In the latest entry in the increasingly crowded “hey, remember?” genre of filmmaking, producer Galen Walker has optioned the rights to make a TV movie revival of ‘80s doll fad the Cabbage Patch Kids, adding them to the growing list of nostalgic toys and games being hauled out of mysteriously stained Goodwill piles and dusted off for contemporary narratives. Calling it a “brand with many positive messages for kids,” Walker plans to create an animated special (for starters) about Xavier Roberts’ briefly rioted-over creations and their origin story, which imagined a future where hydrocephalic babies were genetically engineered to grow from tree spores, harvested by nurses in the mysterious Babyland General Hospital, injected with the experimental drug Imagicillin, and then distributed among the nation’s toddlers and mental patients for care and feeding. In the 1980s, this was considered to be both efficient and adorable, and yes, we suppose today’s kids could stand to learn a thing or two from that, what with their messy, drawn-out teenaged pregnancies.


Walker, of course, is one of the leading lights of the toy-to-film adaptation movement, having previously purchased the rights to make a new live-action version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Paramount. And speaking of which, that franchise is also due for a reboot as an animated Nickelodeon series in the fall of 2012, with newly confirmed cast members Sean Astin as Raphael, Rob Paulsen (who voiced Raphael in the original series) as Donatello, Jason Biggs as Leonardo, and Greg Cipes as Michelangelo. And between these two properties, the revivals of Transformers, G.I. Joe, Voltron, ThunderCats, Masters Of The Universe, Stretch Armstrong, Missile Command, Asteroids, and projects from Hasbro, Mattel, and Whammo in the works, it’s an excellent time to pitch literally anything you played with as a child. Even if it was just yourself.