The box dates from 1938. (Plastic turtle pictured below for scale.)
Box images courtesy of David Welch's Childhood Memorabilia via PEZDUDEWELCH.
The turtle was promoted as one of thousands of prizes to be won in the "Big Contest" put on by the Dietz Gum Company. The inside of this gum wrapper not only mentions Lucky but also shows an illustration of the Dopey decal.
Wrapper image via Comics Galaxy.
Oh, those poor little turtles! Can you imagine being jostled about like that in the shipping process? I wonder how many didn't make it to their destinations alive? I know, I know....it was a different time! I'll just take a plastic one with a SW decal on it's back and I'll name it "Snowy."
ReplyDelete"Lucky" is NOT what I would call this turtle!!!
ReplyDeleteThat is way up there in the "Weird Disneyana" category!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely one of the stranger licensing agreements struck up by the Disney boys back then. Seems like something just bizarre enough that the marketing wiz Kay Kamen may have had a hand in it.
ReplyDeleteo_O
ReplyDelete:D
ReplyDeleteDo you suppose this was inspired by the tortoise in the film? I notice, from the packaging that the hapless 'Luckys' could also come with Donald Duck on their backs, were they available with decals of any other Disney characters? Max Hare for example?!! ;)
ReplyDeleteI don't think the inspiration for this "product" came directly from the SWSD film so much as just another way, albeit a rather strange one, to market the Disney characters. From what I can tell, there were decals for Snow White, the dwarfs, Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. Haven't seen any of the Silly Symphony characters, but there could have been. Anything was possible back then.
ReplyDeleteWOW, this is something else! Cool box though...
ReplyDeleteoh my God! is it really a turtle?? I thought it was a toy.
ReplyDelete