The Empty Box: How Kenner Sold Star Wars Toys That Didn't Exist Yet

When Star Wars opened in American theaters on May 25, 1977, almost nobody in Hollywood expected it to become a phenomenon, and almost nobody in the toy business was ready for it. Lines wrapped around city blocks through the summer. Kids wanted lightsabers, droids and stormtroopers. The toy company holding the license, Kenner Products of Cincinnati, had signed on to make Star Wars toys, but it had nothing to put on the shelves. As the holiday season approached, the most wanted toy line in America did not physically exist.

A license and no product

Toys take time. A new line has to be designed, sculpted, tooled, tested, manufactured and shipped, and in the 1970s that cycle typically ran well over a year. Kenner's license came together only shortly before the film's release, which left it hopelessly behind a demand curve no one had predicted. The company could not tool and produce an entire range of figures in the handful of months between the movie's explosive summer and the Christmas rush.

The line Kenner was developing would become famous for its size. Instead of the 8- to 12-inch dolls that dominated boys' action toys at the time, Kenner settled on figures of roughly 3.75 inches. Accounts of why vary, but the smaller scale is generally credited with keeping costs down and making it practical to sell vehicles and playsets the figures could ride in. That decision would shape the action figure industry for decades. In late 1977, though, it was still a plan on the drawing board, and Christmas was coming whether Kenner was ready or not.

Selling a promise

Kenner's answer was one of the strangest products in toy history: the Early Bird Certificate Package. It was, in essence, a piece of cardboard sold in place of a toy. The flat package contained a certificate that buyers could fill out and mail to Kenner, along with a cardboard display stand for figures, a set of stickers and a Star Wars fan club membership card. What it did not contain was a single action figure.

Mailing in the certificate entitled the buyer to four figures once they were manufactured: Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia Organa, Chewbacca and R2-D2. Those four would be shipped directly to the child's home in the first half of 1978. A parent who bought the package in December was, in effect, paying in advance for a toy that would arrive months later, and giving a child a gift that consisted largely of anticipation.

For Christmas 1977, the hottest Star Wars toy in America was an envelope that promised action figures would arrive by mail sometime the following year.

Commentators at the time found the idea easy to mock, and the Early Bird package is still sometimes remembered as the "empty box" Christmas. Some retailers were reportedly reluctant to stock it at all. But the product did exactly what Kenner needed. It captured holiday spending that would otherwise have gone elsewhere, kept the Star Wars name in front of families through the gift-giving season, and bought the factory time to catch up.

The mailers arrive

When the Early Bird figures shipped, they arrived in plain white mailer boxes, with the four figures seated in a plastic tray rather than on the illustrated blister cards that would soon fill toy aisles. For many children, this was their first Star Wars figure, and it came through the mail rather than off a store peg.

The early figures also carry one of the most discussed details in vintage toy collecting. The first Luke Skywalker produced came with a lightsaber that had a thin inner blade telescoping out of the arm, a design collectors now call the "double telescoping" saber. The same feature appeared on the earliest Darth Vader and Ben Kenobi figures. The thin extending piece was fragile and easily broken or lost, and Kenner soon simplified the design. Because the change happened so early, genuine double telescoping sabers survive in small numbers, and they became one of the most imitated parts in the hobby.

Meanwhile, the full first wave of twelve carded figures reached stores in 1978, and the line took off. Kenner went on to produce Star Wars figures through the mid-1980s across the original trilogy, and the toys became one of the best-selling lines of their era. The company that had nothing to sell in December 1977 ended up defining how movie merchandise would be made and marketed.

A lesson the industry never forgot

The Early Bird episode became a case study in licensing. Before Star Wars, film tie-in toys were often treated as short-lived novelties. Kenner's experience showed that a movie could support a sustained toy line for years, provided the product was in place when demand peaked. Later blockbusters were typically licensed and developed far earlier, with toys planned to hit shelves alongside the film rather than chasing it.

The episode also left behind a curious artifact of the era: a toy package whose main purpose was to hold a place in line. Most of the certificates did what they were designed to do. They were filled out, mailed away and never seen again. The display stands were folded, played with and thrown out. Stickers were stuck on bedroom doors. What was meant as a temporary stand-in was, by its nature, disposable.

What it means for collectors

That disposability is exactly why the Early Bird material is collectible today. An unused Early Bird Certificate Package, with its certificate never filled out or mailed, is a scarce survivor, because nearly every one sold was used for its intended purpose. Complete packages with the certificate, stand, stickers and membership card intact are what serious collectors look for, and they examine the pieces closely for signs that items were swapped in from other sets.

The Early Bird mailer figures themselves form a second area of interest. Because they shipped in a mailer tray rather than on cards, a surviving mailer box with its tray and the four original figures is a distinct collectible from the carded releases that followed. Collectors pay close attention to whether the box, tray and figures actually belong together, since loose figures from the same period are common and easy to combine with an empty mailer.

The double telescoping lightsaber is the other headline item, and it demands the most caution. Reproduction sabers are widespread, and the original parts are small enough to be passed off on otherwise ordinary figures. Collectors compare the plastic, the fit in the arm and the details of the blade against documented originals before accepting one as genuine, and many prefer examples authenticated by a recognized grading service.

More broadly, the Early Bird story explains why the earliest Kenner material carries such weight in the hobby. The first figures, the first card backs and the first accessory variations all come from a short window in 1978 when the company was racing to meet demand. For collectors, those early pieces are a record of the moment Star Wars turned from a surprise hit into the foundation of modern toy collecting.