Vintage Return of the Jedi Candy Containers with Store Display by Topps

I posted about the individual Jabba the Hutt and Sy Snootles candy containers a couple of years ago, but here is an original packing box, which also doubled as an in-store display box. When you open the top lid, you punch out a perforated section and fold it over to form the back of the display.

I was very interested to see what this looked like when I opened it up. The arrangement of the candy containers might look haphazard, but there’s actually a plastic base in the bottom with indentations in the exact shape of each container. I think they probably did this to keep the heads in place during shipping and also to enable them to get 18 containers in a space that might normally have only held 16 or so. It also seems to mean that this selection of characters held true for every box (there’s 4 Wickets, 4 baby ewoks, 3 Jabbas, 3 Vaders, 2 Ackbars and 2 Sy Snootles). So half of the containers are ewoks, which certainly seems like overkill to me. But of course the ewoks were probably popular with the age group that might be buying this candy (and I have my suspicions that Lucasfilm might have encouraged licensees to push ewoks as well).

After seeing this box, my first question was, “Are these really ‘loaded with candy?'” After opening up a few, I’d say yes. Yes they are. I even had a little trouble getting the candy back in to the Ackbar container once I had taken it out. Of course, it’s only .4 ounces of candy, but I don’t think you really would want a lot more.

The Jabba and Sy Snootles containers that I had in the past were all empty, but I did have one full C-3PO head from a previous wave, and the candy inside just looked like little cylinders. So I was surprised to find that the candy in these containers is actually shaped like the characters. I opened about half of the containers and never found an Ackbar or Sy Snootles candy, so my guess is that they decided to replace them with C-3PO and R2-D2 candies. Maybe it’s because they were more recognizable in candy form. I found the distribution of candies to be very uneven. I only got two Jabba candies in the first 4 containers I opened, and then in the fifth container I got 14 Jabbas. I’ll have to admit, Jabba looks even more like a pile of poop than usual here.

I’d be willing to bet that these candies look exactly the same now as when they were originally packaged. I thought about eating one, but this is nearly 30-year-old candy that we’re talking about so… Of course I ate one. 😀 It seemed fine, actually. This kind of candy was never very tasty, but it seemed perfectly edible to me. Not that I plan to eat any more…