The E.T.-toy has made an interesting journey from E.T. as a presence in the film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial to a physical toy, to a collector’s item.
As told at the beginning of this tour this E.T. is a collector’s item, while he was initially made for children. Children would play with E.T. in a way that they would move him around and make the noises that he makes in the film. They would use their fantasy to ‘bring him to life’ with their imagination. They would point his finger to the sky and say in a squeaky voice “E.T. phone home”. This probably has been done to this E.T. before he was for sale on that market. This way of children playing with E.T. was foreseen when LJN made the toy. The intended or prescribed ways of playing are embedded in the toy’s ‘scripts’ during the design process (Lauwaert, 2009). The ‘script’ of a toy can be seen as part of the core geography of the toy (Lauwaert, 2009).