CULTURE WATCH : Cabbage Patchers Go for the Gold

Remember the Cabbage Patch Kids, those homely little dolls that became favorites of America’s children in the early 1980s?

Well, the plump patch babies that children clamored to “adopt” have sold more than 71 million since 1983, and they’re about to become Los Chavalles de Sembradilla de Col to a bunch of little kids in Spain.

The U.S. Olympic Team has just adopted the patch kids as the official mascots for the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona, where the theme is “Friends for Life.” Team members will take 2,500 of the special Olympic patch dolls with them to be given to children in Barcelona.

The mascot dolls will be dressed in their own version of the U.S. Olympic uniform--a jogging suit, including jacket, pants and T-shirt.

“We’ve never done this before,” said John Krimsky, deputy secretary general of the U.S. Olympic Committee. “But the ‘Friends for Life’ motto is such a natural fit for communicating with youngsters at the site of the Games.”

Hasbro Inc., manufacturer of Cabbage Patch Kids, and Original Appalachian Artworks Inc., owner and licenser of the dolls, also will take this opportunity to introduce the Cabbage Patch Kids line in Spain for the first time. But the Olympic dolls will be the only ones to wear the suits with the five Olympic rings.

Any child lucky enough to get an Olympic Kid should hang onto it. Other limited editions of Cabbage Patch kids sell for $175 to $650.