Here’s why nobody could find any official E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial toys for months after the movie came out, even though everybody wanted one.
“It’s better than Star Wars!” proclaimed my cousin. He had just seen E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
No way, I thought. That’s blasphemy.
He continued, “The movie was so good, I even cried. You should see it.”
I still wasn’t convinced until my 22-year-old brother saw the movie and told me it was good.
You need to understand—my brother was not a geek like me. He never liked Star Wars or any sci-fi stories, so for him to endorse a movie about an alien meant that I really should go see it.
My dad took me to watch it, and yes, I cried. As did millions of moviegoers in the summer of 1982.
Turn on Your Heartlight
The short, big-eyed, wrinkly, innocent-but-magical alien creature captured everyone’s hearts, young and old. Even Neil Diamond would go on to sing a song about it—a song that was “inspired” by the movie but not officially connected to it. Universal Studios would fine the songwriters $25,000 for stealing ideas from the movie.
That’s how popular this movie was. People so wanted to carry a piece of it with them that even a knockoff record by The Jazz Singer hit the top of the pop charts.
The Rise of Bootleg E.T. Merch
Having fallen in love with the movie, I desperately wanted an E.T. toy to add to my already-growing collection, but there weren’t any to buy. Why? In order to keep the creature’s appearance a surprise, Steven Spielberg did not allow any information about the character to be released to anyone, including toy companies, until the movie’s release on June 11, 1982.
This meant that no toys or collectibles would be available for months, just like it would be with The Child AKA “Baby Yoda” when The Mandalorian became a hit in fall 2019.
How to sate the voracious appetite for unavailable E.T. swag? Bootlegs flooded the market to fill the void, costing Universal millions of dollars. I saw weird knockoff E.T. figurines at a souvenir shop in Las Vegas and fabric patterns to sew your own E.T.-ish plush toy.
I didn’t want any fake stuff, though. I wanted the real deal—licensed, official merch from the movie—so I held out.
The First Wave of Toys by LJN
In fall of 1982, I finally got my first E.T. figure—this 2.5″ wind-up toy by LJN that I got at a Thrifty’s drugstore.
When you’d wind it up, E.T. would waddle while his head would go up and down on his extendable neck. It was a nifty lil’ feature, but the figure’s likeness left much to be desired.
Maybe it was because, according to this article, licensees could only view artwork of E.T. after the film’s release but couldn’t take any of it home. Did they then base their designs on memory or on sketches they made? That would explain a lot.
A few months later, I found a better version of E.T. from LJN Toys—the official action figure featuring an extendable neck, articulated elbows and shoulders, and a Speak & Spell accessory.
I was happier with the likeness on this larger action figure—it stands 3.5″ tall but goes to 4″ with its neck extended—but the beige color was still distracting to me. I couldn’t complain, though. It was THE official E.T. action figure and I finally had one.
The rest of the official merch hit stores just in time for Christmas, a good five or six months after the movie first came out. The excitement had died down to some degree, and just a few months later, in spring of 1983, buzz would begin around the upcoming release of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
My attention swung back to Kenner Star Wars toys and I didn’t pay much mind to E.T. anymore until 1997, when I was visiting Universal Studios and feeling nostalgic.
E.T. Lives—at an Amusement Park
After riding the now-closed E.T. Adventure dark ride, I stopped by the gift shop and saw this vinyl figure/puppet. It’s hollow, is articulated at the shoulders, and has a head you can position with an extended or collapsed neck, with a height of 6″–6.5″.
The sculpt featured a pretty good likeness and the figure was molded in the right shade of brown. It was the E.T. toy I’d been waiting for since 1982, and is probably still my favorite collectible from the movie.
I also got a pencil with E.T. pencil topper—but molded in beige/flesh tones again? Why?
The 20th Anniversary
In 2001, on the eve of the film’s 20th anniversary, Toys R Us released a new series of interactive figures. I only got one—the Interactive E.T. with Communicator, which is battery-operated and has both a light-up fingertip and a voice chip that says three or four phrases from the movie when you press down on its head.
The 4.5″ figure includes the communicator in two parts (the umbrella-based radar dish and the record player-based console), a potted flower, red hoodie, a Speak and Spell without the brand-name on it, ostensibly due to trademark issues, and a bag marked “candy” to represent the film’s Reese’s Pieces.
30+ Years Later, the Toys Keep Coming
After my kids watched the movie on DVD, my oldest son bought the E.T. Fun Pack by Lego Dimensions in 2016. The pack includes pieces to build E.T.s communicator.
There were other E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial toys released over the years, most notably by Funko ReAction and NECA. Awesome-looking toys, but I had stopped collecting by the time these hit stores, so I passed.
