Randy Martinez Jabba the Hutt Art Piece
Here’s a bit of a change of pace: a 9 x 12 art piece that I commissioned from the artist Randy Martinez. He did it in a combination of watercolors and colored pencils. It’s really quite impressive in person.
Clone Wars Jabba the Hutt Battle Pack
This is the most recent Jabba figure, from the Clone Wars movie/TV show. He comes in a “battle pack” with his interpreter droid TC-70 and water pipe/throne arm. It’s too bad that they don’t go to the trouble of actually making the full throne anymore. Just having the water pipe doesn’t seem like quite enough.
The figure itself is great. My only complaints are that his arms have a tendency to fall off and that they painted him in such a way that the coloring only really matches up when you have his tail stretched out behind him. Since almost everyone is going to be displaying him with his tail stretched out to the side as if he were on the throne, this is a little odd. But the sculpt is great and there is a little extra feature where his mouth will move if you move his arm. The head is partially made of a sort of rubbery material, so the mouth can move without requiring a visible joint.
I also discovered quite by accident that one of the nuts from my son’s toy building kit makes a perfect top hat for him. Of course I then had to make a cane by cutting off the ends of a Q-tip and coloring it black with a sharpie.
Kenner Star Wars Buddies Jabba the Hutt
This is a “plush” Jabba the Hutt from the Kenner “Star Wars Buddies” line. I put “plush” in quotations because he’s made of a leathery material and not the soft plush kind of material you might expect. He’s around 8 inches long if you stretch out his tail (the tail actually comes stitched to his body, but of course I had to let him sprawl out).
I’m surprised I haven’t seen more Jabba stuffed animals. There is a Rotta plush “Back Buddy” available but I don’t have any use for the backpack. Unfortunately StarWarsShop apparently cancelled the exclusive Rotta that they were going to sell on its own without the backpack.
Vintage Jabba the Hutt Belt Buckle
I just got this recently and I love it. It’s a great sculpt and it feels nice and sturdy in brass. It’s smaller than I had expected, but of course it’s for a child’s belt. I guess there aren’t too many adults who would want to wear a Jabba the Hutt belt buckle. Sniff…
It says “LEE N.Y.C.” on the back and has a 1983 copyright.
Vintage Kenner Jabba the Hutt Action Playset
It seems fitting that the first item I catalog should be the Kenner Jabba the Hutt playset, as it was the first Jabba item I had as a kid. Of course, nearly all of my Star Wars toys got sold or given away at some point in my adolescence, so this is not the same one I had as a boy. Still, it brings back all the old memories. I like how they incorporated the “pit” idea by having the part of the throne under Jabba open up.
Sure, it was just a tad smaller than the actual rancor pit in the film, but never mind. He’s got a fair amount of articulation (Jabba’s tail even moves if you twist his torso) and the sculpt is pretty good. I’m not sure where the mustard color comes from, but it’s better than the totally green versions we got later.
Click the graphic to the left to view the instruction manual for the playset in PDF format. It tells you how to put it together, and how to fix common problems such as Jabba’s arms or Salacious Crumb’s tail coming off. (Solution: shove them back on.)
There were actually two versions of the box. One was the nice full-color one shown above. The other one was a two-color line art version.
Here is the original TV commercial:
EDIT: Here’s a YouTube video I made recently giving a pretty comprehensive overview of this toy.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 