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Colorforms By Euphrates
There are standards in the toy industry for merchandising movies and TV shows, that have
stood the test of time. You need to get your stars on lunchboxes, dolls/action figures,
trading cards, halloween costumes, View-Masters and Colorforms.
Colorforms were first introduced in the late '50s by the Colorforms Company. For those of you unfamiliar with Colorforms, allow me to describe them for you. Let's say you just bought a Pee Wee Herman set. You open the box and you find a slick cardboard image of the Playhouse along with a sheet of paper-thin, flimsy, vinyl images. First, you are going to need to detach the images and shapes from the sheet, sort of like punching out paper dolls. Now, you are left with images of Pee Wee and the gang that will adhere, like magic, to the board. You can attach and detach them repeatedly until the board or the figures get dusty. Then, just clean 'em up and you're back in business! The Colorforms folks also made Shrinky Dinks, the famous Colorform Aliens, Dress Up sets (kind of like the old paper dolls and tabbed-dress sets, but using Colorforms dresses and a slick, cardboard doll) and Print Putty. Print Putty exercised the Silly Putty Pressed onto the Funnies from the Sunday Comics syndrome. Some of the earlier sets were a basic shapes collection, Popeye and Sleeping Beauty. The most popular offerings are KISS, The Wizard of Oz and The Green Hornet. Colorforms are still released regularly today, whenever there is a popular movie or TV show that can be exploited. Here is a partial list of some of the Colorforms and Colorforms influenced sets from the last 40 years.
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