re: #303 William Lewis

I thought the Star Wars toys did it even before that? I may well be misremembering though. I really didn’t care much…

I don’t recall hearing about any fights over them, but that certainly taught Hollywood to have the merch and the fast-food chain tie-ins already for shipment well before the film came out.

I got so sick of the hype and tie-ins over ET that I didn’t even watch it until (relatively) recently with my kids (ca 2012)

There was an Audi ad here in Germany that featured a dancing Elvis mounted on the dashboard. The point was that the ride in the Audi was so smooth that Elvis would not dance unless you shook him.

People were coming into Audi dealerships asking where they could get a dancing Elvis and the dealers had no idea what to tell them.

And that is the difference between Germany and the US: in America they would have had warehouses full of them ready to ship in the Vegas, Blue Hawaii and Leather-Jacket-and-Jeans models, and would already be in production with Dancing Elvis: The Movie