Billion Dollar Babies: The True Story Of The Cabbage Patch Kids (2023)
Director: Andrew Jenks Run Time: 100 min. Release Year: 2022
Country: United States
Language: English
About the film:
Official Selection, 2022 Tribeca Film Festival
Before the Cabbage Patch Kids, no one could have imagined a world where police would need to break up fights between rampaging adults in toy stores. But after the Cabbage Patch Kids, every manufacturer in the world was desperate for their own “riot-worthy” toy. Everything had changed, and we were never going back.
Billion Dollar Babies: The True Story of the Cabbage Patch Kids is the evolution of that change, told through the lens of what is arguably the most beloved toy of the 1980s. It’s one filled with doll hospitals with delightfully attentive staff tending to every need of the “babies” birthed from a cabbage patch before their adoptions, dangerous counterfeit dolls and intense U.S. Customs raids, inevitable black-market sales, a glut of spin-off products, severe doll shortages and a rabid media frenzy that gave rise to a BILLION-dollar toy brand unlike anything the world had ever seen. Oh, and did we mention the “custody battle” over the origin of the idea? An unassuming and relatively unknown artist from rural Kentucky filed suit claiming she was the true creator of the dolls, setting off a contentious four-year legal battle over the Kids.
Narrated and executive produced by Emmy- and Tony Award-winning actor Neil Patrick Harris and directed by Andrew Jenks, this is the story you never knew about the dolls that stole America’s heart… and turned us all into total maniacs.
About the filmmaker:
Andrew Jenks is an award-winning filmmaker, TV producer, and writer who doesn’t just film those he documents but oftentimes actually moves in and lives with them. At age 19, he moved into an assisted living facility for two months. What started as a simple, low-budget documentary turned into an international hit, Andrew Jenks, Room 335, premiering on HBO in January 2008. At 21-years-old, ESPN Films financed the award-winning film The Zen of Bobby B, which premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. In 2015, Jenks premiered his award-winning feature documentary, dream/killer.
Among other projects, Jenks created MTV’s groundbreaking documentary series World of Jenks in 2010, was the lead correspondent for MTV News’ coverage of the 2012 Presidential Election, teamed with Scholastic in 2013 to publish his book My Adventures as a Young Filmmaker, directed ESPN’s 30/30 short film Posterized and the MAC Aids Fund feature film It’s Not Over in 2014, and in 2015, CNN Films released his short film, All-American Family chronicling an all-Deaf high school championship football team. Jenks subsequently created and executive produced the documentary series, Unlocking the Truth, which contributed to the release of Kalvin Michael Smith (wrongfully incarcerated for 20 years). In recent years, his critically-acclaimed documentary podcast, What Really Happened?, produced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, hit #1 on Apple Podcasts. His other podcast, Gangster Capitalism, was nominated for a Peabody Award.
Jenks is also founder of the largest high school film festival in the world, The All-American High School Film Festival. The festival has given over $1,000,000 in scholarships to students from over 25 countries.
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