The purpose of this study is to recount how toys based on fictional outer space heroes and their adventures were marketed in the United States from the early 1930s through the later 1950s.
The primary data for this research include surviving artifacts (the toys themselves and their consumer packaging), associated promotional ephemera (print ads and catalogs), and visual records of space adventure comics, movies and television shows. Photographs and videos of these sources come from books in print and via online museum catalogs, eBay and other auction sites, Wikimedia Commons, collector websites, and YouTube.
Space adventure toys of this period included ray guns and rocket ships, figurines and robots, playsets and puzzles and many more related goods. They typically were made from pressed and printed metals, paperboard, and plastics. Toy companies licensed the names and images of popular space heroes, starting with Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, who appeared in comic strips, children’s books, movie serials and on radio and early television shows. Competing firms sold similar, but nonspecific space toys that were not character driven. These playthings referenced science fiction texts and images while undoubtedly amplifying interest in space exploration, science, the atomic age and the future.
This research presents an account of space adventure toys and heroes from a marketing history perspective that investigates products and branding in terms of their formative cultural contexts and societal implications.
