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Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Snow White's "Lucky" Turtle in a Box

This has to be one of the strangest Snow White-themed items ever offered. You could mail away for a living turtle which would be delivered in this box. Your "Lucky" turtle would arrive with it's very own Snow White or dwarf decal on its shell. Yippee!

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.
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10 comments:

  1. TokyoMagic!April 3, 2012 at 2:52 AM

    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."

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  2. Lee BeatensApril 3, 2012 at 8:41 AM

    "Lucky" is NOT what I would call this turtle!!!

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  3. Major PepperidgeApril 3, 2012 at 10:45 AM

    That is way up there in the "Weird Disneyana" category!

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  4. Snow White ArchiveApril 3, 2012 at 6:38 PM

    Definitely 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.

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  5. AlexandreApril 4, 2012 at 3:55 AM

    o_O

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  6. Snow White ArchiveApril 4, 2012 at 4:04 PM

    :D

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  7. Brian SibleyApril 5, 2012 at 9:14 PM

    Do 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?!! ;)

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  8. Snow White ArchiveApril 6, 2012 at 10:01 AM

    I 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.

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  9. TheDisneyBitchesApril 7, 2012 at 10:21 PM

    WOW, this is something else! Cool box though...

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  10. raniaApril 8, 2012 at 12:06 AM

    oh my God! is it really a turtle?? I thought it was a toy.

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