I recently realized that I had never made entries for the two creature packs that Sideshow Collectibles released for their 1/6 scale Jabba the Hutt setup. The first of these is the Salacious Crumb Creature Pack. It comes with Salacious Crumb and his pillow, Ghoel (the snail-like guy with the long tongue), Worrt (the frog-like one) , and a Sand Skitter (apparently a half-slug/half-rat). I have the “inclusive” version of the pack that includes a bonus Dwarf Varactyl, but it’s pretty small and forgettable.
I’d say this pack is pretty much a must-have if you have the Sideshow Jabba and throne, since Salacious Crumb is a vital part of any Jabba setup, and the other creatures are nice too. Ghoel in particular is well done in that his tongue is posable and he has a magnet in his bottom that allows you to attach him to a wall (I just hammered a steel nail into my wall and attached the magnet to it).
Vintage Jabba’s Palace Aliens Puzzle
I’m going to cheat a little bit and reuse the photo that the ebay seller I got this from used, since they did a good job of showing the box and the assembled puzzle. Even though I don’t usually like studio photos compared to actual shots from the movie, I’d say this shot of the aliens is a bit more suited to use as a jigsaw puzzle than the one of Jabba on his throne, since it’s got more variety and brighter colors.
Burger King Cup and Crown (2005)
This is a cardboard cup and kids’ crown that feature Jabba and other characters. These were used at Burger King during the release of Revenge of the Sith in 2005. It’s kind of an odd selection of characters. They’ve just used old studio photos from A New Hope for most of the shots, but of course Jabba is the CGI version and Chewbacca appears to be from the prequels as well. I think it’s interesting that they chose to put Jabba on here instead of a character like Yoda, for example. The cup is quite small when you consider how big fast food cups are these days, so I assume it was part of a kids’ meal.
Here is the crown when assembled:
Vintage Rancor Keeper
The Rancor Keeper, or Malakili as he would later be called, is actually one of my favorite characters from Jabba’s palace. I think it’s because you can get an idea of his backstory even from the few seconds he is on film. Most of the palace aliens were essentially window dressing that had backstories invented later on, but you can tell by the way he reacts to the Rancor’s death that there was a bond between the two of them. I tried to have Jeff Confer capture some of this in the Cute Rancor and Keeper ink drawing he did for me.
He was certainly not one of the more popular figures in the vintage line, though. They were literally giving them away at the end.
Vintage Ree Yees Figure
Apparently Ree Yees was involved in a plot to assassinate Jabba, but I’ll leave the details of his background to Wookiepedia. Suffice it to say that he is another Jabba’s palace alien that didn’t really play a significant part in the film, but adds a lot to the atmosphere.
The Hamilton Collection put out quite a number of Star Wars themed collector plates. This one, featuring the last moments of Jabba’s sail barge and skiff, was put out in 1998. When I was a teenager, my mother collected plates pretty similar to these (but with very different subject matter) so it’s kind of funny to be buying one myself. I’m not really a fan of the whole “collector plate” concept. Still, this particular plate was quite cheap.
EDIT: Since originally posting this, I got one other plate from the Hamilton Collection — Jabba the Hutt from the “Heroes & Villains” series.
Dave Dorman “Leia as Boushh” Print
This is a print from 1998 by Dave Dorman, who also did the “Knockin’ at Jabba’s Door” and “In the Court of Jabba the Hutt” prints. I think this one precedes both of those prints, however. It shows Leia in her Boushh disguise (sans helmet) standing in front of Han in carbonite. Of course there was never a scene exactly like this in the film, since she didn’t take off her helmet until after defrosting Han, but a little artistic license is certainly forgivable. I forgot to take any pictures of the print before having it framed, but it basically just has a larger white border, and there is some copyright text underneath the “STAR WARS” logo that I had them mat out. The mat I chose is a reddish brown with hints of gold and really seems to go well with the print. Click the image for a larger view.
Dorman did a remarque (hand-drawn pencil drawing) on one corner of the print of Leia with her helmet on. I got this print second-hand, so I’m not sure if he did the same remarque on all of these pieces or what. It’s pretty nicely done, though.
I’ve mentioned my feelings about the “special edition” of Return of the Jedi before. To me, the changes to the Jabba’s palace scenes (particularly those involving the Rebo Band) make the film unwatchable. Truly cringe inducing stuff. Let’s look at the two versions, just for a minute.
Here is the original version, featuring the song “Lapti Nek.”
And here is the “special edition” version, which replaces the entire song with something called “Jedi Rocks.” Not only is the song different (and inferior), but they have added some very cartoony CGI members to the band, replaced the Sy Snootles puppet with CGI, and added three new dancing girls who sing chorus.
The three characters in the Rebo Band were pretty popular in their own right, having been released as a nice vintage box set and also on many other products, so I don’t understand what Lucas was thinking by essentially erasing them from the movie. Sy Snootles is almost unrecognizable, and the other two characters barely appear. Instead we get two CGI abominations that look like they belong in a saturday morning cartoon.
But I digress. Today I’m here to talk about the toys for the “new and improved” Rebo Band. These were originally released under the “Power of the Force” label (called “Max Rebo Band Pairs”) and were Walmart exclusives. They were later re-released in different packaging. The new versions included one more band member and Jabba’s dancers.
Here they are out of the package.
I guess they’re not bad figures, considering the source material. But I must say that Sy Snootles and Joh Yowza not only have legs that make it hard for them to stand up, they lack the holes in their feet that would allow you to use a stand!
Anyway, the main reason I bought these (aside from a sick compulsion to have everything) was to get nice modern versions of core Rebo Band players for my modern Jabba’s Palace display. So let’s see how they compare to the vintage figures.
First is Max Rebo. The original figure was quite nicely done. The only thing I would change would be the weird way they painted the eyes (pink circles with black dots inside). The modern version sticks pretty close to the vintage one overall, but it does fix the eyes and makes his color a more vibrant blue. One thing I didn’t notice at first was the size difference. The vintage figure and piano is a good 20% bigger. Still, the modern one is nicely done.
Now for Droopy McCool. The vintage figure was fine, really, it just needs some better paint. I think the modern figure accomplishes that, although they went a little overboard with the painted wrinkles. He doesn’t have a microphone stand like the vintage figure did, however.
Lastly we have Sy Snootles. Ugh… I can’t really say that one is inherently better than the other — both versions of the character are kind of ridiculous. But I really prefer the original puppet to the cartoony CGI version, so I also don’t care for the modern figure. I’ll be using the vintage figure even in my modern Rebo Band.
I find it fascinating that a hat like this exists. Darth Vader or R2-D2 on a hat I could see, but a group of Gamorrean Guards? Apparently back in 1983 somebody at Sales Corporation of America thought that this would be a great idea for a product. I really want to track down the Jabba hat sold by the same company. (As a side note, “Sales Corporation of America” takes the title of most generic sounding company away from “Activa Consumer Products.”)
My Top 10 Jabba Collectibles
I read an article about a Bossk focus collector’s top ten favorite items in her collection, and figured it might be fun to do the same with mine. Click the link below for the list.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 