1983, Cabbage Patch Kids. My wife worked at a Toys R Us then, They had Clarkstown, NY’s finest patrolling the parking lot to break up the fights. It really got crazy after the Holiday when they released the Black Cabbage Patch Dolls, and it was White people fighting over them. Our Black friends thought it was hilarious.
A woman who worked in a store at the time said that when Cabbage Patch dolls first came out but, she saw them sitting on the shelves gathering dust because no one was interested in them. And then the craze hit.
At the toy store near my parents, they had a Cabbage Patch Kid raffle, but you didn’t win the doll, you won a chance to BUY the doll. That’s what it was like.