Kids Still Crazy About Coonskin Caps
Sioux City, IA – Back in the Fabulous Fifties, young’uns loved their Davy Crockett coonskin caps more than they loved Lucy. The coonskin cap was so cool, in fact, Jack, that it gave birth to the whole concept of products being sold to capitalize on the popularity of a movie or TV show, of which “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier” was both, the first 3 episodes of the “Disneyland” TV series eventually hitting the big screen as a movie.
It’s a merchandising move that predated the “Star Wars” product blitz by a couple of decades. The cap was also accompanied by buckskins and a Daisy toy edition of Old Betsy, Davy’s rifle, among a host of other items.
And as fads go, the mostly faux fur hat with the raccoon tail attached sold at a rate of 5,000 caps a day during its ’50s peak.
