Roger Schlaifer Coca-Cola, Rushton Toys and IBM. In 1978 Schlaifer branded an early jogging-shoe roller-skate as Hot Rollers and licensed the Hot Roller brand for kids’ apparel, skates and fashion accessories which sold at stores such as Bloomingdales, Belk’s and Mervyn’s. Building on the success of his licensing Hot Rollers, in 1981 Schlaifer proposed an exclusive, worldwide licensing agreement with Xavier Roberts’ company, Original Appalachian Artworks, for the rights to "Little People" soft sculpture dolls and Babyland General Hospital. Schlaifer rebranded the "Little People" dolls as Cabbage Patch Kids. In addition to signing up Coleco Industries on August 9, 1982, as its
Xavier Austin Gina. Auditions were held and actor Jones-Roberts was cast in the role. Jones-Roberts had previously auditioned for the roles of Henry Hunter, Lucas Holden, Drew Curtis and Geoff Campbell and stated that receiving the role of Xavier was "all the more awesome" because he had to wait for such a long time. Whilst surfing his agent told him he had the role over a pay-phone and Jones-Roberts adds: "I got all excited and started jumping around. I ran up to a couple of people I saw that I knew and just started screaming." The serial's official website describe Xavier stating: