Marketing Tom Tyler and His Pals

While Tom Tyler was often marketed along with “his pals” in both movie theatre and press materials, it was more often than not along with some qualifier. For example, in Tom's silent film “The Masquerade Bandit” a lobby card has printed on it, “Tom Tyler and His Lovable Pals.” A newspaper theatre ad for the same movie has it, “Tom Tyler and His Buoyant Pals” – in this case, buoyant meaning cheerful and optimistic. But the whole “Tom and His Pals” did not begin until his second silent film with FBO, “The Wyoming Wildcat” in 1925, when that film star catchline began. Many times early ads for Tom's movies would just mention his name and leave off the “..and His Pals” line but that did not mean his pals were not included in the cast. Frankie Darro was always omnipresent in Tom's films, to be sure, along with Beans the dog. The most important thing to keep in mind is, “Tom Tyler and His Pals” was a marketing ploy to encourage his audience to see all of his silent films, to see what Tom and his gang were up to. In a theatre ad for “Wild to Go”, Tom's pals were even advertised as a “ten-strike trio”. Some times it was just “Tom and His Buddies” – simple enough. Other common twists included: “Tom and His Breezy Pals”, “Tom and His Whizzing Pals”, and “Tom Tyler and His Buddies”. Sometimes a more personalized line would be used: “Tom Tyler and His Little Pal Frankie Darrow”, as was used in a theatre ad for “Lightning Lariats”. Perhaps it does not seem unusual that placing Frankie's name alongside Tom's on an almost equal par: they were after all pals on the set, and even though Frankie was a famous child actor – Tom was just a big kid himself. Having onscreen pals like Tom Tyler did – who would not want to miss the latest silent film Tom made for FBO back in the 1920's?