Earliest Movie-Based Line?

[patches]

That Dr. Huer set is pretty cool, and the point about paper dolls is a good one. I know that action figure was coined as a marketing term, but I also see a difference in a small model of a character (like the Marvel Family statues of the late 1940s) and a (larger) Shirley Temple doll, and I was trying to figure out when that style toy might have first been put in for a film specifically. Plus, while Shirley Temple and Chaplin's Little Tramp were manufactured, that was almost a persona being licensed rather than for a particular production. I know, for example, that there are small metal cars with Dick Tracy painted in the driver's seat that are licensed toys, but that was for the comic strip and not the radio show or serials. (As I'm writing this, I am recalling some of the merchandise I've seen for Charlie McCarthy that includes a metal figure/figurine and some paper toys with movable mouths, but those are, I believe, because of radio and not the films featuring him.) The lab for Dr. Huer is dated 1937, so that's actually ahead of the serial by a couple of years.

Certainly, the idea of optioning a movie specifically comes after Lucas struck gold, and there are obviously also many antecedents that also can be found. I had started this about movies, but TV series certainly saw their share of pre-1970s examples, including the Hartland Western line with many TV properties.

Finding the exact moment or earliest "specific" movie might be tough. As you rightfully noted most of the earliest such deals were for characters, not so much the entire or specific movie property itself. In my Grandfathers house there are several battery powered animatronic bar top figures of Charlie Chaplin and W C Fields to name a few that date from the early 30's. It would not surprise me if the first toys or merchandising tied to a specific single movie as opposed to a recurring media character go to something such as King Kong which was something of the Star Wars of its day.

[LordMudd]

Customs defines the difference between action figures and dolls as whether or not you can remove and redress the figure. Even though the early Joes were called action figures, Customs calls them dolls. Personally I like that distinction, it is clean and simple.


CCC.

[Neutron X]

Customs defines the difference between action figures and dolls as whether or not you can remove and redress the figure. Even though the early Joes were called action figures, Customs calls them dolls. Personally I like that distinction, it is clean and simple.


CCC.

Yeah.... I can't agree with that. Changing clothes does not a doll make in my opinion.