Disney's handling of The Mandalorian Baby Yoda merchandise is reminiscent of Star Wars' original mistake

Screen Rant

With the holidays weeks away, Disney has been scrambling to release Baby Yoda merchandise -- the first of which has been a big disappointment. Star Wars made the same mistake after the surprising massive popularity of the first film, released in May 1977. As Adrianne Tyler explains, "after Lucasfilm failed to make a deal with toy company Mego Corporation in 1976, another company named Kenner landed the exclusive rights to produce Star Wars merchandise. However, they weren’t ready for the movie’s success and rapidly-growing popularity and didn’t have enough products to offer beyond a board game, poster sets, design books, and jigsaw puzzles. Kenner was supposed to bring out a line of Star Wars action figures in time for Christmas, but these took a long time to produce, and there was no way they were going to be ready. Kenner then came up with the idea of selling the package with a Star Wars Space Club membership, a cardboard display of the characters, a set of stickers, and a certificate inside."

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