New Action Figures in the 1984 Kenner Star Wars Pack-In Catalog
One of the things I focused heavily on in my two books dedicated to action figure marketing in the eighties (Each Sold Separately* and Action Figures Not Included*) were the toy pack-in catalogs, those little booklets that toymakers inserted into other toys in an attempt to sell us much more. Even today I can lose hours flipping through these old catalogs, staring at each and every toy and imagining just how fun it would be to play with.
The above image shows the two-page spread of action figures from Kenner’s 1984 Star Wars pack-in catalog, featuring 79 fantastic action figures that many of us chase down and buy today. And for way more than what the toys cost when this was new! Way, way more than the $2 to $3 each of these would have cost us in 1984. Hell, you could buy a dozen or so figures in 1984 for the cost of a loose Star Wars action figure today. I’ll take them all, please.