Davy Crockett

Davy Crockett

Synopsis of Toy

Davy, Davy Crockett,
King of the Wild Frontier…”


If you think American Graffiti and TV’s Happy Days started the first wave of retro fads in the 1970’s, you obviously weren’t a kid 1955. There was a time when the lack of a coonskin cap was grounds for hanging your head in shame, when the most famous hero in America was a frontiersman who had died over 100 years before most of those coonskin-cap-wearing kids were born. These were the days when Davy Crockett, one-time King of the Wild Frontier, was put back up on the throne and worshipped by a generation of youngsters, courtesy of Walt Disney’s television magic.

TV’s Wonderful World Of Disneyland program brought the first of three Davy Crockett episodes to its “Frontierland” segment in the closing months of 1954. With Fess Parker as the title character and a theme song that every kid in America soon had memorized (“killed him a b’ar when he was only three…”), Davy Crockett was suddenly the biggest thing on television. Every boy in America wanted to be Davy, and Disney was more than happy to oblige.

Davy Crockett merchandise swiftly filled store shelves and the pages of department store catalogs. Davy’s familiar coonskin cap was the absolute must-have item, but that was only the beginning of a new frontier in western-themed apparel and tie-ins. Several outfits and playsuits for both boys and girls were available (some authentic, others with official “Davy Crockett” emblems and action scenes plastered all over the front), and the official Disney line ran the gamut from traditional items like guns and belts to more new-fangled records, cameras, lunch boxes, dolls, target games, puzzles and more. The crown jewel in any Davy fan’s collection (after the mandatory coonskin cap, of course) was the 100-piece Alamo playset, allowing kids to recreate Davy’s famous final battle, complete with a metal fort, plastic figurines and cannons that really shot.

The fact that the Alamo was, indeed, Crockett’s last stand made it difficult to sustain this cross-country Davy obsession. Disney had already showed Crockett’s heroic downfall in the third and final Disneyland installment, and though the studio released new adventures the following year, Davy-mania cooled off as quickly as it had begun. The kids eventually moved on to new heroes (Zorro, astronauts and such), but for a time, there was no bigger hero in America than a retro blast from the past in a coonskin cap.

Release History of Toy

1955 - Davy Crockett

Sub Categories of Toys

games
dolls
tv tie-in
other

Toy and Game Manufacturer

Disney

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