The fallowing Christmas was all about E.T., with me scoring all kinds of E.T. toys alongside an E.T. hat and backpack. Sure, this was also the year I had discovered the new line of G.I. Joe figures and there was quite a struggle for ownership of my heart between the various licenses (G.I. Joe would ultimately win out), but for a few months there, I was a true-blue, Reese's Pieces-eating E.T. maniac.
First up is the original (and only) action figure version of E.T. released in '82. I desperately wanted this figure after seeing it in the JC Penny Christmas catalog that year (or maybe it was Sears, not sure). Sadly, the figure itself turned out to be massively out of scale with my usual 3 3/4" gang of heroes and villains, so this toy, although loved in many eays, never got a lot of play.
I scored this still-carded baby on eBay for cheap. I know I should open it, but there's just something about how it looks carded, as if I had just ripped away the wrapping paper on that very same Christmas morning 29 years ago.
Next we have the E.T. toy that got the most play back in early '83, the walking wind-up E.T., which, although not exactly 1:18 scale, at least was shorter than my Joes or Star Wars figures, and therefore found himself in the middle of some crazy adventures.
I'm not sure if this next one counts as a toy, since it's technically a candy container, but no kid alive in the '80s made it through the decade without having at least a couple of these plastic head containers filled with sugary goodness. I still vividly remember the day that I bought one of these and several packs of E.T. trading cards down at Bailey's Pharmacy in Blissfield, Michigan during the Summer of '83. That was the same summer that one of my best friends, Sean Kirkpatrick, threw my E.T. baseball hat into a fire because he was mad at me. Things were never the same between Sean and I. ;)
Here's a late-comer to the E.T. collectible scene. This bendy figure was original included in packages of Kraft mac-n-cheese promoting the re-release of the movie on DVD or something like that. I scored this one in an odd lot of various toys, so, although not all that nostalgic for me, it still gets its place in the collection.
Here's a truly rare E.T. figure! This one was included only in the E.T. board game. It came with a little plastic ghost piece that you'd put over him, like in the famous trick or treating scenes in the movie. I'll be showing off the ghost piece in October, during my Halloween countdown, but for now here's the tiniest E.T. in my collection...
And finally, here's an odd little addition to the collection; a classic E.T. Halloween mask.I picked this up at SDCC for all of $5. This vendor had a stack of them, and although it's clearly a vintage piece, it is not the official Collegeville mask, and I should know, because I owned one. Halloween of 1982 almost saw me dressed as E.T., but that was also the year that I suddenly changed gears, deciding that those store bought vinyl costumes were for babies (although I still hung the mask on my bedroom wall), and opted to make my own Indiana Jones costume.
So, where this mask came from is anyone's guess. But it's in my collection now.
So, that does it for my small E.T. collection, I do have some interesting books and trading cards from the movie, which will eventually show up on one of my other blogs eventually. But until then, kids... beeeeeeeeee gooooooooooood!
