Cabbage Patch Kids Adventures in the Park

Development

You may be asking yourself what the Cabbage Patch Kids are doing in a game on the ColecoVision. The answer is: exercising corporate synergy through cross-promotion!

Despite a strong platform launch, the video game crash of 1983 was pawing at the door; the launch of the ADAM, intended to lead Coleco boldly forward into the home computer market, only compounded their financial troubles. But then, a stroke of luck! Coleco's shrewd toy acquisitions division accidentally ended up with ownership of the must-have toy line of Christmas 1983 in their hands -- those very same misshapen baby dolls, whose skyrocketing proceeds would serve to slow Coleco's gradual but inevitable collapse into bankruptcy.

What you are seeing here, then, is Coleco's attempt to use one of their properties on the way up (Cabbage Patch Kids) to give a boost-through-association to one of their properties on the way down (the ColecoVision).