I was at my mom's house recently and came across some wonderful little cinematic relics of yesteryear while cleaning out her garage. Remember movie storybooks and souvenir programs? Man, I loved these things as a kid. The glossy-stock programs were sold at the box office of finer theaters and featured cast & crew info, full-color photos and little articles on the production process. I remember getting one for The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and sneaking peeks before entering the theater. I didn't want to reveal too much but couldn't help myself. One of the first images I came upon was Han Solo encased in Carbonite. Blew my nine-year-old mind; I couldn't wait to get inside after that.
The storybooks were essential movie tie-ins back in the mid-'70s and early '80s, staples of mall booksellers like B. Dalton, Walden and Crown, and contained a mini novelization of the film and tons of full-color stills, many of which didn't make the theatrical cut. I remember religiously reading and re-reading storybooks for all three original Star Wars films, The Black Hole, Popeye, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. (pictured above).
As we didn't have the luxury back then of owning movies three months after they appeared in theaters (at best we could maybe buy a videocassette a year later for $100), storybooks and souvenir programs were really the only way we could relive the magic of our favorite movies at home. That is unless Kenner made action figures for said flicks, in which case the programs and storybooks were quickly tossed into boxes and placed in the bowels of our parents' garages for us to discover 30 years later.
