Upcoming: Jabba the Hutt Ornament from Hallmark
Hallmark has unveiled a Jabba the Hutt ornament at SDCC. They’ve come out with an impressive number of Star Wars ornaments over the years, so I’ve been waiting quite some time for them to release a Jabba. They did release some Max Rebo Band ornaments a few years ago, but I don’t think they are in scale with this one — Jabba looks much bigger judging by the size of the hook in his back. In fact, he looks almost big enough to be impractical as a Christmas tree ornament, although I don’t know the exact size. The sculpt looks quite good. Thanks to a reader for the tip!
[Photo from the Action Figure Times]
Vintage European Bi-Logo Jabba the Hutt Action Playset
This version of the vintage Jabba playset was sold in Europe. I got mine from England, but I’m not sure if it was actually sold there — most auctions I’ve seen from the UK are for the American English version. This version is a little hard to come by the US, so while my example isn’t in perfect condition, it still took a while to find. It’s often referred to as the “bi-logo version” due to the two “Return of the Jedi” logos on one side (in French and Spanish), although it’s only got one logo on the other side (in English). It’s certainly the most international version — I count at least 6 languages on the box (English, Dutch, French, Spanish, German and Italian). Unfortunately I don’t have the instructions. Those would be interesting to see in all the different languages. The toy itself is identical to the US version, as far as I know.
One of the goals I set out for myself when I started collecting Jabba-related items was to get all of the versions of the vintage Jabba playset. I believe this is the last of the major variations that I needed. I understand that there are some foreign versions which were just the American playset with a foreign language sticker on it, but in terms of unique boxes, I believe I have them all: the American full-color version, the American line art version (Sears version), the Canadian version, the Lili Ledy (Mexican) version, and finally this European bi-logo version. If anyone knows of other versions, I’d be very interested to hear about it.
Upcoming: First Photos of LEGO Rancor Pit Set?
This is as-yet unconfirmed, but a little birdie gave me this photo of what appears to be the new LEGO Rancor Pit set to be announced at SDCC on July 14th. It looks as though it would fit perfectly under the new Jabba’s Palace. The rancor looks cool (and pretty big) and it’s nice that we finally get a Rancor Keeper as well. Now we just need a LEGO Rebo Band…
Yodasnews just posted some shots from the Gentle Giant booth at SDCC showing Sy Snootles and Droopy McCool mini-busts (EDIT: I have replaced these shots with better ones from Rebelscum.) At first blush, these seem to be a bit of an odd choice, since Gentle Giant already made a nice statue of the Max Rebo Band in a similar scale (a bit smaller than these). I’m also wondering what they are going to do about a Max Rebo bust, since it’s hard to have him without his piano…
They also have a shot of the Ree Yees mini-bust that I posted about a little while ago. Back then it was only concept art, so this is our first glimpse of the actual thing. It’s nice to see so many new additions to my Jabba’s Palace display, although it looks like I’m going to need to move them to a bigger cabinet!
I’ve just learned that LEGO will be announcing a Rancor Pit set at San Diego Comic Con on July 14th. Presumably it will be a companion piece to the new LEGO Jabba’s Palace. I’m hoping that it will be possible to actually place it below the palace, so that minifigures can be sent to their doom through Jabba’s trap door. The image above is from the DVD of The Padawan Menace, but the Jabba they show in that movie is pretty close to what we got, so I’m thinking that the rancor and keeper will also be similar to what you see here. Stay tuned for more info and pictures as soon as I get them!
“Jabba the Hutt” Print by Gary Tymon
I got this print of Jabba and his palace from UK-based artist Gary Tymon. It’s A4 size, which is 11.75″ x 8.25″. The work on Jabba’s face in particular is flawless. Very impressive. And the quality of the print is quite good, with vibrant colors. I got this on ebay.uk, but I see that he’s also selling them on his website for a very reasonable price.
I posted about the individual Jabba the Hutt and Sy Snootles candy containers a couple of years ago, but here is an original packing box, which also doubled as an in-store display box. When you open the top lid, you punch out a perforated section and fold it over to form the back of the display.
I was very interested to see what this looked like when I opened it up. The arrangement of the candy containers might look haphazard, but there’s actually a plastic base in the bottom with indentations in the exact shape of each container. I think they probably did this to keep the heads in place during shipping and also to enable them to get 18 containers in a space that might normally have only held 16 or so. It also seems to mean that this selection of characters held true for every box (there’s 4 Wickets, 4 baby ewoks, 3 Jabbas, 3 Vaders, 2 Ackbars and 2 Sy Snootles). So half of the containers are ewoks, which certainly seems like overkill to me. But of course the ewoks were probably popular with the age group that might be buying this candy (and I have my suspicions that Lucasfilm might have encouraged licensees to push ewoks as well).
After seeing this box, my first question was, “Are these really ‘loaded with candy?'” After opening up a few, I’d say yes. Yes they are. I even had a little trouble getting the candy back in to the Ackbar container once I had taken it out. Of course, it’s only .4 ounces of candy, but I don’t think you really would want a lot more.
The Jabba and Sy Snootles containers that I had in the past were all empty, but I did have one full C-3PO head from a previous wave, and the candy inside just looked like little cylinders. So I was surprised to find that the candy in these containers is actually shaped like the characters. I opened about half of the containers and never found an Ackbar or Sy Snootles candy, so my guess is that they decided to replace them with C-3PO and R2-D2 candies. Maybe it’s because they were more recognizable in candy form. I found the distribution of candies to be very uneven. I only got two Jabba candies in the first 4 containers I opened, and then in the fifth container I got 14 Jabbas. I’ll have to admit, Jabba looks even more like a pile of poop than usual here.
I’d be willing to bet that these candies look exactly the same now as when they were originally packaged. I thought about eating one, but this is nearly 30-year-old candy that we’re talking about so… Of course I ate one. 😀 It seemed fine, actually. This kind of candy was never very tasty, but it seemed perfectly edible to me. Not that I plan to eat any more…
Funko Pop Jabba the Hutt Vinyl Bobble-head
I got the Funko Pop Gamorrean Guard figure for Christmas last year, and I like it fairly well even though I don’t really care for bobble-heads in general. Funko just recently released their Jabba the Hutt figure, so naturally I picked one up. It’s pretty cute overall, although there’s something a little odd — almost birdlike? — about the face. It’s a bit bigger than I had expected, although part of that is due to the fact that he doesn’t have a base like the other figures in the series.
Funko has a pretty impressive lineup of these figures going, with characters from a variety of licenses like DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Disney, Hello Kitty and a lot more. I was surprised to find a pretty large selection of these at my local Barnes & Noble (although they didn’t have Jabba yet). I guess I’ll have to pick up their new Slave Leia as well…
The new LEGO Jabba’s Palace (set 9516) and Desert Skiff (9496) are now starting to become available in the US, at least at online stores. For example, I was able to find the palace on sites like Walmart.com, Toysrus.com, and Amazon.com (although I would advise against purchasing from Toys R Us as the price is $30 higher for the palace). I have yet to see the sets in any local stores, but it’s just a matter of time now.
Yesterday I posted about the Jabba and Slave Leia Mimobots that Mimoco just release as part of Mimobot Series 8. But I also picked up three from Series 7, which came out last year. Above, you can see all of them in their packages. The series 7 and 8 drives come in essentially the same generic packaging, with nothing on the package to distinguish one character from another, aside from a sticker. (Han in the middle is in a different kind of package due to his case.)
My favorite in this wave is certainly Han. He comes with a carbonite block carrying case that the actual Mimobot fits into. It’s got a lanyard on it that you could use to attach it to a bag or a keychain.
Open it up and you can see Han inside, fresh from the carbonite and presumably blind as a bat. He starts at 4GB capacity for $27.95 and goes up to 16GB for $47.95.
The other normal Mimobots in Series 7 start out 2GB for $17.95, while the Series 8 ones start at 8GB for $19.99. The price difference between the 2GB and 8GB is only $2.04, so you can see how you get a lot more for your money with the Series 8 ones. (They did reduce the prices on the Series 7 ones after Series 8 came out, but they’re still a lot more expensive.)
Boba Fett was released as a part of Series 2 some time ago, but that was the Empire Strikes Back version of the character (basically it has green gauntlets instead of red). But now they have released the Return of the Jedi version as well.
The face on this Leia looks a lot like the one on the Slave Leia from Series 8. Interestingly, the USB connectors on the drives in this wave are a sort of gold color, unlike the silver ones in Series 8.
I mentioned in my last post about the extras you get with Mimobots, and these are no exception. You get a variety of avatars and icons. Lando and Bossk are also in this wave, so you get extras featuring those characters as well, but I’m just going to talk about the ones for Han, Boba Fett and Leia here. Strangely you also get extras featuring a Tie Pilot, even though the Tie Pilot is not in this wave.
You also get some wallpapers featuring the characters in a variety of sizes. Here are a couple of the designs.
Finally, instead of the Soundbyte software that I couldn’t get to work for Series 8, you get a screen saver. It shows the characters sneaking through Jabba’s palace to defrost Han. It’s simple, but at least it works.
Overall, these are nice but the difference in value for money between these and the next series is pretty striking. I’m looking forward to seeing what else Mimoco has in store for Star Wars fans in the future.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 
