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Face Palm Moments: Some of History’s Most Embarrassing Mistakes

Khalid Elhassan March 23, 2025 16 min

Mistakes - Cain, by Henri Vidal, in the Tuileries Garden, Paris — Cain, by Henri Vidal, in the Tuileries Garden, Paris. Wikimedia

9. Missing the Boat on Merchandising

Mistakes - Original Kenners Star Wars action figures — Original Kenners Star Wars action figures. K-Pics

Seven months after Star Wars’s release, Kenner had to sell empty boxes, with certificates redeemable for action figures once they became available. By 2012, the first six Star Wars films had produced about $20 billion in merchandise revenue. By 2023, after the release of three more sequels and other standalone films and TV series, that figure had jumped to $32 billion. As of early 2025, Star Wars has earned more than $42 billion in merchandise sales. In an epic face palm moment, 20^th Century Fox had ceded all that lucre to George Lucas in exchange for $500,000. One major studio’s loss turned out to be another major studio’s gain. Decades after 20^th Century’s Fox’s costly mistake, Disney bought both that studio and Lucas’s Star Wars empire. So now both the movie the movie and merchandising rights belong to the same owner.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.