Amigurumi Jabba the Hutt (Knitted Stuffed Toy)
“Amigurumi” is Japanese for “knitted stuffed toy.” It’s a style of toy that’s become popular with crafters even outside of Japan in recent years. I got this Amigurumi Jabba from the eBay seller little_hippo, who apparently makes these to order. You can still buy one from her as of this writing, and she has several other Star Wars characters like Boba Fett, Yoda, Chewbacca, and even Lando.
His body is roughly 6 or 7 inches long (depending on if you stretch out his tail) and he stands about 4.5 inches high. As I’ve said in the past, I really like cartoony or cute depictions of Jabba, so this was a must-have for me.
Vintage Gamorrean Guard Soap by Omni Cosmetics
Gamorrean Guard soap. Think about that concept for a minute. Unlike the other characters that Omni made into soaps (Vader, Luke, Leia, C-3PO, Wicket the Ewok and Yoda) Gamorrean Guards aren’t really the kind of character that kids identify with. Plus I doubt that “real” Gamorreans would even consider using soap… It seems strange that they would pick the Gammorean guard over more popular options (or even Jabba himself), but as I’ve said in the past, I think a lot of the licensing decisions were made before companies had the chance to really see the role that a particular character would have in the actual movie.
In any case, this was put out by the same company that made the Jabba the Hutt-shaped bubble bath, so I guess I would consider them to be a sort of a set. Like the bubble bath, this soap has a rather medicinal smell.
Vintage German Return of the Jedi Buttons (Jabba, Gamorrean Guard, and Max Rebo Band) by Rolf Schultz
These buttons might look a little familiar to you if you’ve been reading this site for very long. I wrote about a set of vintage German stickers a while ago that are almost identical in design and size to these buttons. (Interestingly the copyright information that I talked about for the stickers is hidden by the curve of the button, making me think that they made the design with the buttons in mind and then reused it for the stickers.) They are also very similar to the Adam Joseph buttons, with one exception — these are much smaller, at about 1.25″ in diameter (compared to 2″ for the Adam Joseph versions). That may not seem like a big difference until you compare the two. The Adam Joseph ones seem huge!
One other difference is that the German buttons have an “art” version of the Max Rebo Band that isn’t present in the Adam Joseph set. It’s rather odd, considering that all the other buttons are photos, and that the German set also has a button with a photo of Max Rebo on it like the Adam Joseph one on the right here (I don’t have that one yet). You can also see that they cut out the background in the Gamorrean photo for some reason. Not very many people wear buttons anymore, and I’m no exception, but if I had to I would choose the Rolf Schultz ones, since they’re much more understated. I could see wearing something of this size on a lapel.
This is a promotional poster for the Jabba’s Palace Expansion Set for Decypher’s Star Wars Customizable Card Game. It uses a combination of studio photos and shots from Return of the Jedi to create a montage of many characters from Jabba’s palace. I actually think it’s pretty well done. While you can sort of tell that the images were composited together, it does give you the feeling that you’re actually seeing a panoramic view of Jabba’s throne room. It’s fairly large, at 10.5″ by 32″. On the back is a list of the cards in the expansion set.
It came folded into four sections, which I have scanned and reassembled to create the image above (click it for the very large full-sized version). It’s not perfect, since you can see the joins in some places, but it gives you an idea.
I’m not sure what it is about Argentina, but this is the second apparently unique Jabba item I’ve gotten from there (the first was a small toy top). Unlike that one, this appears to be licensed and has a “(C) 2010 LFL China” mark on the bottom. It’s part of a line of 24 Clone Wars figures that were included in large chocolate Easter eggs sold in Argentina. The product name appears to be “Super Jack.”
I got the photo above from the eBay seller I bought this from. The figures are fairly large (Jabba is about 1.5″ tall) so even though the chocolate egg is quite big, I can’t imagine that it could accommodate more than 5 or 6 of them. I’m guessing that they were randomly packed. My figure has some fairly obvious paint rubs even though it was fresh from the package, but in any case it’s refreshing to get a brand new Jabba sculpt like this.
When I got my Jabba/Boba Fett pillowcase a couple of years ago, I didn’t know where it came from — just that it was made in 1997. But I recently found a set of sheets from the same series. These were made by Westpoint Stevens, and included a fitted sheet, flat sheet, and two pillowcases (both have C-3PO on one side and Darth Vader on the other). You can see a variety of characters on the sheets, including Jabba. As it turns out, the Jabba pillowcase was sold separately, as a sort of accessory to the main sheet set.
As you can see in the shot of the package above, they also made a comforter. I kind of like the style of the sheets and pillowcases — especially how each character photo is made up of tiny dots similar to the way a photo looks in an old newspaper — but the color scheme of the comforter is a bit over the top.
I was inspired by Bonnie Burton’s new Star Wars Craft Book and the reader submissions I posted a while ago to try my hand at making some finger puppets. These are my own design — Burton doesn’t really include instructions for these characters in the book. But I did take some hints about general construction from the book. I made these with craft felt from Michael’s. Some parts are sewn together, while others (like the facial features) were attached with fabric glue. I’ve never really done anything like this before, but I think they came out pretty well. My son and I enjoyed playing with them, so I’m thinking of making some more.
Vintage Amanaman Figure by Kenner
Amanaman is another one of those blink-and-you-miss-them characters, but since Kenner decided to make a figure for him in the vintage line, he’ll always be more of a fan favorite than many of the other characters who were in the film for the same amount of time. Of course his distinctive design also helps. This figure was released on a “Power of the Force” card in 1985, toward the end of Kenner’s Star Wars line, and was also included in one version of the Jabba the Hutt Dungeon playset (I don’t have that version yet).
He’s definitely one of the more sought-after figures, especially complete with his staff and coin. Kenner started including aluminum coins in their later releases. This one has a picture of Amanaman on the front, and this text on the back: “Long-armed creature at JABBA’s Court, called ‘Head Hunter’ because of his staff with three heads.” My staff is a bit bent as you can see, and I think that’s a pretty common issue. Given his long arms, it’s a bit difficult to pose him in a way that looks natural holding the staff. Speaking of the staff, it’s a little surprising that they included the three decapitated heads on it, since they generally tried to play it a bit safe with the vintage line.
There haven’t been all that many Amanaman collectibles. Aside from this, there’s only been one other action figure version (the Power of the Jedi figure from Hasbro in 2001). And there was also the Kubrick version released last year. I’d like to see a high-end collectible of some kind, like a statue or 1/6 scale figure. I imagine it’s just a matter of time before Gentle Giant or Sideshow does something with him.
Link: Star Wars Pixel Posters by Michael Myers
Artist Michael Myers has unveiled a series of images portraying Star Wars characters in a pixelated style similar to that used in the iPad/iPhone game Sword and Sworcery. I’ve copied his Jabba here for you to see. I’m a life-long gamer and also do some video game-related work, so I really appreciate how difficult it can be to do something like this well. Give it a look. Thanks to Rod and Danny for telling me about this.
News: New Jabba Statue on the Horizon?
A recent post on the Jabba the Hutt Facebook page about a chocolate Jabba got my curiosity piqued, since I could tell that it wasn’t based on an existing Jabba sculpture. As it turns out, it’s part of a whole Jabba & throne statue that someone is sculpting, as shown on this thread on the Schiflett Brothers Sculpting Forum.
I contacted the sculptor and he confirmed that it was a commission piece for a company that would be sold at some point, but I wasn’t able to get any more info from him. Since he appears to be French, the first thing I thought of was that it might be for Attakus, although it doesn’t quite fit in with their current product lines in terms of its scale. In any case, it looks great and I’m very interested to know more. More pictures below. Click for the full sized versions.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 