Merchandising

An advertisement for Star Wars merchandise from 1978. This was a year after the movie was released, right about the time the execs at 20th Century Fox were starting to realize that they had made a horrible, terrible financial misjudgement of the double facepalm variety. George Lucas, canny capitalist that he is, had given up all shares of box office profits in exchange for merchandising rights. No doubt the execs thought him a fool as they eagerly signed the contract. After all, it was just another crappy sci-fi flick, and everybody who was anybody in the movie business knew those were merely momentary blips on the cinematic landscape. But a year later it was Lucas who was laughing all the way to bank. He was well on the way to his eventual destiny of becoming the wealthiest man in Hollywood.



Like me, you probably remember this ad from the back of comic books when you were a kid. Piclick for a full-size version if you want to read it. I'd forgotten about those transfers for t-shirts. Nothing says trailer trash like a Star Wars decal ironed onto a white Hanes undershirt.