The complete irony of that is, it was Star Wars that first touched off the phenomenon of "merchandising" to begin with. Before that movie, there weren't really much in the way of toy tie-ins with other media, beyond lunchboxes and Flintstone Vitamins and oddball stuff like that.

But Star Wars? They were selling light sabres and 'droid toys before the movie even came out/came to certain cities, ffs. Coca-Cola had one of the first "look under the cap liner and collect" contests, with the old glass bottles. It was nuts, right through having kiddie merch for movies we weren't allowed to see because we were too young, like Alien.

It was almost like the Droids and lightsabres were designed to be toys. Hrm. :P (And I remember hearing a theory, long ago, that the story was really meant to be about the droids; after all, they're the first ones we see, and follow.)