Star Wars toys

Cafe Society
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In this thread, I made a reference to my childhood experiences with Star Wars action figures, which spurred don Jaime and Kaspar Hauser to share some of their own experiences.

So, let’s talk about Star Wars toys. Did you have a favorite action figure or vehicle? Any one that you missed out on (or which Kenner didn’t make, but should have)? Did you do anything “peculiar” with your figures?

As I mentioned in the other thread, my particular quirk was recasting the narrative of Star Wars, so that in my world, the Imperial forces were actually the good guys, and the rebels were annoying and ultimately ineffective insurgents who were easily crushed by the Empire’s superior numbers and firepower. As a result, I completely focused my collecting on Imperial stuff–I had nearly every Imperial guy, including the generic Stormtrooper, the generic Imperial officer, the Biker Scout, the Imperial Guard, the Snowtrooper, the AT-AT driver, the AT-ST (Scout Walker) driver, etc., etc.

The prize of my collection was an AT-ST Scout Walker (I think I was particularly proud of it because I paid for it with my own money). It had this silly button on the back that you pushed to make the legs “step”; the effect was somewhat less than convincing. But it looked pretty damn cool standing over the scene of a battle. I alternated the driver between the AT-AT driver and the AT-ST driver.

I also had the Death Star playset, which resembled the actual Death Star in no way. It had three levels, plus the trash compactor. It made no sense to have a trap door to the compactor right in the middle of a control room. Plus, the retractable bridge spanned a laughably short distance. The cannon on the top level would pop off when you pushed a button, this action apparently symbolizing an explosion. The mechanism broke pretty quickly, however, and the cannon wouldn’t stand up on its own anymore. The elevator shaft was kinda cool, though, and you could toss rebel prisoners down it if the interrogation wasn’t going very well (the trash compactor could serve this function, too).

Despite its drawbacks, the Death Star occupied the center of my room, with my other vehicles arranged around it. Besides, the AT-ST, I also had the requisite TIE-fighter (with the wings that popped off to suggest it had blown up–I always hated that the Imperial vehicles usually had these “explosive” features, but the rebel stuff didn’t–it wasn’t like rebel ships were never blown up in the movies!).

However, I was always disappointed that they never made a decent Star Destroyer. They made this thing, which, of course, I also owned. But I rarely played with it, since there wasn’t a whole lot to do with it–you couldn’t really fly it around like a TIE fighter.

The thing I most regretted not having is a real AT-AT. My parents were too cheap to buy it–although, to be fair, I remember it was quite expensive. But I still intend to hold it against them whenever I end up on a psychiatrist’s couch.

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There was a cool die-cast Star Destroyer, complete with a little miniature Tantive IV that snapped into the docking bay. Man, I wish I could get ahold of mine! I think my grandmother sold it at a yard sale.

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For someone (i.e., me) who just passed on his old Star Wars figures and toys to his son, this thread comes at the perfect moment.

Favorite figure? Probably Luke in the tan fatigues, from the Empire Strikes Back line. Most heroic-looking Luke figure, and the light saber was a separate accessory, unlike the ones (Luke, Obi-Wan and Vader) in the first Star Wars line, which slid in and out of the forearm. I have to admit, though, that I had fallen out of collecting them when Return of the Jedi came out, so I can’t judge the entire line as such. I would say, though, that I was tempted to but the hover-bike toy (which the Stormtroopers rode on Endor); that just looked very cool.

I missed out on the full-size Millennium Falcon. As with your AT-AT, a bit too pricey for my parents, so I just had the small die-cast one, and took Han and Chewie out of the box after landing it as if they had just stepped out of it.

My favorite thing was the way the Landspeeder looked so true-to-film with Luke, Obi-Wan, R2-D2 and C-3PO seated in it/on the back just right. Having pegs on the back of the seats so the droids wouldn’t fall off was a well-thought-out touch.

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Oh, and the Tauntaun was cool too, because of the very intelligent way they compensated for the figures’ inability to spread their legs apart. The appearance of legs was built into the saddle, and when you put a figure into the trap door on the back, it really did look like it was straddling the Tauntaun.

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The only full size vehicle I ever got was the ROTJ speeder bike. It was pretty fun to play with because it had a “self-destruct” button behind the seat, which caused it to break into three or four pieces.

My parents were big on getting me die-cast mini-vehicles. I’d ask for an X-Wing, thinking I’d get the full-size toy that you could put an action figure in and I’d get the six inch metal one. Ah, the small disappointments of my lower-middle class upbringing. :wink: I had a die-cast X-Wing, a standard Tie Fighter and Vader’s Tie Fighter. I also had some die cast playsets from ESB, the Cloud City freezing chamber (very fun) and the gantry (less fun) where the “I am your father” scene occurs.

I had a small collection of action figures, nothing really great. I had the Speeder Luke, Bespin Luke, Artoo with the scope, the B-Wing pilot (remember him?), Jabba’s right hand man, a Stormtrooper, and I must of had more but I can’t remember anymore. I played a lot more with my Tron action figures…much cooler! Around about the summer of 1985 my neighbors and I “executed” almost my entire collection by putting them out in the street and letting cars run over them.

I’ll always remember being a gullible three year old. An older neighbor kid who I trusted implictly had the 1977 vintage lightsaber toy. One day he deigned to let me hold it, but said if it touched the blade I’d disappear. And I really and truly believed him and was afraid of it for a long time. :slight_smile:

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Did someone say full-size speeder bike?

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Star Wars toys figured greatly in my childhood birthday and Christmas presents. After a few years of random action figure acquisition there was a motley group of heroes who waged war several times a day against all sorts of enemies. The group was:

The Tan Luke (substitute red light saber), Indiana Jones (same person as Han Solo when you are 5), a burnt out Zartan, Chewbacca (who played more a werewolf role), and He Man (playing the role of a giant, but severely retarded sidekick) Everyone except He Man was given a complete GI Joe weapons upgrade. Also, everyone except He Man traveled in the Millennium Falcon (He Man, who’s name I believe I changed to Malcolm, for no apparent reason) rode of the outside of the Falcon based on the fact that the Falcon had a top speed of about 4 mph.) This was not a problem because most of the fights took place no more than 3 feet from the home base (legos and blocks)

The “Enemy” was mostly comprised of:

Darth Vader, the Baroness, the Emperors Guard (sans stupid red fuzzy cape) the Rancor monster, a broken Optimus Prime and random storm troopers. The Enemy had no vehicles (most probably because if they did get their hands on one, the Good Guys would destroy it, and the Enemy’s funds were severely depleted by hourly “Malcolm” attacks on their base.)

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My little sister broke off the radar dish on my Millenium Falcon on the very Christmas morning I got it.

Twenty years or so later, I still haven’t quite forgiven her.

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I have all my Star Wars toys in pretty good condition, although a little worn out from all the playing I did with them.

I have the “Death Star” - but the string from where you could swing Luke and Leah across the downed walkway is gone. So is the foam grabage from the garbage chute. But I still have the garbage monster creature. The garbage masher is orange with a blue walled screw that you could turn to make it seem like it was compacting. I used to use it as a separate flying ship.

I have the Millenium Falcon, but the chess board and the panel where you could hide under the floor are gone. Still has the radar dish, though. Where the gun rotates on the top, the screw that holds it in place has a slot on the bottom, and I have a Hoth stormtrooper gun that I used to wedge in that slot to resemble the bottom gun that pops out shoots the stormtroopers when the Falcon is trying to escape from Hoth.

I have an amored stormtrooper transport, which is pretty cool. There’s a place for a driver and passenger up front with suicide doors, then there’s six “cups” around the sides that you can place action figures in, standing up. There’s a cargo area on the back, and - the best part - with batteries in it you can play six different sound effects: “There’s one - set for stun”, “R2D2 where are you?”, and some different gun firing noises, and an Artoo noise.

I have the “patrol dewback” - that green lizard thing. Also very lame - if you moved its tail, its head would move also. This one is pretty trashed, b/c I didn’t like it and didn’t take very good care of it.

I’ve got a speeder bike from ROTJ. The cool thing about it is that there’s two spoilers in the back that are closed when it sits on its legs, but when you pick it up off the ground the spoilers open up and stick out the back. The “self-destruct” button is also very cool.

I have the Slave I - Boba Fett’s ship. It has a “trigger” you can hold down to keep the wings in a locked position, then when you let go the wings rotate into flying position. It’s also got a plastic Han frozen in Carbonite.

I’ve got a Twin Pod Cloud Car - pretty lame, actually - no batteries, nothing that great, just two cockpits where you can place action figures. The landing gear retracts, that’s about it.

I have a snowspeeder, which has a grappling hook with thread (not original I don’t think). The battery case was on the top back by the engines, and I used to open it up to simulate Rogue Two using it as a wing foil when he’s searching for Han and Luke. It has a great gun noise - two lighted barrels down each wing would light up in sequence with a pulsing sound effect.

Probably the star of the collection is Darth Vader’s head that holds all my action figures. I have a ton of action figures, and I even sent proof-of-purchase seals to get some extra guns and the clear plastic gas masks from the Mynock scene. You stand up the action figures in it, and there’s a little door that holds all the guns.

After re-reading this post on preview, I have come to the realization that I’m a complete and utter dork. :slight_smile:

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My most remembered Star Wars toy was the electronic Star Wars X-Wing Aces shooting game. It had a mounted light gun and a “projector” underneath it which shone an image of a TIE fighter on a Death Star background. As it flew around, you shot at it with your ligh gun. If you hit it, the image changed to an explosion. It was the coolest toy I ever had, and I still don’t know how it worked.

Then mom gave it away in a church donation drive. THANKS A HEAP, MOM!

(Last I checked, it was worth $5000 now)

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That reminds me: I did have a die-cast Star Destroyer. However, it didn’t have the additional Tantive IV model.

I also had a die-cast model of Darth Vader’s TIE-fighter.

For my rebel forces, I used to supplement the real Kenner figures with Fisher-Price Adventure People, who generally received a lot of abuse from me and my sibings (I once horribly mutilated an Adventure Person by holding his feet to a lightbulb that was switched on–the stench of melting plastic will haunt me for the rest of my days).

I also had a Tauntaun, but he was a “special” edition–his belly was split open so you could stick Luke inside it. But I really would have rather had a dewback (I never owned one of those).

Almost all of my collection is still at my parents’ house, though they’ve let their grandchildren play with them so they’re in rough shape now. I think the Death Star playset is long gone. My TIE fighter is still in decent shape, as is the Scout Walker. But the kids have lost most of the guns.

Not that they were in such great shape when I was a kid, either. Luke and Darth lost their forearm light-sabers long ago. Darth’s cape got torn at the arm hole, and patched up with electrical tape. And my sister chewed on my Stormtrooper’s hand, distorting it so much he couldn’t handle firearms very well (hey, just like the movie Stormtroopers!). Like Dewey Cheatem Undhow, I’m still nursing a grudge over that.

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A while back, I found this page, which has a number of the old Kenner ads from the 80s. Quality is rather poor, but I think you can get the gist of them. A divx codec for WMP is at the bottom of the page, along with a little bonus cartoon you might find interesting.

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I know how you feel, Max Carnage. I had the Droid Factory, which is apparently worth a small fortune today.

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Somewhere there is an old plastic trashbag bulging with well-used and half-eaten-by-dogs action figures, vehicles and what-not.

The dustiest of my memories involve the “turn at the chimes” read-along picture book and tapes from the original SW. “…tear this ship apart untill you find those plans, and bring me the passengers. I want them alive!” magical chimes

I had original “Luke with light-speeder”, Leia, Obi-Wan, and a Jawa or two. I only spent my hard-earned pennies on the “good guys” and had to suppliment any epic battles with my neighbor Jake’s highly superior collection, which included plenty of the dark side. Jake also had one of those cool carry-cases shaped like Darth Vader’s bust that held seemingly endless figures (probably 15 or 20 of them). MUCH cooler than a beat up plastic bag.

I remember the little pieces of plastic “light sabres” that you slid in and out of their arm. I remember my stuffed animals standing in as missing characters, vehicles, or other environmental props as needed. I remember wadding up a white sheet or blanket “just so” and pretending it was an ice cave for my Tauntaun. My youthfull self also thought the work-around to the straight legs while mounted on a Tauntaun was ingenious.

But most of all I remember how much more “advanced” the figures seemed to get with each newly released movie in the original trilogy. I also remember wondering if it would be considered “dorky” if I enjoyed playing with the same caliber of toys from the age of 3 (when SW was originally released) all the way through the ages of 9 and 10 (when RotJ came out), but since being “dorky” wasn’t something I was inclined to give up, the answer to that question didn’t really matter to me.

There was certainly more sexual suggestion in the imaginings with the RotJ figures as opposed to the SW figures. Also quite quickly after the fanfare from RotJ died down was when I lost track of the bulging plastic bag and all of its contents. What a walk down memory lane it would be to go through it now.

To this day my Mom and I cannot remember what happened to it. She swears I gave it to some kid or left it behind after a sleep-over. I swear she gave it to some kid without my permission to punish me for not putting my toys away.

Neither of us, obviously, are currently profiting on eBay due to this glaring lack of foresight. But then again maybe Mom is holding out on me… :dubious:

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Ah, the Star Wars toys. I wish I had more of them, but my brother and I were pretty hard on toys.

The light sabre? That lasted maybe a week. It was a flashlight with a plastic tube stuck to it. I think we beat each other with it for a few days before it fell into pieces.

We were big on the action figures, especially the original ones from '77. Luke with his arm-sabre, Leia with her plastic cape-like thing. My cousins, who got all the good toys, had the Falcon and the land speeder. We had to make due with the speedboat from our Fischer-Price Adventure People. The action figures did live in the Darth Vader carrying case, so that was something.

Not really toys, but those photo cards from the movies… I think we had about a million cards. They still turn up in very unlikely places in my parents’ house.

My favorite is the Chewbacca stuffed plush doll. Through some miracle, he still has his bandolier. Lest this seem too girly, he belonged to my brother, not me. My mother has this sort of folk art theme going on for Christmas (I promise this comes back to SW in a moment). In the front hall, she displays a collection of antique toys, the centerpiece being a toddler-size Shaker rocking chair, and during my childhood, one of those creepy folk art rag dolls with no face was placed in the chair, holding a giant candy cane. One year it seems that the creepy doll was lost between one Christmas and the next, and my brother and I came home from college and walked in the house, to see Chewbacca in the place of honor, complete with candy cane, in the middle of the folk art tableau. My mother doesn’t have a good grasp on who Chewbacca is, we think. We about died laughing, and it’s become a family tradition. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without Chewbacca.

Now, this isn’t my own story, but it’s too good not to share. A woman in my book club once mentioned that she had lost the Baby Jesus from her creche, and substituted Han Solo in carbonite. Which is just so wrong and yet so perfect at the same time.

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I didn’t have very many of the toys. I had the X-wing fighter, a few figures, the die-cast Star Destroyer, and an early inflatable lightsaber. I was very jealous of the kids in my neighborhood who had just about everything, right down to the radio controlled jawa crawler.

My Adventure People interacted pretty closely with the Star Wars folk. Han Solo would usually back up Luke’s attack on the death star from inside an orange Jeep with a canoe and a tent on top.

The Lightsaber should have been cool - it was a flashlight with an inflatable yellow tube standing in for the blade, but it sprung a leak at one of the seams within minutes of me getting it out of the box. Later the flashlight part had to be disposed of because the batteries leaked.

When my parents moved after all of us kids were out on our own, I went hunting for my toys in the pile of “kids stuff” that they wanted us to either take or get rid of. I found my Star Wars lunchbox, R2-D2, and -gasp- just one sad broken wing from my beloved X-wing fighter. That was all that was left.

I have my R2 right here on top of my monitor. He’s my patron saint of computer hacking.

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Another fan of the droid factory here, those studs that heald them together were a bit weak and soon enough you were left with very few usable droid parts.

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Aha! Proof that Han attacked first:

Right here!

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No kidding. I think Kenner artists designed the figures for the original Star Wars (which I understand some people refer to as “A New Hope” :dubious: ) before getting to see what the actors looked like–none of the figures particularly resemble the actor they represent (unless they wore a mask, that is). The Tatooine Luke (the box for which, of course, erroneously spelled it “Tatoonie”) looks like a complete dork (even more than Mark Hamill does). And Han Solo! My God, not even close to Harrison Ford.

One of the most bizarre features was the original Han Solo. He had a disproportionately small head–really, it looked like he had a shrunken head. I think Kenner realized pretty soon that they’d messed up, because they quickly came out with another line of Hans (still for the original movie, with black vest and all)–but the second time, they gave him a monstrously enlarged head–as disproportionately large as the other one’s head was small. And it didn’t look anything more like Harrison Ford–actually, it looked less like him than the first one.

With ESB and ROTJ, Han Solo actually looked like Harrison Ford. I especially like the Bespin Han–his jacket was really cool.

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Han always flew the Adventure People Piper Cub(Destro was his co-pilot).