Cabbage Patch Kids.
My mom gave me one when they were all the rage (early 80s). She literally bought the last one on the shelf, and was really worried that I wouldn’t like it because the doll was black (I am white). I was SO EXCITED! I changed her name from Clementine Marae to April Marae and took her everywhere. I believe she’s still at my parents’ house, among the toys my niecephews play with.
I was dying for a Cabbage Patch Doll (a preemie!), but my mom absolutely refused to enter a melee to get me one. She doesn’t do consumer frenzies. Also she thought they were ugly.
But she did buy me a doll at a craft fair that was really a CP doll in soft sculpture. It looked just the same but was actually quite a bit nicer, and you could buy kits to sew up clothes which were also quite nice. I named it Allison and my girls play with it and the clothes now, though she’s a little time-worn.
Cabbage Patch Kids. I was eight when they first came out. I was very dissapointed when I didn’t get one for Christmas that year. It was even more disappointing when my best friend and her little sisters each got one.
I ended up getting one for my birthday, thanks to my grandma. She actually jumped over a store display to get to the Cabbage Patch Kids before the other shoppers. 
My wife was reviewing toys around that time, and in the summer got a box from Hasbro or Mattel or whoever with all their stuff for Christmas, including a Tickle-Me Elmo. We wondered about selling it, but decided to give it to our daughter.
Back then if our kids wanted something, they’d ask her if she could review a toy for them. 
The year Cabbage Patch dolls were all the rage, my mom ordered one for my sister and I from the Sears catalogue. They actually had her pick them up in the employee lunchroom and take them immediately out of the store in a garbage bag. They told her it was for her own safety :eek:
Davy Crockett coonskin hats and hula hoops. Yes, I’m that old.
Every time I see a reference to that particular toy I can’t help but think of this:
http://www.dea.gov/pubs/states/newsrel/denver102506.html
It’s even funnier in the context in which you describe the situation.
This was when the bad old 80s were really bad and jobs were really scarce. The movie ‘One Magic Christmas’ was released either that Christmas or the Christmas after. I had a market research job that summer in a boiler-room and I remember the woman next to me had sewing forms to make Cabbage Patch Kids. She was sewing them to sell for extra money so her kids could have a good Christmas. I lost touch with her after that summer and the place we worked at went to hell after demanding that all the employees declare themselves ‘Independent Contractors’. I remember that job everytime some moron praises Reagan and what a ‘good job’ he did.
Tickle Me Elmo.
The year those were hot, my SO and I were window-shopping on the Miracle Mile in Chicago. There was a man, in a long trench coat, sitting on a bench. Every once in a while, he woud look at a passerby, mutter something, and open his coat a little bit.
Exhibitionist? Knock-off Rolex watches? Nope, a Tickle Me Elmo.
Psst, mister. Wanna buy a doll?
Magnificent Mile?
I think there was one year in my childhood where Treasure Trolls were all the rage. Those things freaked me out.
I’m probably just a couple of years older than you. For me, it was the Coleco Adam - a “first computer” built around Colecovision’s 3Mhz Z80 processor.
It wasn’t that there was a huge craze for them - although Colecovision had console superiority at the time - but demand far outstripped supply, especially as the release was very close to the holiday.
Coleco never really developed the product to its full potential. Instead they invested everything in Cabbage Patch Kids - and then blew that, too.
Bastids.
Definitely Cabbage Patch Kids. My folks weren’t going to stand in any darn line for any crappy toy for me, but luckily my grandma worked at a local department store called BEST and was able to grab 2 right off the truck. I loved those dolls for years, still have them as well as the Cabbage Patch Kid pet “Koosa”.
I remember the Tickle Me Elmo craze which I didn’t quite understand as I was in my 20’s at the time. I have a 3- year old son now who was into Elmo for a brief spell and I was able to snag a nearly new-looking Tickle Me Elmo at a yard sale last summer for a grand fifty cents.
I spent hours and hours of my childhood studying the BEST catalog. I loved going there!