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You may think kidults are a distinctly 21st-century phenomenon, but GI Joe sold over $1 billion worth of action figures by 1989, and Snoopy became the first beagle on the moon (kind of)—thanks to some serious adults of yesteryear believing character merch could represent more than just playthings.
The term “Kidult” dates back to at least 1960, when the television industry coined the portmanteau to describe shows like Flipper and The Flintstones that were meant to appeal to adults and kids alike.
Around the same time, perfectly respectable adults began buying children’s toys for themselves, sometimes for heart-wrenching reasons:In 1964, Hasbro released the first GI Joe action figure, which was 12 inches tall and featured articulated body parts. Vietnam War veterans collected the dolls, according to pop culture historian Roy Schwartz, to “reconnect with their Army days” once they were home.
In 1967, Hasbro debuted the first talking GI Joe, voiced by Bill Corsair, who went on to fight in Vietnam in 1969. This helped solidify the doll’s reputation as something more than a children’s toy.
Good grief
The 1960s also heralded the golden age of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip—which flipped the kidult script by featuring kids with a distinctly adult outlook.
As Charles Schulz biographer David Michaelis wrote, “Children are not supposed to be radically dissatisfied…Schulz gave these children lifelong dissatisfactions, the stuff of which adulthood is made.” But that was part of their charm, and their broad appeal:Sports writer Luke Epplin compiled Peanuts cartoon strips about Snoopy’s and Woodstock’s fruitless attempts to find their lost mothers, which echoed Schulz’s own mother dying of cancer while he was being shipped off to World War II. Such adult themes may have helped grownups reading the newspaper seek them out.
The TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas came out in 1965, cementing the franchise as an American institution. And a lucrative one—the show’s massive success led to surging demand for Peanuts merchandise. By 2010, the franchise’s merch was responsible for $2 billion in global sales annually.
The Peanuts are still flying the kidult flag: You likely know at least one septuagenarian who will shamelessly buy themselves a Snoopy doll. That’s no surprise, since the brand has been dialed into the adult market for a long time. In 1967, it already had merch meant specifically for adults, like this felt banner of Lucy Van Pelt screaming, “I’M FRUSTRATED, INHIBITED AND NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME!”—HVL
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