Vintage Return of the Jedi Action Figure Case by Kenner
Kenner released a number of action figure cases over the years. Most familiar to kids of the 80’s are probably the Darth Vader and C-3PO-shaped cases that were molded in hard plastic. But they also came out with these “briefcase” style cases for each of the films. They’re made of cardboard covered in thin vinyl, and seem a bit on the flimsy side compared to the other type of case. They have some great cover art, though, with the ROTJ version featuring several nice images of Jabba’s palace that weren’t used on any other products at the time. (They released a magnet using this art at Celebration VI last year.)
The Return of the Jedi version is easily the hardest to find of these, and therefore the most valuable, with prices on eBay sometimes topping $100 (and I don’t just mean unrealistically priced Buy-It-Now auctions, either). That’s what put me off of buying one for a long time. I did finally find a very good deal on this one, though.
Inside the case are two plastic trays with spaces to fit 24 figures. It originally came with a sheet of stickers with the names of various characters that you were supposed to apply to the trays, and that has already been done to mine. I’m not really sure why you need to label the spaces for particular figures, though. There are a few figures that would fit best in certain spots, but aside from that I don’t really see the point.
It also came with a large double-sided cardboard insert that showed some of the figures available at the time. I’m not sure what purpose this had aside from advertising the figures, but the photos are nice and big compared to what you might have seen on the back of a vintage figure’s card. Often this insert is missing and can drive up the price of the case when it’s present.
One interesting fact about this insert (aside from the fact that many of the figures are holding their accessories strangely — just look at Lando below) is that they mixed up some of the figures’ names. Kenner famously mixed up the names for the characters 4-LOM and Zuckuss in their vintage line, but they managed to make it even worse here. If you look at the image above, you’ll see that they’ve mixed up the “Imperial Tie Fighter Pilot” with “Zuckuss” (who is in reality named 4-LOM). I don’t know what it is about these characters that confused Kenner so much. 😉
Modified Funko Pop Jabba the Hutt Bobble-head by Howie Green
This is a Funko Pop Jabba the Hutt bobble-head that the artist Howie Green has modified. He apparently used a few different colors of pens as well as some acrylic paint to get this effect.
When I first saw it, I thought maybe it was intended to be a zombie Jabba, and then I was reminded of something out of H.R. Giger, but from what I can tell these patterns aren’t really supposed to mean anything in particular.
It’s sort of decoration for its own sake, but it’s very cool. It’s pretty incredible that he was able to draw all of this so well on a bumpy 3D surface. Just look at the top of Jabba’s head. Wow.
Below, you can see the figure next to an unaltered version. You can see that he also added eyes, which I think actually really helps the look of the figure.
Jumbo Kenner Vintage Trilogo Yak Face Figure by Gentle Giant (Celebration Europe II/Toy Palace Exclusive)
I posted about the SDCC exclusive Jumbo Yak Face figure a few weeks ago, and since then that figure has become even less “exclusive” than I thought. Several online retailers are now offering it, even though it was only supposed to be available to people attending San Diego Comic Con, as well as Gentle Giant’s own Premier Guild members. I guess they didn’t sell as well as expected at SDCC.
This version of Yak Face was exclusive to CEII (Celebration Europe II) and was sold by the German retailer Toy Palace. It features the “trilogo” card (with logos in three different languages) that was used on the rarer version of the vintage Yak Face figure. Aside from the difference in logos, the trilogo version uses red behind the figure and his name, while the “normal” version uses pink. And like the original trilogo Yak Face, it doesn’t come with a staff (although the plastic tray holding the figure in place does have a place for it). I did feel a little silly trying to explain to my wife how this was different from the figure I had just received earlier this month…
I was on the fence about buying this, and certainly wouldn’t have gone so far as to order directly from Toy Palace to get one. But as I speculated in my post about the other version, these did indeed briefly become available to Gentle Giant’s PGM members in America, and since I still had the $30 coupon that came with my membership, I decided to go for it. It sold out in less than a day, so it appears that this version is legitimately a lot rarer than the normal one. Since I already have the other version and the difference in packaging is really the only draw for this one, I don’t plan on opening it up.
Return of the Jedi Postage Stamps (Mali 1997)
A couple of years ago, I posted about a set of postage stamps that the African country of Togo released in 1997, but I didn’t know that another African country — Mali — had also put out a similar sheet of stamps at the same time. Both sets were obviously trying to capitalize on the newly released “Special Editions” of the original Star Wars films. You can see that they picture the new CGI version of Sy Snootles, as well as the new dancers and musician that were added to Jabba’s Palace in the “Special Edition” of Return of the Jedi. There’s also a rancor, which you can see below.
Overall, I think the artwork on these stamps is a lot better than on the ones from Togo. The style is bordering on caricature, but it’s certainly well done. You can see the entire block of stamps below.
Jabba the Hutt Polymer Clay Statue by Me
My son and I have been playing Plants Vs. Zombies 2 a fair amount recently (verdict: it’s good, but making it “free to play” has made it worse as a game than the original). He loves coming up with his own designs for new plants and zombies that might appear in the game, and wanted to use polymer clay to sculpt some of them. I decided to try my hand at sculpting a Jabba at the same time and think it came out pretty well. It’s about 1.5″ tall.
We used colored Sculpey and I was impressed with how easy it was to work with compared to some of the clay that I’ve used in the past — it’s basically the same as Play-Doh, but you can bake it hard. I think I’ll try making some other figures later.
These are prototype parts for the POTF2 Rancor figure. The production figure is made of a relatively hard plastic that has little give if you pinch it between your figures, but this appears to be made of vinyl and is really quite soft. With the exception of the hands (which you may notice are missing here) I think the POTF2 was probably made using rotocast molds. While I’ve never been a fan of the actual figure, I quite like these parts since they let you appreciate the sculpt without being distracted by the substandard paint job.
Each of the parts has a fair amount of excess vinyl that would have been removed on the production figure. This unfortunately makes it impossible to assemble the figure even partially, and that makes these a little hard to display. Still, it’s interesting to see how the parts would have looked fresh from the molds.
All of the parts have “SM RANCOR” (or “RANCOR SM”) written on them. I’m not sure what “SM” stands for here — my only thought was “soft master” or something similar, since this appears to be made of a softer material than the actual figure. I haven’t had much luck researching the exact purpose that these parts were made for, but if I had to guess I would say they were testing the molds to make sure they worked properly, and used a softer material to make it easier to work with. But that’s just conjecture. It’s possible that they were thinking of using a different, softer material for the figure and were testing how it would work. If anyone has any insight, I’d be interested to hear it.
I also have a prototype for the Jedi Luke figure that originally came with the rancor, which I found from a different source. I figured I might as well have a matched set. Unfortunately, I don’t have the bone he should come with.
The Luke figure is cast in different colors than the production figure. I’m not sure about the color of the head (the flesh color looks a little off to me) but the rest is definitely different. The body is more of a dark grey than the black of the production figure, and his crotch has been cast in red for some reason.
I haven’t yet managed to make it to one of the Star Wars Celebrations held in the US, so the chances of me being able to attend the recent Celebration Europe in Germany were not good. But there were a few interesting exclusives at the show. This throw was made specifically for Celebration Europe and features the art of Katie Cook. It wasn’t originally available outside the show, but the site Reed Pop Supply has been selling leftover stock of various exclusives at the same prices you would have paid at the show. (Today is supposedly the last day they will be available.)
I thought this would be a nice addition to my 2-year-old daughter’s room. The throw reminds me quite a bit of my Han in Carbonite throw I got a while back. In fact, they both have the same exact colors of fringe (multicolored on two sides and black & white on the others), so they may actually have been made by the same company, or at least using the same process.
Katie Cook’s art is always a treat. I also have a sketch card of Jabba and his son Rotta by Katie. Here, Jabba looks a little like he’s got a ribbon on his head, but I’m pretty sure that’s just Salacious Crumb peeking out from behind him.
Hello Kitty Jabba the Hutt Decal by LadiBugXpress
Etsy seller LadiBugXpress has a number of variations on Hello Kitty available as decals. As of this writing, the Jabba one isn’t available on the site anymore, but I would imagine you could get one if you ask. It’s a vinyl decal, and rather large at about 6″ tall by 4.5″ wide. You can get these in a variety of colors, but white seemed like the best choice to me.
I’ve actually tried a couple of times to draw a mashup of Hello Kitty and Jabba and it’s not easy. The Hello Kitty design is deceptively simple, but it can be difficult to get the proportions right, and if you change it too much to get her to look like another character, she will stop looking like Hello Kitty. I think they did a pretty good job, though. Hello Kitty doesn’t normally have a mouth, but I guess they decided that having the tongue coming out was an important part of getting her to look like Jabba. The mouth is a separate piece of vinyl, so you wouldn’t even have to use it if you didn’t want to.
I’m not sure if I’m ready to have Hello Kitty join the Think Geek Star Wars family decals I have on my car, so I put one of the decals on one of the windows in my office.
Unreleased Attacktix Gamorrean Guard Figure (Painted)
I posted about my prototype Attacktix Gamorrean Guard figure a couple of years ago, but to quickly recap, Hasbro cancelled the Attacktix line before the fifth series of figures was released, even though the figures had already been sculpted and the figures had at least partially started the production process. That means that the Gamorrean Guard figure, among others, was never released. They do crop up on eBay every once in a while, though. It seems like someone in China has a stash of these (or maybe even the original molds), but only releases them in dribs and drabs.
In any case, you can see the unpainted figure in a non-production green color on the right, while the figure on the left is basically what would have been released had the line not been cancelled. It’s cast in different color plastics than the proto. The head, arms and legs appear to be green plastic, but a darker green than the prototype, while the torso is cast in brown plastic. Mine has a chrome base, which would have made it a rarer “chase” figure if it had been released (only a small percentage of a particular figure would have had a chrome base instead of the plain black one).
I’m not a fan of the style of the Attacktix series in general — they often have certain body parts that are way out of proportion to the rest of their body, for example. But this one doesn’t really fall into that trap. It’s a pretty nice (if cartoony) Gamorrean sculpt.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m a Japanese translator and have spent quite a while in Japan, so whenever I see a Jabba collectible related to Japan it sparks my interest. I don’t recall ever having seen vintage Japanese stickers like this (or “seals” as they would call them). I like that they have all of the names in Japanese.
These were not sold as a separate product, but were rather included with the September 1983 issue of “Screen” magazine as a sort of bonus. I don’t have the actual magazine, but I did dig up an image of the cover, and there’s a mention of the stickers right there on the far right. (The girl on the cover is none other than a young Sophie Marceau. I guess she was somewhat famous in Japan for her role in “La boum” and “La boum 2.”)
It’s kind of funny that they give you duplicates of several of the stickers in different sizes. It’s also very heavy on the ewoks…
Mighty Jabba's Collection 