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As a Millennial born in the mid-‘90s, there are so many toys that shaped my childhood. I was a baby for the Tickle Me Elmo craze that turned big-box stores into battle royale showdowns (my parents did manage to get me one, though). I had the Choosy Baby All Gone that you could “feed” either strawberries or vegetables (the mechanism on the spoon would retract back into the spoon so the “food” disappeared). Also, I was a child when American Girl dolls started to become popular (Samantha was my girl at 6 years old), and I was all in on the Pokémon craze going into the 2000s.
There are some toys that I grew up with that I’d love to “play” with or hold one more time as an adult. For me, that’s my light-up Sailor Moon scepter. But for others, they might want to play with something from their childhood that they can’t even buy from resellers because they were recalled for being dangerous.
One such toy with a small fandom of its own is the Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Kid. Thousands of children got this in the fall of 1996, as well as that Christmas, which makes sense given how popular Cabbage Patch Kids were as a whole. 500,000 of these dolls were sold in the nearly five months they were available to buy in the second half of the 1990s before they were banned.
This particular version was not some niche, forgotten plaything of yesteryear; many people remember this one, especially because of its gimmicky function. As the name suggests, it “chewed” on food that came with it. But it’s now known as a “cannibalistic” Cabbage Patch Kid because of what it “ate” instead.
But did this Snacktime Kid doll actually chew human children’s fingers and hair as the stories said? Read on for the history of the Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Kid and find out if you can legally buy the recalled toy.
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Why Was the Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Kid Recalled in 1997?
Brooks Kraft LLC/Sygma via Getty Images
The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) published a warning on Dec. 31, 1996. This was to alert people that the Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Kid dolls were a hazard because “long hair and fingers” would get “entangled in the doll’s mouth due to its chewing action.” The agency urged people who bought the product to “discard” it.
They announced that new warning labels would be put on toys already on shelves and on any future products. It would notify customers of the fact that the toy had been known to get hair and fingers caught in its mouth. It also made it clear that you can stop the “chewing” action of the doll by “immediately” removing its backpack (it won’t “operate without the backpack in place”).
At the time of this warning, the CPSC reported that this warning was for 700,000 units of the Snacktime Kids dolls, which debuted in August 1996. They also noted that they were aware of 35 incidents that involved kids’ hair or fingers getting caught in the doll’s mouth.
Soon after, on Jan. 6, 1997, the CPSC fully recalled the toy, noting around 500,000 units of sold dolls were impacted.
According to a New York Times article from Jan. 7, 1997, Mattel pledged to pay customers who bought the Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Kid doll $40 for each doll they returned. The company also stated that they were removing any unsold dolls from toy shelves, effectively banning the toy altogether from any new sales.
Mattel told the New York Times that testing conducted by them, alongside the CPSC, didn’t “turn up any indication of a safety hazard associated with the dolls.” But again, to satisfy and reassure customers of the “safety and value of our toys,” these precautions were taken, Jill Barad, Mattel’s Chief Operating Officer at the time, said in the CPSC statement.
This all came after 100 reports of kids’ hair getting stuck in the toy’s mouth, the newspaper stated.
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The ‘Cannibalistic’ Controversy: Did the Toy Actually Eat Hair?
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♬ original sound – Love Mini ToysIf you want to see this chomping doll in action, the original 1996 commercial for the toy shows how it works (and what it’s supposed to eat). It looked like a regular toddler Cabbage Patch Kid (it had the yarn hair, chubby cheeks and bright clothing), but the doll had a battery-operated jaw that would “chew” the “food” you fed it.
It came with plastic strips of food such as a fry, a piece of gum, a banana and more. Not only could you put the “food” into the toy’s mouth and it would do a chomping motion, but the item would also move to the back of the mouth and disappear. As you can see in the commercial, it took the banana right out of the plastic peel it was in without the child having to shove it into its moving mouth. All items went through the doll into the backpack on its back, which you could remove (though, as mentioned above, it doesn’t seem like it was super clear at first that this would stop its chewing function).
The New York Times reported that there had been around 100 incidents of kids getting their hair or fingers caught in the Snacktime Kid doll’s mouth. Because it was able to pull plastic food into its mouth without having to manipulate it, it makes sense that the toy would be able to pull any outside item small enough to fit into its jaw inside its mouth—human fingers included. That’s why one YouTuber called the doll “cannibalistic,” and the label stuck. And because of the cogs and mechanism inside the doll, hair was especially hard to get out once it went in.
There were a handful of public reports on this issue as well. One CNN news segment, seen on YouTube, from December 1996 shows a young girl named Sarah Stevens who got her hair stuck up to her scalp by the doll (ironically in a hair salon). The only way they could figure out how to stop it was to take the doll apart.
And according to The Spokesman-Review in a Jan. 11, 1997 article, the parents of a nine-year-old girl whose hair got caught in the “eating” mechanism of the Snacktime Kid toy filed a $25.5 million lawsuit, naming Mattel and Walmart (where they bought the toy). The lawsuit alleged that the family would “need therapy because of an ‘attack’ on their daughter,” at the hands… or jaw, of the Cabbage Patch doll. They stated that their whole family would “require psychological help for ‘mental and emotional injuries.’” While it doesn’t seem like anything came of the lawsuit, at least not publicly, it’s another example of how people were severely affected by this toy.
Related: 25 Popular Toys Every Kid Wanted in the 1950s
Can You Legally Buy or Sell a Recalled Cabbage Patch Doll?
Under the law, you’re not allowed to resell recalled products online, per the CPSC.
“The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) laws and regulations apply to any person who sells, offers for sale, manufactures, distributes or imports consumer products in the United States,” they wrote on their website. “Among other things, this includes all consumer products sold online – everything from products sold directly by the original manufacturer or importer, to products sold secondhand by a consumer in an online marketplace.”
So if you’re looking to sell a Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Kid online, “it is illegal to sell any recalled product,” under Section 19 of the Consumer Product Safety Act, per the CPSC. They also have a process to report sales of recalled products on their website.
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How Much Is the Cabbage Patch Kids Snacktime Kid Worth Today?
With that said, Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kid dolls are alive and well on certain resale websites and can be worth a hefty penny, depending on how good the quality of the doll.
While it is a collector’s item, it can be hard to find due to the fact that eBay doesn’t allow recalled items to be sold on their site, and we couldn’t find any on Etsy either. Poshmark does have several options, though, ranging from $125 to $500. But again, it’s technically illegal, so it’s unclear if there will be any issues if you buy one.
But if you want to bask in any nostalgia you might have with these chewing toys—maybe you owned one as a kid until your parents confiscated it due to the recall, or you just love the lore behind it—you can still buy the 1996 Feeding Chair ($20 on eBay) that came with this line of Cabbage Patch Kids. It has the Snacktime Kid logo on it and could make for a good, safe—and non-cannibalistic—vintage gift.
Up Next:
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Hence then, the article about nearly 30 years ago mattel recalled 500k cannibalistic cabbage patch dolls and they re major collector s items today was published today ( ) and is available on Parade ( Saudi Arabia ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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