Yet another Star Wars Weekends exclusive is this “hot potato” game shaped like a thermal detonator. The idea is that you pass it from person to person until it “explodes,” with the person holding it at that point being the loser. It’s rather light and plasticky, but otherwise looks pretty good. I could imagine someone repainting this and using it as the basis for a prop replica.
There are two modes. One is the normal game mode, where it counts down for a random amount of time and then plays the “explosion” sound effect. After this, a random clip from a Star Wars character is played. Jabba’s laughter is in the video below, but there are a variety of characters from both the prequels and original trilogy.
There’s also a “movie” mode, which allows you to use it more or less as it was used in the movie. Sliding back the trigger starts the countdown, but it doesn’t actually explode:
Overall, it’s a fun little toy. Maybe a little expensive at $24.95, but given its nature as an exclusive it’s not too bad.
Disney Star Wars Weekends 2013 Salacious Crumb T-Shirt
Also available at Star Wars Weekends was this Salacious Crumb t-shirt. It’s a little bit of an odd design. I’m guessing it’s supposed to be a joke, like you’re initially supposed to think the person wearing it is “salacious” but it’s actually talking about Salacious B. Crumb. Or it could just be a straightforward character T-shirt and I’m overanalyzing it. In any case, it’s a little plain and costs about $30, but it isn’t every day that you see a Salacious Crumb shirt, so I had to get one.
Since we happen to be in Japan at the moment, I’d like to switch gears a little bit and talk a bit about our experience going to Tokyo Disneyland — in particular, the new “Star Tours: The Adventures Continue” attraction, which just opened last month. It’ll be photo-heavy, so I’ll put the majority of the pictures on the individual page for this post (that means you’ll have to click through to see them if you’re on the site’s main page).
Disney Star Wars Weekends 2013 Jumbo Jabba the Hutt Vinylmation Figure (with Salacious Crumb)
I posted recently about some Jabba-related figures from Series 3 of Disney’s Vinylmation figures, but of course for a Jabba collector such as myself, this big guy is the real star of the show. While he shares the same body shape and concept as the smaller figures, Jabba is a 9 inch jumbo figure that retails for $59.95. It seems to be made of a different material than the little figures. While the little guys are fairly dense and heavy for their size, this one is rather light and seems softer.
He comes with a 1.5″ tall figure of Salacious Crumb. To me, he seems too small to be in scale with Jabba.
But the bigger issue is that Jabba seems much too large to be in scale with the other figures in the line. I can understand making Jabba bigger than the other characters, but this just seems way too big. Maybe a 6-inch figure would have worked better than a 9-inch one. And if they were going to not worry about scale, then I think Salacious should have been the same size as the 3-inch figures to look better next to Jabba.
The design is also pushing it a bit when the likeness is concerned, but there’s only so much you can do when you have to use a Mickey Mouse-shaped body. I guess we’re supposed to assume that Jabba’s tail is trailing behind him, and of course the “feet” of the figure are meant to be Jabba’s throne. On the ears, we can see Jabba’s iconic archway. Overall, it’s certainly something that I am happy to have in my collection, but it’s also a little weird. It guess it’s kind of symbolic of Disney’s recent purchase of the Star Wars franchise, as well.
I’ve always liked Salacious Crumb. Maybe it’s partially because he’s essentially a muppet, and I have fond memories of Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. But I also like the idea that Jabba has this little jester/pet sitting next to him on the throne. It’s one of those little details that they could’ve left out, but didn’t. He’s certainly a minor character, but I’ve seen quite a number of fan-made puppets go up for sale over the years, usually for many hundreds of dollars. There’s never been a commercial product quite like this, though. The closest would be the life size statue by Sideshow Collectibles.
This figure is only available at Disney theme parks during Star Wars Weekends, and retails for $35. That’s really cheap when you consider that he’s around 18 inches tall and even come with his own pillow to sit on. Disney merchandise is usually so overpriced that I’m quite surprised they didn’t try to charge more. And frankly, I think he’d still be a pretty good deal even at around $50-$60. His skin is made of latex, while the inner stuffing is polyester. His arms, legs, tails and ears all have wires in them so you can pose them a bit, although getting a good pose that also allows him to sit up without falling over is not easy. It’s also a little difficult to get his unruly hair to stay in place. I’m considering hairspray…
The sculpt is really quite good, although I think the transition to latex made the details softer than they might otherwise have been. As you can see, his tail fits through a little loop in the pillow to help keep him on, although you can remove him completely if you like.
As you can see, he’s noticeably smaller than the Sideshow statue (which was supposed to be life size, but may be a little on the small size compared to the actual puppet). Still, it’s not a huge difference and I think most people would be happy to consider this a life size figure. I can see all sorts of interesting possibilities for this figure, whether it’s Star Wars costuming, practical jokes, or just play. I briefly considered bringing him to Japan with us on our upcoming trip and taking pictures of him in various locations like the “traveling gnome,” but calmer heads (my wife’s, specifically) prevailed.
My only real complaint about this figure is that the paint job is a little basic in places. The mouth in particular doesn’t look realistic because it’s all been painted more or less the same color, without anything to make a clear delineation between his “lips.” So I touched mine up with a little brown paint mixed with black. It took all of 5 minutes to add a little definition to the mouth and a bit around his beak, but I think it made a world of difference (see below).
Disney Vinylmation Series 3 Figures (Jedi Luke, Boushh, Skiff Guard Lando, Bib Fortuna, Gamorrean Guard)
There has been a relationship between Disney and Star Wars for quite some time, even before Disney’s recent acquisition of the property. Star Tours, the Star Wars-themed Disney attraction, has apparently been in operation at various Disney parks since 1987. They’ve put out a fair amount of merchandise that can only be found at Disney parks as well, although there has never been a huge amount of Jabba-related stuff until recently, thanks to the 30th anniversary of Return of the Jedi. There’s now a significant amount of merchandise available (although from what I hear, a lot of sold out pretty quickly — much of it to resellers).
These Vinylmation figures are part of a larger range of Star Wars Vinylmation figures, which in turn are part of an even larger range of vinyl figures from a variety of other themes. The one unifying element is that they all use more or less the same body — that of Mickey Mouse, complete with ears. Obviously the ears are not really appropriate for 99% of the characters they’re portraying, so they use a variety of approaches to work them in. Here we see that Boushh, Bib Fortuna and the Gamorrean Guard all have archways on their ear pieces, meant to evoke Jabba’s Palace. And Luke and Lando have blue sky and sand, as if they’re outside on Tatooine.
Each 3-inch figure costs $12.95 and they’re all blind-boxed, so you have no idea what you’re getting if you just buy a box at the park. In this case, buying opened figures on eBay is probably the better idea, since I was able to get all of these for retail price, and pick out only the characters I really wanted. Hardcore collectors may opt to get a full case of these in order to get the “chaser” and variant figures. In this case, the variant is Leia as Boushh with her helmet off, but as that one has been selling for $150 to $200 on eBay, I think it’s safe to say that I’ll be skipping it.
Of course the biggest news for Jabba fans is that they also released a jumbo Jabba the Hutt figure with Salacious Crumb. Rest assured, I have one of these on its way to me and will post about it when it arrives. There’s also going to be a limited edition Han in Carbonite released a bit later that I hope to get.
(Please excuse the wrinkles. :)) This shirt was sold at Target stores a few months ago. It features two stormtroopers in front of Jabba’s Palace on Tatooine. The “wish you were here” message is supposed to evoke a vacation snapshot or postcard. It’s kind of cute, but of course I can’t help wonder why they’re normal stormtroopers and not sandtroopers.
Putting stormtroopers in front of Jabba’s Palace is kind of an interesting juxtaposition because in the movies Jabba was basically independent and didn’t directly serve the Empire. We never saw any imperial agents (aside from bounty hunters like Boba Fett) in or around the palace. So in a way maybe it makes sense for stormtroopers to be posing in front of his palace, since it would have been a bit exotic to them. But maybe I’m reading too much into this…
In any case, I really think it would have worked better to use a non-white shirt. As it is, it looks like they were intending the white part of the transfer to blend in with the white of the shirt, but they’re slightly different colors. If they had used a darker color, it would’ve looked more like a snapshot. I saw this in my local Target twice and passed it up both times, since it was a little on the expensive side and didn’t quite work for me in terms of the design. In the end I got it for less than retail on eBay (probably from someone who found it on clearance).
JABBA (Japan Basketball Association) Pin
Okay, strictly speaking this is not actually a Jabba the Hutt item. But I’ve come across pins and other items from JABBA (the Japan Basketball Association) many times over the years, and thought it would be interesting to have something from them. As a Jabba the Hutt fan who also happens to be a Japanese translator, having a pin with both “JABBA” and the Japanese flag on it seemed rather appropriate. (I joked to my wife that this item combined two of my favorite things — basketball and pins.) I don’t know how old this pin is, but it does seem to have some age to it. JABBA has been around since 1930, so it could be fairly old.
Speaking of Japan, I will be there for most of the month of June, so as usual I’ll be keeping an eye out for any interesting Jabba items, but I didn’t have very good luck last time. Still, I do plan to take my son to Tokyo Disneyland for a day, and they’ve only just opened their new “Star Tours: The Adventure Continues” attraction. Apparently there is some new Disney/Star Wars mashup merchandise available there, so it’s possible there might be something related to Jabba.
This cup was used in 1983 at 7-11 stores for Slurpee frozen drinks. The first thing that struck me when I got it in hand was how small it was. It’s apparently a 16-ounce cup, though, which is probably about the same as the current “small” size. We don’t have any 7-11 stores in the area, but my impression of Slurpees is that they usually come in much larger sizes than this.
In any case, it is decorated with Jabba’s Sail Barge on one side and C-3PO, Yak Face and Ree Yees on the other. They made several other designs as well. This one has yellowed rather badly with age, although it’s made of a thick enough plastic that I imagine many people took them home and saved them, rather than just tossing them after drinking.
Strangely, this is the first gift wrap to make its way into my collection. I’m not sure if it’s because they don’t normally put Jabba on wrapping paper, or because wrapping paper is such a disposable commodity that people don’t normally collect it. Probably a bit of both.
The label has no date on it, but the fact that it uses the CGI version of Jabba obviously puts it at least in the late 90s, after the “Special Editions” were released. The color scheme certainly has a 90’s feel to it, but it’s hard to say exactly when it was made.
There’s something kind of hilarious about this whole design.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 