A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : Knickknacks of Summer: Let the Frenzy Begin

The 6 1/2-ton movie merchandising gorilla this summer is a dinosaur.

Before too long, it will seem that tiny replicas of prehistoric beasts from “Jurassic Park,” the movie about a dinosaur theme park gone amok, will be eating up most of the shelf space at the nation’s toy retailers, just as the image of a certain caped crusader did a few years back.

But wait. What’s that just down the aisle from the plastic velociraptors display?

* A rubber conehead for the noggin.

* Red soda pop named after a bratty kid.

* A book of Maya Angelou’s poetry featuring hairdresser-turned-scribe Janet Jackson.

* A whale toy tied to a nonprofit environmental cause.

* And a “water squirt” (known to prior generations as a squirt gun) favored by video villains.

(Answers to the above merchandising clues, in order, are Paramount’s “The Coneheads,” Warner Bros.’ “Dennis the Menace,” Columbia’s “Poetic Justice,” Warner Bros.’ “Free Willy” and Disney’s “Super Mario Bros.”)

This summer, most of the so-called “event” films are rated PG-13 and under, which translates to a big consumer market.

Licensees pay entertainment companies between 5% and 10% of the wholesale price of the items they make, which can bring the studio of a successful movie much more money than the picture cost to produce and promote. (And, speculation is, for such big-budgeted productions as the $70-million “Jurassic Park” and $70-million-and-counting “Last Action Hero,” studios have little choice but to make up expenses with retail sales.)

While some people may have snickered at all those “Batman” stickers plastered on seemingly everything--car windows, skateboards, kites--Warner Bros. and its licensees laughed all the way to the bank. Sales of movie merchandise were estimated to be worth $1 billion worldwide.

There are other movies coming out this summer, though “Jurassic” appears the most carnivorous for consumer dollars.

“MCA-Universal (the movie’s distributor) have been real dyn-a-mos in licensing all their stuff,” said Robert McCoy, editorial director of the New York-based trade publication Toy & Hobby World, laughing at his own use of words. “The key seems to be in how they’ve kept the product line a secret so far, just making everybody that much more crazy for it.”

Playthings and such associated with the Steven Spielberg production “have already cornered the (movie tie-in) market” in sheer volume, said McCoy. There are more than 100 licensees for the sci-fi thriller versus 25 licensees for, say, “Last Action Hero” (a.k.a. Arnold Schwarzenegger) from Columbia Pictures. The movies open a week apart in mid-June.

Among the myriad of “Jurassic Park” items for sale are toy dinosaurs deemed by a paleontologist consultant to look near-accurate as possible to the real thing; a series of video games; a paperback edition of Michael Crichton’s book with stars Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill and Sir Richard Attenborough on the cover; a “making of” book and all kinds of odds and sods sporting the skeletal “Jurassic Park” logo.

“If the stuff sells anywhere near the way ‘Batman’ stuff did, it won’t matter what Universal releases for the rest of the year,” said a merchandising executive from a competing studio.

Not surprisingly, MTV is playing a bigger and bigger role in tantalizing kids to see the hot movies, then to buy the soundtrack (and the T-shirt, and the video game, and . . .).

Schwarzenegger appears in what’s being touted as the “biggest MTV special” tied to “Last Action Hero.” Others are planned for “Poetic Justice,” the latest John Singleton movie set in South-Central Los Angeles, starring Jackson in her first movie role, as well as for the “Coneheads” movie based upon the old “Saturday Night Live” sketches.

Or, there’s the more direct pitch via the Home Shopping Network for cast and crew-style jackets from “Cliffhanger,” Carolco’s Sylvester Stallone mountain-climbing thriller to be released by TriStar, or on rival cable programmer QVC, the chance to buy stuffed toy whales modeled after the lead character in “Free Willy,” an Australian picture about a young boy who frees a friendly whale from a run-down aquarium.

One thing is for sure: Even if Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, K mart and other retail chains aren’t on some people’s usual shopping rounds, thousands of McDonald’s (“Jurassic Park), Burger King (“Last Action Hero”), Taco Bell (“Free Willy”), Subway (“Coneheads”) and 7-Eleven (“Super Mario Bros.) outlets will be cross-promoting many of the movies.

And who in America could miss that?