Custom Mighty Muggs Salacious Crumb
As you may or may not know, Hasbro isn’t really making any new Mighty Muggs (at least for Star Wars). But they did recently release some Target-exclusive Star Wars “Mini Muggs,” which are basically just miniature versions of Mighty Muggs (using an art style that’s even cuter than the original). I don’t know if they plan to release very many of these beyond the few that are in stores now. I personally think that the Mighty Muggs probably should have been this size all along, since the actual Muggs are really too large for most people to buy large numbers of. But it’s really too late to make the switch, since they’ve released so many in the large size and people aren’t likely to want to mix them.
Because of the ears they added to the Yoda Mighty Mugg, I had long wanted to use it as the basis for a Salacious Crumb custom, but he was one of the most expensive ones to get on the secondary market, so I never did it. Thus, I was very interested to see that one of the Mini Muggs was Yoda. Not only did he have the ears I needed, but he was the perfect size relative to my Jabba custom.
I’m relatively happy with the way it turned out. As usual, I had some trouble replicating the Mugg design esthetic, and even more trouble drawing clean lines and shapes, but it’s not too bad. To make the tail, I cut off Yoda’s lightsaber and (ahem) stuck it in a hole that I drilled in the figure’s hind end. Here he is with Jabba:
Vintage Ceramic Jabba Lamp
There were a number of pieces like this made in the late 70s and early 80s featuring various Star Wars characters. (Here’s a good entry on the SWCA about this genre of collecting.). These would have all been made by amateurs, probably at “paint your own pottery” kinds of businesses that were fairly common in the 70s and 80s.
I’m not positive if these were pre-made pieces that people would just glaze and otherwise decorate, or if there were molds that allowed people to make them from scratch. I’m leaning toward the former. Mine has a name carved in the bottom (“M. Meyers”).
This is really only a lamp in the loosest sense of the word, and in fact I consider it a statue more than anything. It had two Christmas lights on a cord with a switch stuffed inside, but there’s no place for the light to get out except on the bottom, so I’m not sure what the person who made it was thinking. I removed the cord since it was easy to do so without breaking anything (it was just sort of loose inside) and didn’t look like it would function in any case.
I have also seen one of these made up to be a proper lamp with a shade and everything. You can see that the bottom does have a recessed area that would presumably allow the piece to sit flat on a table even with a cord sticking out, so I do think they had this kind of thing in mind when they sculpted it.
In any case, it’s a pretty cool piece of unlicensed sculpture, and fairly large at about 9″ tall and wide. It is a little spooky, though. I get sort of a hypnotoad vibe from it…
Salacious Crumb Art Poster by Rhys Cooper (Mondo/Alamo Drafthouse)
Mondo recently started selling a series of Star Wars-themed art prints that has been quite popular. Each one is limited to around 400 or so prints, and they all seem to sell out in a matter of minutes when they are made available online. This is the first one that I’ve gotten, but they’re all pretty cool and unique. It’s quite large, at about 2′ by 3′ and the colors are quite impressive (the photo above is of my copy rolled out on the floor, but it doesn’t quite do it justice).
I think this one would look really nice behind my Sideshow Life Size Salacious Crumb, although I don’t have room to do that right at the moment. Here’s hoping that they do one of Jabba!
Operation: Huttlet
This book is similar in many ways to my last entry, “The Search for Grubba the Hutt.” They’re both short books targeted at kids featuring a story that involves a kidnapped young relative of Jabba (Rotta his son in this case, and Grubba his nephew in the other). They’re similar in physical thickness, but this book is even shorter at 48 pages with copious illustrations taken directly from the Clone Wars movie.
But while “The Search for Grubba the Hutt” was a quirky combination choose-your-own-adventure and simple role playing game, this book is basically just a simple novelization of the movie. Actually, it reads more like a summary in many places. It’s basically a more advanced version of “Watch Out For Jabba the Hutt” (which was for beginning readers and really just introduced the characters). This book does lay out the main story of the movie. But the Clone Wars movie wasn’t really the most compelling film I’ve ever seen, so you can imagine how exiting it is to read this book.
This is number 6 in the “Star Wars Missions” series of books, which are a combination “Choose Your Own Adventure” and very simple role playing game. They don’t explain how to play in this book, but from what I can tell you create a character with certain attributes and roll a 6-sided die against those attributes from time to time in the book. Depending on the choices you make and the results of your rolls, the story will follow different paths.
This is a Scholastic book, and it’s under 80 pages long, so it’s pretty obvious that it’s intended for kids. There’s a pretty good summary of the plot here, but in short, Jabba’s nephew Grubba has been kidnapped, and Han Solo has to rescue him or face the consequences. I’ve read conflicting information about whether Hutts reproduce asexually, or are just hermaphroditic (possessing qualities of both sexes), so I’m not sure if it actually makes sense for Jabba to have a “nephew.” Maybe these are just the closest human terms to describe relationships that don’t really exist in our experience. Or maybe Lucasfilm just doesn’t care that much about consistency…
In any case, the thing I find most interesting about this book is the similarity it has to the Clone Wars movie. In both cases, a young Hutt relative of Jabba’s is kidnapped and must be returned to him. Of course Rotta is a baby while Grubba in this book is more of an adolescent, but considering that this book is from 1998, it’s interesting to see these kinds of parallels.
Vintage Jabba’s Palace Cork Board by Manton
Like the Rebo Band version, this is part of a series of Return of the Jedi cork boards put out by Manton in 1983. At 23″ wide by 17″ tall, this one is more than twice as big as the Rebo Band one. It’s quite colorful and has most of the major characters, although it might have been nice to fit Han Solo in there somewhere (even if only in his carbonite slab). There’s one more cork board in the series that I have yet to get. It features Jabba, C-3PO, R2-D2 and some Gamorrean Guards, but is the smaller 11″ by 17″ size.
“Return to Hutt Mountain” T-Shirt from Redbubble.com
Designed by the artist “robotrobotROBOT,” this t-shirt is one of many that you can have custom printed at Redbubble.com. I got it in a child’s size for my son, since I figured it would look a bit better on a five-year-old. It features R2-D2 and Yoda on snowboards, Chewbacca on skis, snowball-hurling wampas, and of course “Mt. Jabba” himself.
Here’s a better look at the design:
Tim Rose Autograph (Celebration V)
This is an autograph by Tim Rose, who was the puppeteer for Salacious Crumb in Return of the Jedi. He also did Sy Snootles and Admiral Ackbar. This is a bit of an unusual shot of Crumb. I kind of wish his head was turned toward the camera more, but you do get a nice close-up view of him and the throne that he’s sitting on.
News: Adidas Jabba the Hutt Shoes Now Available on Adidas.com
I’ve been checking for the past several weeks and the Jabba shoes are now finally available on Adidas.com. For whatever reason, they were the last to appear, after all of the other characters. They’re very pricey at $140, but when is the next time you’ll be able to buy Jabba shoes? These will sell out in a matter of days, so get them now if you want them.
Vintage Hi-C Mail-Away Return of the Jedi T-Shirt
This great kids’ T-Shirt was only available through a mail-away offer done by Hi-C Juice Drink in 1983, although there is no mention of Hi-C anywhere on the shirt. It features most of the main characters from Return of the Jedi, including Jabba, Bib Fortuna, a Gamorrean Guard and the Rebo Band. I don’t think I’ve seen this art used anywhere else, which makes it kind of unique.
I found an image of the original mail-away form on Flickr. Worth a look just for the photo of two kids decked out in their Hi-C Star Wars shirts and hats.
Mighty Jabba's Collection 