Amazing Historical Documents! Godzilla Licensing History With Stanley Weston (1965-66)

 

Today, let's look at some unseen, incredible historical documents, which are integral parts of Godzilla history! Before we continue, you need to be familiar with the man, the legend: Stanley Weston!

Stanley Weston (1933-2017) was, quite literally, the grandfather of the action figure (he invented a little thing called G.I. JOE, for example).  You can read up on him via a decent Wikipedia article, but there is also an excellent section in the MEGO 8" SUPER HEROES - WORLD'S GREATEST TOYS! book by Benjamin Holcomb about him...because at one point, Weston held the license for both Marvel and DC characters simultaneously, and the famous Mego line never would have happened without him.

He made tons of other contributions, but for our purposes here, Weston recognized the potential in licensing entertainment properties for use, and formed a company called the Weston Merchandising Corporation (this later led to Leisure Concepts, which in 1995 turned into 4Kids Entertainment, which I bet you've heard of).

Weston Merchandising Corporation counted Toho as one of their clients (who was represented by Daniel O'Shea, working out of the Time-Life building in New York City), and together they brokered the deals that resulted in Godzilla's first American products! 

First up is a letter from April 21, 1965, where Weston sent over  licensing agreements making it possible for the Donruss Company to include Godzilla in a new trading card series they were working on! We know it as the KING KONG set:

Godzilla appears on 11 cards from the set (all from KING KONG vs. GODZILLA):  #3, 17, 19, 21, 30, 31, 32, 33, 38, 39, and 42 (one card even has Godzilla solo, with NO Kong in sight).

And here is Daniel O'Shea's belated response:

"Sorry to be so long getting these back to you."

A check for Toho's advance royalties was also sent with the copies of the agreement:

While it wouldn't surprise me if Weston licensed the first official Godzilla item in the U.S. (the Ideal board game), we can be positive that he did license the second--the famous Aurora model kit!

Below is a letter from May 25, 1965, where Weston was sending Aurora's most recent Royalty Report to Daniel O'Shea, showing 6,744 units sold (it says this is for the month of "April 1965").  The report bears the signature of the Vice President of Aurora!

Next is another Royalty Report from Aurora, and the letter is dated February 21, 1966. What's interesting is that it states that up to that date, they had paid Toho royalties of $15,458.97.  This is telling when you remember that the 1964 model kit cost less than a dollar!

Note too that the check Weston mentions sending to Toho totals 50% of what Aurora paid:

Lastly, here is a letter dated March 8, 1966, where Weston extended Aurora's licensing agreement for Godzilla for an additional year (as the kit continued to be extremely popular, and a second kit had already briefly happened by this point):

This was signed by all parties involved:

And there you have a look behind the scenes at some of the necessary minutia that resulted in classic Godzilla collectibles! As you can probably tell, I own the February 25, 1965 documents (hence the decent scan), and I am not only thrilled to own this piece of history, but having Stanley Weston's signature is pretty awesome too.