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
Cabbage Patch Kids into a toy store, in Cleveland, Georgia. An early transaction at Babyland General Hospital worth noting is the sale of the only Little People quintuplets ever made at the facility. Bennie and Jeannie Shelton of Cumming, Georgia paid $5,000 to buy the one-of-a-kind set of five identical dolls. Also worth noting is one of Roberts' very first Little People dolls he ever created sold at an auction in Virginia in the early 1980s for $3,000. The following is an abbreviated version of the origin story Roberts came up with for his Little People: <poem>Xavier Roberts was a ten-year-old boy who