dolls, inspiring marketers and toy companies to fo-
cus on creating the next big “craze.” The dolls gener-
ated more than $2 billion in the year 1984 alone.
Also in 1982, Hasbro introduced My Little Pony, a
line of cute, somewhat anthropomorphic and multi-
colored toy ponies that ranked with Transformers
and G.I. Joe in success and, for a time, overtook
Mattel’s Barbie as the top girls’ toy brand. Hasbro
also enjoyed great success with Jem, a line of dolls re-
leased in 1985 with an accompanying Sunbow car-
toon, featuring the adventures of an all-girl rock
band.
In the early 1980’s, Kenner had success in the
girls’ and young children’s markets with toys based
on characters from American Greetings’s juvenile
cards, including the Care Bears and Strawberry
Shortcake. Mattel and Hallmark responded with
Rainbow Brite, a billion-dollar franchise at its peak.
Tonka’s Pound Puppies, released in 1985, applied
the Cabbage Patch Kids concept to stuffed animals,
presenting its characters as rescue dogs with supplies
and adoption certificates.
Impact Many of the toy franchises introduced in
the 1980’s became cultural icons. As children who
grew up in the 1980’s became the teenagers and
young adults of the Internet revolution in the late
1990’s, they reached out to one another online,
starting Web sites and online discussion groups to
share their continued love for their favorite child-
hood toys and entertainment franchises. This led to
many of these toys being revived in the early twenty-
first century as part of a nostalgia movement. While
some lines were revived only briefly and mostly un-
successfully, certain brands from the 1980’s, such as
the Transformers, Cabbage Patch Kids, Trivial Pur-
suit, and My Little Pony, have demonstrated peren-
nial, cross-generational, and international appeal,
making them indelible landmarks of American cul-
ture.
Further Reading
Miller, G. Wayne.Toy Wars: The Epic Struggle Between
G. I. Joe, Barbie, and the Companies That Make Them.
New York: Crown, 1998. The story of how Mattel
and Hasbro dominated the toy industry and then
bought up most of its competition throughout
the 1980’s and 1990’s.
Santelmo, Vincent.The Complete Encyclopedia to G. I.
Joe. 3d. ed. Iola, Wis.: Krause, 2001. Covers the G.I.
Joe brand from 1964 to 2000.
Sweet, Roger.Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the
Rise and Fall of a Billion-Dollar Idea.Cincinnati:
Emmis Books, 2005. The man who originally de-
signed He-Man for Mattel chronicles the history
of the toy line, its success, and its failure.
Walsh, Tim.Timeless Toys: Classic Toys and the Play-
makers Who Created Them.Kansas City, Mo.: An-
drews McMeel, 2005. A history of various “classic”
toys, from Slinky to Trivial Pursuit.
John C. HathawaySee also Advertising; Cabbage Patch Kids; Con-
sumerism;Ghostbusters; Hobbies and recreation;Pac-
Man; Trivial Pursuit; Video games and arcades.Transplantation
Definition Transferring tissues or organs from
one person to anotherThe 1970’s had represented a period of significant change
in procurement of organs for transplantation. For instance,
the concept of “brain death” allowed for a larger source of
tissues and organs, rather than using cadavers as the sole
source. In the 1980’s, a series of acts were passed by Con-
gress that established a network for procuring organs and
further refined the procedures begun in the previous de-
cades. The necessity for genetic matching had likewise been
a problem, one which invariably resulted in rejection if the
donor and recipient were genetically distinct. The approval
of cyclosporine, the first of the major antirejection drugs,
allowed for greater leeway in addressing the problem of
matching.Serious attempts at successful organ transplantation
date as far back as the early 1900’s, but it was only
with the development of immunogenetics and the
discovery of tissue-associated proteins known as
histocompatibility antigens in the 1930’s that it be-
came possible to understand the science of rejec-
tion. In the 1950’s, the first attempts to transplant
tissues was carried out between identical twins. In
the following decade, transplantation of other or-
gans was attempted, including the heart and lungs,
but with only limited success.Antirejection Drugs One of the greatest problems
associated with transplantation between donors and
recipients was the likelihood of rapid rejection if
the individuals did not genetically match. The ear-982 Transplantation The Eighties in America