All but the most basic sets were marketed in limited runs, available for only a limited time. Beginning with the Cowboys and Indians Set in 1948 (with Gordo the Cowboy, Betsy the Squaw, and Pooch the Texas Ranger Dog), followed closely by the Space Explorer Set (Gordo the Space Explorer, Betsy the Space Homemaker, and Pooch the Space Dog) the same year, and then by the All Grown Up Set (Gordo the Executive, Betsy the Homemaker, and Pooch the House Dog), Wilson Toys succeeded in making, marketing, and, most important, selling toys that children wanted.

With a vengeance.

Gordo and Betsy’s roster of friends grew. More accessories, more toys, more play sets, and, from there, books, radio, and, inevitably, television, and the metamorphosis of Wilson Toys into Wilson Entertainment. Lovable Pooch debuted on NBC in 1958, much in the mold of other children’s television programs of the time. Gordo and Betsy presented fun and games and displayed their commitment to self-promotion before a live studio audience, with each show culminating in the debut of an all-new Pooch cartoon. The show was staggering in its mediocrity, but it exploded the popularity of the characters. A second offering followed in 1961, the hour-long variety show Gordo and Betsy’s Showcase, which introduced and furthered the adventures of Wilson Entertainment’s ever-growing cast of characters.

By the time Gordo and Betsy’s Showcase went off the air in 1977, it had served as the gateway drug to Wilson Entertainment for three successive generations.

In 1955, Wilson purchased the rights to Clip Flashman, a second-tier pulp-comics character who had enjoyed brief popularity in the late thirties and early forties as a Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon knockoff. Flashman, like his more successful counterparts, traveled interstellar space with his best girl, Penny, at his side, and between repeated battles to save the universe managed to seduce just about every alien queen he came across (and there were a lot of alien queens out there who needed seducing). Promoting “American values” even as he defended the Star System Alliance, the character was seen-even at the time-as laughably simplistic and painfully derivative.