Galactic Heroes Jabba’s Palace Cinema Scene
As I said in my list of my Top 10 Jabba Collectibles, the Jabba-related Galactic Heroes are some of my favorites. Part of this is probably due to the fact that my young son and I have had a lot of fun playing with these and other Galactic Heroes figures, but I also have a soft spot for cute versions of Jabba and his crew.
I recently realized that I never made entries for each of the individual Galactic Heroes Cinema Scene sets, so here they are. The first is the Jabba’s Palace set. This was a Target exclusive (and indeed, most of the Jabba-related Cinema Scenes have been exclusive to one retailer or another). It comes with nine figures: Jabba, Bib Fortuna, Han Solo, Jedi Luke, Lando in Skiff Guard Disguise, C-3PO, Leia as Boushh, Nikto Guard, and a Gamorrean Guard. They’re all quite well done, with removable helmets for Leia and Lando. Of course Jabba is the star of the show. I really like how they converted him into the Galactic Heroes style.
Like all of the Cinema Scenes, they come in a nice box that can be turned into a sort of playset if you’re careful when opening them. As you might expect, this one has Jabba’s thone room. Generally speaking, I’m an “opener.” I don’t like to keep products locked away in their packaging. But part of me really wants to buy another of each of these sets just to have the figures nicely displayed in the package.
Like Zorba the Hutt’s Revenge, this is a “young readers” book. Published in the late 90s, it is part of the “Galaxy of Fear” series, which was apparently an attempt to cash in on the “Goosebumps” series of books (mildly scary books for young adults). It tells the story of Zak and Tash, a brother and sister who were orphaned when the Empire destroyed Alderaan, who have various adventures with their adopted uncle Hoole, a Shi’ido shapeshifter. The book is set between the events of A New Hope and Return of the Jedi, and the plots involves some intrigue with the B’Omarr monks — the original inhabitants of Jabba’s Palace.
I actually enjoyed reading this more than I would have expected. It’s pretty well written and does a good job of capturing the “Star Wars” feel. The “scary” aspect of the book is a little tacked on, with almost every chapter ending with some sort of surprise or cliffhanger (most of which turn out to be just misunderstandings of some sort). But it seemed to do a good job of writing to its intended audience without talking down to them. The book is only 122 pages long, so you can easily read it in one sitting. My copy is labeled “Limited Collector’s Edition,” which may be a reference to the fact that it is hardcover.
Vintage Return of the Jedi Ruler by Stuart Hall
This is not the most impressive ruler I’ve ever seen. It’s just a flimsy plastic ruler with a “Return of the Jedi” themed sticker on it, and said sticker is starting to peel off a bit with age. It features Jabba, Bib Fortuna, and a Gamorrean Guard. Click the image above for a closer look.
I’m still not sure why these are called “Perk-Up” stickers. That sounds kind of like they should be three-dimensional in some way, but they’re just normal stickers. Unless they mean that they “perk up” otherwise boring things? Anyway, we get a variety of Jabba-related characters here. The first set includes Jabba, Bib Fortuna, Lando in Skiff Guard Disguise, Leia as Boushh, and the Rebo Band. The second only has a Gamorrean Guard and Klaatu. It’s kind of funny how Yoda looks towers over Luke.
I like the original “Zayre” price tags on these. I remember going to Zayre stores as a kid. Click the pictures above for a larger view.
Vintage Return of the Jedi Monster Activity Book
This book is simply awesome. I can’t believe I never knew about it before. It’s 48 pages long (with a fair number of blanks, since some pages needed to be cut out, etc.) and is filled with Jabba’s palace-themed activities. Some are better than others. The “Monster Munchies” cookie recipe doesn’t sound too appetizing, and the “Multiplying Monsters” game not only has nothing to do with Jabba or even Star Wars, it also doesn’t sound very fun.
But there are some great ones, too, even if a lot of them are pretty similar to activities in other books. There’s the Jabba maze, where you find your way through the wrinkles on Jabba’s face. The “Fight at Jabba’s Palace” page, which has drawings on both sides. You hold it up to the light to see the complete picture. “Bib Fortuna’s Hand” where you cut out a paper hand, fold it, and then put it into a bowl of water to see it appear to open up as if it were alive. And don’t forget the “Gamorrean Guards Bowling Game” where you cut out pictures of Gammorean Guards, tape them together, stuff them with tissues, and then try to knock them over with a ball. Kids in the 80s sure knew how to have fun, huh? 😀
It’s a lot of fun to just look through. I made a PDF copy of the book so I could print off some of the pages, and I doubt that “Happy House Books” would mind too much if I posted it here for you to use as well. Right click the link below to save the file, or just click it to view it in your browser. I didn’t include any of the blank or duplicate pages (such as the many extra pages for the Gamorrean Guard bowling pins).
As I said in my entry for the other Hamilton plate in my collection (Jabba’s sail barge), I’m not really a big fan of the “collector plate” concept. The artwork is often very nice, but I don’t really get why it needs to be on plates. That said, this particular plate has some very impressive artwork by Todd Treadway. It’s a collage, as these kinds of plates tend to be, but the likenesses are spot-on, and the color is very vibrant. A photograph doesn’t really convey how nice this plate looks in person.
Of course, I would’ve left out the elements from the “Special Editions” if I had my choice. To my mind, Oola would’ve been a better choice than the three new dancing girls. But I do have to give them credit for depicting Jabba in the ROTJ style even when he’s talking to Han in the scene from A New Hope.
This plate has been going for fairly high prices on eBay. Even if you dismiss the sky-high buy-it-now auctions, it still seems to sell for a fair amount when it shows up in a regular auction, so I was very happy to see it pop up for a reasonable BIN price a few days ago.
Ed Asner as Jabba the Hutt Autograph
I’ve always liked the Star Wars radio plays they did on National Public Radio. They used the original cast for the most part, and the original music and sound effects, but they were much longer than the movies so you kind of got the feeling that you were listening to the “extended edition” of the films. While the first two episodes were done in the early eighties, the Return of the Jedi radio play was not produced until 1996, and didn’t feature as many of the original cast as the others. Anthony Daniels returned as C-3PO, but most of the other actors were different. I’m not sure how they went about casting the show, but they did get some fairly well known people to play relatively minor parts. For example, John Lithgow as Yoda and Ed Begley Jr. as Boba Fett.
Ed Asner played Jabba the Hutt. I heard about him playing this role before I heard the actual show, so I imagined that they had decided to have Jabba speak in English. After all, it was radio and I figured they would want the listener to be able to understand what he was saying. But instead they had Asner speak Huttese with C-3PO playing the interpreter. I prefer the movie voice, but he did a pretty good job, all in all.
I made this composite photo in Photoshop and sent it to Ed Asner to sign, which he kindly did. Play the video below to listen to a snippet from the radio show.
Vintage Return of the Jedi Poster Magazine #1
This is a “magazine” that was published in 1983, a little before Return of the Jedi appeared in theaters. It’s basically just a largish poster that’s folded in half and then in half again to make 3 magazine-sized pages with text, and 2 very large pages in the middle. As you can see from the picture above, it has Luke and a Gamorrean Guard on the cover, while the actual poster is a Star Destroyer by the Death Star II. Inside there are several articles that essentially just give a variety of facts about the movie, most of which seem to be intended to impress the reader how massive the movie is in size and scope. Still, it’s a fun read. Especially the bits about Jabba and his cohorts.
“Slug Life” T-Shirt
I got this unlicensed T-shirt from the Etsy store of “It Came From The Basement!” It’s obviously a take-off on “Thug Life” which is appropriate given Jabba’s status as a gangster. I like the artwork. Jabba is chillin’ with his dancing girls. 😉
Bubo Creature Pack for Sideshow Jabba the Hutt
The second creature pack for Sideshow’s 1/6 scale Jabba the Hutt setup includes Bubo (the largest creature), a womp rat, and a rock wart (apparently some sort of sand lobster). The exclusive edition (which I don’t have) included an extra “scratching” womp rat, which is nicer than the bonus for the other creature pack, but not exactly a must-have. The paint on Bubo isn’t as good as I would have hoped and in general I don’t find this pack to be as nice as the other one, especially since it’s more expensive. I would only get this if you are a die-hard Jabba fan and have a large Jabba display area — the throne can get mighty crowded if you try to display all of the creatures at once.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 
