Are you old enough to remember Cabbage Patch Kids? How about Tickle Me Elmo? The Furby?
Unlike other dolls of the era, Cabbage Patch Kids featured soft cloth bodies paired with distinctive plastic heads, setting them apart visually on store shelves. They soared to immense popularity during the 1983 holiday season, each doll arriving complete with a unique name and birth certificate, and marketed as “adoptable”—a concept that heightened their appeal. The surge in demand was so overwhelming that retailers faced massive lineups, with eager shoppers crowding stores in hopes of securing one. The intensity of competition led to reports of altercations and even riots in North American stores, as approximately three million Cabbage Patch Kids found new homes that year.
Tickle Me Elmo, inspired by the beloved Sesame Street character, became the must-have toy of Christmas 1996, echoing the frenzied demand for toilet paper at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Retail shelves were quickly emptied, and parents found themselves dashing from store to store, often on nothing more than a rumour, hoping to snag one of the Tyco plush toys that giggled and shook when squeezed. The scarcity of Elmo led to pre-dawn lineups, reports of scuffles among eager shoppers, and inflated resale prices as fortunate buyers capitalized on the craze. In Fredericton, N.B., the rush reached such intensity that a Walmart employee was sent to hospital after being trampled by a crowd of determined shoppers.
Furby entered the toy market in 1998 as a Gremlin-like animatronic pet with blinking eyes, moving ears, and its own language. Initially speaking “Furbish,” it later transitioned to English with frequent use. Like Cabbage Patch dolls and Tickle Me Elmo, Furby sparked a buying frenzy and store lineups due to limited availability. Created by Tiger Electronics (Hasbro), the craze led to injuries among shoppers and quickly saw Furbys appear on e-commerce sites such as eBay.
Last Thursday, Starbucks released its $43.95 Bearista glass cold cup for the holiday season, sparking immediate sellouts and even in-store scuffles as customers scrambled to snag one. The limited supply led to social media outrage, prices soaring to $1,400 on eBay, and allegations that only a handful of cups were sent to each store—sometimes just one or two. With no per-customer limit, some claimed employees bought the cups first, fuelling shortages and heated confrontations, including one incident in Houston where police were called to restore order. If you missed out, alternatives are available online, or you could settle for a honey jar at the grocer.
So why is honey packed in bear-shaped bottles anyways?
Some rudimentary research indicates it seems to be related to another toy craze – this time from the early 1900s when Teddy Bears took off after President Theodore Roosevelt gave his permission to use his name to market mass-produced stuffed toy bears dedicated to “Teddy” who, a well-respected hunter, once refused to shoot a bear.
In the 1940s and 60s, Teddy bears were again trendy thanks to the arrival in our collective conscience of Paddington Bear and Winnie the Pooh.
It was in the 1950s in foodie history that the bear-shaped honey containers first made their appearance to capitalize on the bear-y fad.
“As far as human innovations go, as a species, I think we peaked at ‘bear-shaped honey bottle’.”— Twitter post by Late Show with Stephen Colbert head writer Ariel Dumas
There’s pumpkin in the Pumpkin Spice Latte?
Since we’ve been talking about Starbucks and since it is PSL™ season, we have to ask: Did the ubiquitous coffee shop really invent the Pumpkin Spice Latte? (And, yes, they have trademarked the acronym.)
Pumpkin spice - that specific combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger - has been around for over one hundred years appearing in published recipes as early as 1915. It started appearing as a pre-mixed spice on grocery store shelves in the 1930s.
Starbucks corporate lore claims a brainstorming session in 2003 led to the creation of the PSL™. But, again, some rudimentary research indicates the concoction was widely available in the US Midwest in the mid-1990s in local independently owned coffee shops. It was a regional thing, apparently, that Starbucks took nationwide.
Since 2015, the PSL™ includes real puree made from sweet little kabocha pumpkins – which grow to be only a bit bigger than a softball.
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