News: Vintage Jabba the Hutt Play-Doh Set on Pawn Stars
I was watching the latest episode of Pawn Stars a minute ago (the Halloween episode), and I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw that someone had brought in a vintage Jabba the Hutt Play-Doh Playset. The customer wanted $100 for it, which seems high for this piece, even in unopened condition. It’s true that they’re not all that common, but items like the Play-Doh playsets aren’t nearly as popular with collectors as the Kenner toys, even though I love them personally.
Rick, the owner of the pawnshop, gave the guy a bit of a hard time for knowing the name of Jabba’s sidekick Salacious Crumb, so I’d hate to hear what his reaction to my collection might be. 😉 He ended up paying $50 for the set, which is pretty generous considering that he will then need to sell it at a profit. But in any case, I was excited to see one of my favorite Jabba collectibles getting a little love on a popular show like this. If you want to see the episode in question it can be streamed at the moment on history.com, although I believe they only make full episodes available for a limited time.
As a side note, I recently got a large spike in traffic coming to this site from Google searches on “Jabba the Hutt Play-Doh” and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. I’m betting that this episode was the reason.
Rainbow Foil (Chase) Jabba the Hutt Dog Tag by Topps
Topps has put out a couple of series of Star Wars-themed dog tags, one with images from the live-action movies (like this Jabba, also seen on the right above) and one with images from the Clone Wars cartoon (like this Jabba). In addition to the 24 normal tags in each set, each tag also has an alternate rainbow foil version (like this Jabba) that is much harder to get. There’s only one per box of 24, so getting the foil versions of all the characters would be almost impossible without ebay. I’m glad I just want the Jabba ones… The rainbow effect on this tag is even more difficult to see than on the Clone Wars version, but you can see a bit of a rainbow on the tag on the left, in addition to the difference in the overall color.
Rancor and Keeper Metal Miniatures (For Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game) by West End Games
Like the Jabba’s Palace set of miniatures, the Rancor Pit Collector’s Set was put out by West End games for Star Wars: The Role Playing Game. The rancor itself is in 5 pieces (torso & head, two arms and two legs) and is quite heavy. Seriously, you could probably use this as a weapon of some sort. The sculpt isn’t bad, but it does look a little odd to me somehow. It’s more or less the correct scale relative to the keeper and the other models in the series. (Click for a larger view.)
Like the Jabba’s Palace set, this also comes with an insert describing the characters that has their game stats on the reverse. I would say that this set is a lot harder to find than the Jabba’s Palace one. While I wouldn’t really call either “rare” it is certainly harder to get the rancor set at a reasonable price.
Jabba’s Palace Metal Miniatures (For Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game) by West End Games
Although I haven’t played a roleplaying game in years, as a kid/teenager I used to absolutely love things like Dungeons & Dragons. I had a fairly large collection of roleplaying games and related books that I liked to look through.
I don’t believe I ever actually played Star Wars: The Role Playing Game, but I do still have a number of the books. I never really thought metal miniatures were necessary for roleplaying games, since in most cases the action took place entirely in our imaginations, but it’s cool to have 3D representations of some of the characters. And having also played tabletop wargames like Warhammer, I’m quite familiar with miniatures like these. I’ve painted hundreds of them over the years. In fact, I have already posted about the Jabba that I painted from this set, but for some reason I never got around to posting about the entire set.
These particular miniatures were released by West End Games in 1989 as a supplement to their Star Wars roleplaying game. They definitely remind me of the miniatures that were made for Dungeons & Dragons. These are smaller and less exaggerated in their sculpting than the ones put out by Citadel Miniatures for use in Warhammer.
The set comes with 8 miniatures: Jabba the Hutt on his throne, Bib Fortuna, a Quarren, a Nikto guard, a Gamorrean Guard, Oola, Lando in Armor and “Ephant Mon” (who is actually a mislabeled J’Quille/Tooth Face, and not Ephant Mon at all).
Here is the included insert, which has the stats for use in the roleplaying game on the reverse side.
Vintage Trilogo Sy Snootles and the Rebo Band (European Version)
Trilogo packaging was introduced as a way to reduce costs, since it would allow the same product to be sold in several different countries, without requiring that packages in different languages be created. Some of them even ended up being sold in the US for bargain prices toward the end of the end of the lifespan of the Kenner toy line. They weren’t very popular with US collectors for quite some time, but now they are somewhat sought after. The site Trilogo.info is a good source for just about everything about these toys.
When I got this in the mail I was quite surprised how small it was, since I only had experience with the US version which is quite (some would say unnecessarily) large — see below. I believe the figures themselves are identical to the US versions. As you can see, the packaging is quite different, with the European version featuring a large photo of the toys, and the US version showing the toys themselves under clear plastic.
The Star Wars Book of Masks
I finally managed to find a good deal on The Star Wars Book of Masks, which was released in 1983 and includes a couple of masks from Jabba’s Palace (Gamorrean Guard and Bib Fortuna, to be specific). They’re perforated, so you just need to punch them out and tie on some string to wear them as masks. This isn’t really a rare book, but they tend to be already punched out, so finding one that’s intact is nice. Starwars.com has posted a PDF of the masks from the book that you can print out if you so desire.
Some other posts from the past that might be appropriate for Halloween are my entry from a couple of years ago about the Rubies Jabba the Hutt Halloween costume, and some posts from last year about the Jabba’s Palace chocolates my son and I made, and the Jabba the Hutt and Salacious Crumb pumpkins we carved. I also posted about a vintage Gamorrean Guard costume for kids a few months ago.
Vintage Lili Ledy Jabba the Hutt Action Playset (Mexican Version)
While Kenner was the primary company that manufactured Star Wars toys in their heyday in the 1980s, there were also a number of regional companies that had the Star Wars license and put out their own versions of the toys. In Mexico, there were quite a few unlicensed bootleg figures available, but there were also licensed toys being manufactured at the time by a company called Lili Ledy. They were basically the same as what Kenner put out, but the packaging and in some cases the materials used in the figures themselves were different, making them attractive to many Star Wars collectors. Some of the Ledy figures can be very valuable — especially mint in the package. Mine can’t exactly be called “mint” but packages for the Ledy Jabba playset are hard to find in any condition.
Mexican Lili Ledy Jabba the Hutt Action Playset
The Lili Ledy version of the Jabba the Hutt Action Playset is an interesting case for a couple of reasons. The most obvious is the box art. Aside from the obvious differences (like it being entirely in Spanish), it also uses a completely different photo of the toy than the one used on the American version. Compare the Ledy version above with the Kenner version below and you’ll see what I mean. The figures are in different positions, and I’ve also read that they are actually different versions of the figures themselves, although I don’t think I could tell that at a glance.
American Jabba the Hutt Playset by Kenner
But to me the most interesting part is that the photo isn’t even centered on the front of the package — you can see that it’s way off to the right side for some reason. Some have speculated that these differences were the result of an error on Lili Ledy’s part where they used the wrong photo sent to them by Kenner (and then apparently compounded it by not having it centered). Whatever the story, it makes this version pretty unusual.
The photos on the top of the box (below) are the same as on the American version:
The photos on the bottom and sides are the “Ledy” version of the photo, but centered:
The Jabba toy itself looks a lot like the Kenner version. Most Star Wars figure variations tend to be a bit on the “microscopic” side, but there are a couple of big differences you could probably notice if you had both versions in hand.
The biggest one to me is that the Ledy head is cast in a different kind of plastic than the Kenner version. It’s a bit different in color and it’s much softer. You can easily squash it out of shape, while the Kenner version barely yields at all.
The other main difference is the arms. On the Ledy version they are cast in a harder plastic that actually seems to make the details significantly sharper than on the Kenner version. They’re also a different color.
I’m not sure if there are other differences, because there’s quite a bit of variance even between different Kenner Jabbas, and in the nearly 30 years since they have been made, some have deteriorated while others have not, making it difficult to tell what is legitimately a variant and what is just plastic or paint breaking down. From what I can tell, the Salacious Crumb figure and the throne are more or less the same, although there are two little “dots” on the railing of the Ledy version of the throne that don’t seem to be present on the Kenner version. I’ve seen these on other people’s Ledy thrones, so I think it’s a consistent difference.
In any case, I was quite happy to finally be able to track one of these down with the box, as they are not easy to find. I’m getting close to my goal of having every version of the Jabba playset.
As a side note, this is known in Spanish as the “Jabba the Hutt Juego de Accion” — I find it interesting that in the 80s they just said “Jabba the Hutt” instead of “Jabba el Hutt” as they apparently do today.
Jabba the Hutt Power Plate (Mini-License Plate) by Topps
This is from a new series of Star Wars mini-license plates by Topps. It’s a bit of an odd concept at first glance, but also sort of clever as well. Each one is in the shape of a vanity license plate, with a license number that is connected to the character whose plate it is. Some, like R2-D2 or C-3PO have plates that are just their names, which is a little on the boring side. Others are more clever, like FRMBOY for Luke or ITSATRAP for Ackbar. Jabba’s plate reads “GNGSTR” (Gangster). Star Wars Guide has a list of the entire series here. There is also a Slave Leia one that shows the sail barge, so I might have to get that as well…
The plates are pretty small — around 4 inches long — but they are made of metal, and in that sense they remind me a bit of the metal trading cards by Metallic Images that I posted about a while back. Each one has a magnet on the back, so you can put them on your fridge or whatever. These are blind-packed and sold at placed like Target for $1.99 apiece, although I just bought the Jabba one directly from somebody who had an extra, since I didn’t like my odds of finding the one in 30 that I actually wanted.
“Jabba El Hutt” Card from Sabritas Chips (Mexico)
This is a small game card that was included with chips manufactured by Sabritas in Mexcio, including ones popular in the US such as Doritos, Ruffles, and Tostitos. Obviously since the subject matter is the Clone Wars animated series, it’s not particularly old — maybe a couple of years at most. Apparently you were supposed to collect the cards and then play the game with your friends. This doesn’t come through in the picture, but the background behind Jabba is a sort of holographic foil that actually looks pretty cool. There’s more information (in Spanish) on this site, including pictures of how the cards were attached to the chip packages (the site has some popup ads, though, so watch out for those).
Here’s a commercial for the cards (also in Spanish):
Han Solo in Carbonite Statue by Applause
Released in the mid 90s, this statue depicts Leia as Boushh about to defrost Han Solo in Jabba’s Palace, and is in the same series as the Jabba the Hutt and Rancor statues that I posted about earlier. All of these statues all done in a monochromatic finish. I thought that the Jabba one, and to a lesser extent the Rancor, was intended to look like a metal statue, but with this one it seems like they were going for more of a stone look. All of the statues are in different scales, and the style of the Jabba statue in particualr is a lot more stylized than this one, but they look okay displayed together. My guess is that they went with these finishes because they’re a lot easier to pull off that a realistic paint job (particularly at this price point) but I’d be interested to see what this would look like painted realistically.
It’s fairly large at about 10″ tall. It’s supposed to have a light in it that will shine down on Han’s face, but mine doesn’t seem to work. For some reason, this is one of the harder Applause statues to find. They don’t show up on eBay very often at all, while the Jabba and Rancor ones are always available.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 
