NOT THE TOYS YOU’RE LOOKING FOR
The Empty Box Christmas That Kids Loved
Star Wars: A New Hope debuted in movie theaters on May 25, 1977, and took the world by storm shortly thereafter. Today, the galaxy far, far away is everywhere: movie sequels and prequels, books, TV shows, and of course, toys. Merchandising is where the real money from the Star Wars movies is made, after all. At least, that was the bet Star Wars creator George Lucas placed when he made the first movie. As The Hollywood Reporter explained, 20th Century Fox, the movie studio behind Star Wars, “let Lucas pass up an additional $500,000 directing fee in return for keeping licensing and merchandising rights for himself.” As a result, Lucas made billions. But not immediately. No one—well, no one except George Lucas—expected the movie to be the smash hit it was.
When it came to making Star Wars toys, this lack of foresight proved to be a problem. Per Den of Geek, “action figures take a long time to produce. They have to be designed and sculpted. Those sculptures have to be turned into steel molds. The toys then have to be cast, painted, and safety tested. Then they have to be packaged up and shipped off to toy stores.” That often takes a full year, and in the case of Star Wars: A New Hope, there wasn’t enough time to get toys onto store shelves. As a result, the demand was intense and the supply virtually nonexistent. For about $10, the film producers sold those seemingly unpromising rights to Lucas.
Kenner, the Star Wars toy licensee at the time, knew that action figures would be a top seller. They also knew that the earliest they could get the products to market was February 1978, which would be well after Christmas of the year Star Wars was released. Their solution: The Star Wars Early Bird Certificate Package. Accounting for inflation, this $10 package cost about $40 in 2019—so it was hardly cheap. And you didn’t get much for that investment: some stickers, a sheet of cardboard with a display stand that featured action figures (that didn’t yet exist) resembling characters from the movie, and a Star Wars Space Club membership card.
There were no toys in the package—nothing whatsoever to actually play with. Those, the Early Bird package promised, would come later. Each package also contained a postcard for kids to fill out with their name and address. They’d mail it into Kenner, and sometime between February and June 1978, Kenner would send back a set of four action figures: Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, R2-D2, and Chewbacca. It was the best that Lucas and Kenner could do to get something on shelves before Christmas.
The media had a field day with what they perceived to be incompetence, calling the product an “empty box” that children would immediately find disappointing. However, many parents of Star Wars–crazed kids disagreed; Kenner made hundreds of thousands of the Early Bird packages—and they sold out. The next spring, children across America celebrated part of their Christmas a little bit later. For them, it was an experience that was worth the wait.