In 1982, Kuwahara, an up-and-coming Japanese brand (that is still in business today), through their US-distributor, Howie Cohen at Everything Bicycles, scored a deal with Steven Spielberg to supply the bikes for the movie "E.T.-The Extra Terrestrial". The deal meant that Kuwahara had the right to sell an "E.T." Kuwahara bicycle.
Of course, everyone loved the film when it came out and it was definitely a contributed to the BMX boom worldwide, much like "On Any Sunday" did for motorcycles the decade before.
You can see the "Original" and "Replica" models sold by the UK distributor at the time, Gecko. There was also a low-end Apollo-produced model with coaster brake and single gooseneck style stem. Regarding components, if you research online, the bikes often differed from the published spec, depending on the parts availability at the time.
Fun fact: Adrian at Gecko called me before the film came out on 9th December 1982 for us to have a bike display at Wigan ABC cinema on Station Road. However, from what I remember, the cinema weren't co-operative and this never worked out as the cinema was losing money and closed in 1983 (as ABC)*. We did, however, take a few bikes (less than 5) that didn't sell all that well and we didn't reorder them...
Alan
The photo below shows Wigan ABC cinema advertising "Starts Friday ET"
* The ABC was closed on March 5 1983 when it was operated by Thorn-EMI. The cinema was then re-opened by an independent operator on January 4 1984, operating as the Ritz Film Centre. It was closed on April 19 1997 and while for a short period later it ran as a specialist Asian cinema, it was demolished in 2005 to make way for the Grand Arcade shopping centre.
More info here (opens in new window)
An interesting piece here on the riders in the BMX scene (opens in new window)
Here's an NOS "Replica" model from BMX MUSEUM:
