The Force Beam
Image Brokers Ltd (1977)
In honor of the release of the first Star Wars film on this day 47 years ago today, here is one of the most successful bootleg toys of all time. The Force Beam was essentially just a cheap plastic flashlight with a long plastic tube glued to the light and some stickers on the handle, but it was a massive success, especially since Kenner wasn't able to put an official Lightsaber on the market.
Ron of the Star Wars Collectors Archive has an excellent article with lots of pictures of this and the other knockoff lightsabers that were on the market.
