Old School Transmedia

From my personal box of Monkees treasures.

According to this Wikipedia post, spreadable storytelling (transmedia) stems back to the 1960s and may even go back to the beginning of literature.

Modern day storytellers tend to think of transmedia as a purely digital invention, but cross narratives have been well in play for decades.

I was thinking about this when I opened my box of Monkees paraphernalia. In it was a transmedia treasure trove: a Tiger Beat Monkees magazine, paperback and hardcover books, trading cards, a letter from the David Jones fan club, picture coins that came in a box of cereal, and plastic finger rings with faces of each of the Monkees. This went hand in hand with a television show I used to watch and the albums I collected.

The following are a handful of physical transmedia items from other projects:

A small full-color picture pocket book derived from the television show Desperate Housewives.

The DVD set from the television series based on the book trilogy by John Jakes.

Something that wasn't a part of the North & South series, but could have been used to market it. This is a cassette tape of narratives from the Civil War.