PEOPLE-exclusive clip fromBillion Dollar Babies
Joe and Pat Proseyare proud parents to thousands of Cabbage Patch Kids.
The Proseys say in the clip that, at one point, they had collected about 6,000 different Cabbage Patch Kids dolls (“no duplicates,” says Pat), and even once opened a museum in Maryland “filled to the brim” to showcase them all.
Now, “There are 491 Kids in our bedroom,” Pat says. “Every wall space has shelving, and it is filled with Cabbage Patch Kids.”
“I specifically designed the bed myself,” says Joe. “I came up with the idea of a bunk bed over a bed to get more Kids into the room, so they’re all around us.”
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Joe and Pat Prosey inBillion Dollar Babies(2023).Believe Entertainment Group/NBCUniversal Syndication Studios
Believe Entertainment Group/NBCUniversal Syndication Studios
In the clip, Pat referencesthe “Oath of Adoption"that comes with each doll, before her husband recites: “I promise, with all my heart, to give this special Cabbage Patch Kid all my love and affection, and in every way possible be the best adoptive parent in the whole world.”
“I guess I was the father of the 6,000 Cabbage Patch Kids that we had,” Joe adds.
“No,Xavier Robertsis the father of all Cabbage Patch Kids,” Pat says with a laugh, referencing the creator whose work inspired the dolls.
“TheCabbage Patch Kids becomea part of you, like Kevin here and Meg sitting there,” Joe says in the clip, referring to the dolls sitting on their laps.
“I don’t care what other people think about me,” Pat says, laughing. “Most of the time, you know, you get what you see.”
Poster forBillion Dollar Babies(2023).Believe Entertainment Group/NBCUniversal Syndication Studios
Billion Dollar Babieschronicles the Cabbage Patch Kids popularity that began around 1983, with directorAndrew Jenkssaying in a statement, “It was madness — a sustained, enduring frenzy that gripped much of the American public, more widespread, deep and lasting than any toy craze the United States had ever witnessed.”
The documentary also covers legal woes — including a lawsuit from 1981 in which late doll-maker Martha Nelson Thomas claimed she’d “been ripped off,” according to Jenks — featuring interviews with those close to Thomas, as well as Roberts himself, now 68.
“WhatI discovered during this journeywas an unlikely tale about American entrepreneurism, consumerism, innovation and capitalism,” the director said. “A tale about two American artists: one who found great fame and raked in millions of dollars, and another who died with little money and a largely unknown body of work.”
The film “tells the story of how and why the Cabbage Patch Kids became an iconic doll, the ways in which they changed toy history and unravels, for the first time, who came up with the idea of the Kids who stole America’s heart,” Jenks added.
Billion Dollar Babies: The True Story of the Cabbage Patch Kidsis in select theaters Friday. For more information, visitCabbagePatchFilm.com.
source: people.com
