with the Cabbies, but they had the license for 'em for a good chunk of time.  Regardless, the world of dolls and toys can be a bizarre and fickle place.  

Love,

RagingMoon1987