Kenner Star Wars Toys: There's...Too Many of Them! Article posted on 5.08.02 - by Matt

I was fortunate enough to see a screening of Episode II today, so obviously, I'm on a bit of a Star Wars kick. It's usually in a sort of dormancy set by my higher brain function to keep me from being too geeky, but even endorphins can't stop me when I'm fresh from seeing Yoda kick the shit out of Christopher Lee. Oops, was that a spoiler? Tough!

Anyway, one thing Star Wars will always have going for it is the sheer nostalgia factor. Look at The Phantom Menace. It's a pretty shitty movie that nobody, including me, wants to recognize as being shitty. Why? Well, if we do - it's pretty much like saying we've been obsessed with something totally stupid for the past twenty years. And we just can't do it. We'd rather live in a fantasy world where Jar Jar was terrific and the Episode I dialogue took Shakespeare three steps further rather than admit that we could possibly be so strongly associated with something not that great. If it's any consolation, and I know it probably is, Attack of the Clones blows the last sequel so far out of the water that it'll likely shrivel up and die like a bad prunish memory. Prunish, mind you -- not Prune Face. Look for my review of the latest prequel on UGO later this week. For now, let's take another trip into Star Wars' mass merchandising past.

This may be a bit disorganized, but I've got a bunch of old Star Wars toy commercials, so tonight I'd like to run through some of the items they shilled. Many of you might've played with these toys as a kid, or collected them as a bigger kid with too much money to spend. Either way, my goal here is to offer Star Wars fans a window to the past they might've all but forgotten. Remember, the almighty SW lore was never just about the movies. Diehard fans took it all in - books, television specials, random magazine articles, themed fruit snacks, and yes, even action figures.

So sit back and enjoy this small trip back in time - a hodge podge of thoughts and information regarding the stupid hunks of Kenner-brand plastic we grew up with and loved so much.

The Jawa Sandcrawler wasn't a toy everybody had to have. It certainly wasn't a major vehicle -- the crawler's biggest movie coup lied in the fact that it played host to a bunch of spraypainted robot parts used later in the film. It was kinda like the Where's Waldo? scene of the Star Wars film. Hey, is that IG-88? And what's that Death Star Droid doing there? More importantly - why do Jawas need a droid fashioned after a clown?

All that aside, the main problem with getting this toy into as many households as possible was in the pricing. Because it's radio-controlled, it cost way more than most of the vehicles available at the time, and at core base, most kids wanted to fly X-Wings...not pretend to be smelly cloaked midgets who had used car salesmen demeanors. For a toy as cool as it was, it's a shame it doesn't have more notoriety.


Using the controls, you could make the Sandcrawler go forwards and backwards. Jawas never really believed in going sideways - don't blame Kenner for the seeming faux pas. It had a little hatch for you to stick figures in, but unless you collected only droid and Jawa figures, it's likely that you used the Sandcrawler for entirely un-movie like adventures. As a child, my personal favorite was pretending that the Rancor Keeper took control of it after convincing the Jawas that he was a great leader instead of merely a fat guy who Jabba hired to serve carrion to his pets...

Jawa: How do we know you're really as smart as you say?
Rancor Keeper: To get smart, you must eat knowledge. Look at my stomach dude!
Jawa: Ooo shiddi! Will you really lead us to new horizons?
Rancor Keeper: I promise to take the Jawa ranks to places they've never been, namely Stew Leonard's and Pizza Hut.
Jawa: Will you respect our heritage and mannerisms and not attempt to disrupt our historical way of being if we hire you as our unquestioned master?
Rancor Keeper: No.
Jawa: ....you're still hired.

Plus, it was a great excuse to get your hands on more Jawa figures. When I was young, I could never have enough of 'em - every time I saw a Jawa action figure at any store, whether it took begging, kicking, screaming, or murder threats - that sum'bitch was coming home with me. I can't tell you how surreal of a memory it is to recall my mother trying to negotiate with me to buy a Nikto figure instead of another Jawa. It's just the kind of conversation that should never take place in any universe, parallel or not.


The Imperial Troop Transport never appeared in the movies, mostly because even Lucas himself couldn't figure out a valid reason why the Empire would build all of these expensive tank machines just to move six Stormtroopers from Point A to Point B. Plus, it wouldn't exactly be a comfy ride for the Imperial's elite -- they just kinda stand awkwardly in a box on the side of it, looking totally foolish and unmenacing. Luckily, I think I've figured out a better use for the toy.

Now sure, Stormtroopers are just vapid clones - living war machines meant to carry out the Emperor's every violent whim. But even they need to unwind every once in a while. Maybe this isn't a transport at all - maybe it's a sightseeing monorail car with a built-in narrative speakerphone. The troops are treated with a slow trip through the sands of Mos Eisley, where the electronic voice-over describes all the gravel maggots and other terrestrial life in an effort to entertain and educate the soldiers. In any event, I still have my Troop Transport...the batteries were left inside it, unattended for the last fifteen years, and now it's gone all radioactive on me. It lives in a box in the far corner of my closet, never to be touched unless I need to poison three city blocks.


The old commercial featured a kid's dad becoming so enamored with the transport that he completely takes over playtime. Fun for the whole family?

Course, you didn't necessarily have to use this thing for Stormtroopers. If you so desire, this could be a Hoth Soldier Transport, or my personal favorite, the Leia in Bespin Fatigues Transport. Gotta love Kenner - they gave you options.


Star Wars Action Figure Carrying Cases were great for reasons that extended well past their original intent. On the surface, these things were a great way from keeping your figures from getting lost. Each case opened to reveal two plastic 'sheets' that could a dozen figures each - the underside of the platforms had pegs so you could stand your toys up in action poses. Most of us just kept our figures on the floor and in full jars of peanut butter, so things like this really added to their longevity.

Course, that wasn't the cool thing about the cases. As a kid, I had an unhealthy obsession with office equipment. Staplers, pencil sharpeners, business cards, corkboards, you name it, I collected it. I'd create little makeshift offices out of my closet, pretending to be working on important documents when in reality I was just doodling naked cartoon bears in a yellow legal pad. I'd then use my family's fax machine to send off the semi-pornographic drawings to a number of my choosing. I don't know where they ended up, but if the current state of the Fox Networks is any indication...

Anyway, because of the figure case's shape, it doubled nicely as a novelty briefcase. I took out the useless figure platforms and filled the vinyl box with assorted papers and pens - from there on out, I was always prepared to moderate an impromptu business meeting in my social circle's 'Monster Club,' where we all sat around practicing our snarls, and occasionally making hanging spooky ghosts with tissues and a rubber band.


The cases also came in the Darth Vader-shaped variety. If the Dark Lord ever ran head first into a brick wall, this would be an awesome true-to-life representation. As it stands now, it's just an excuse for me to point and laugh at the kid in the commercial. Nice sweater, retard.

Course, there were tons of commercials for the figures themselves. Considering that there were over 90 figures in all to advertise, you can imagine how many ad spots had to be created. Now, if Kenner only had to put together three or four ads, I'd imagine they'd lop in a ton of their inbred creative genius. They would've been masterpieces. But since they had to do sixty-five trillion commercials, they took some shortcuts and liberties.


I'm pretty sure the director just gave the kids a few action figures and said 'do what you want, just play.' Well, that might not be true. From the looks of the ads, he might've said 'Make Luke do a silent interpretive dance and have Chewbacca standing upside-down in the background for no reason.' Either way, it was real confusing. But effective! See, us kids were so shocked by what we saw, with no chance of understanding it, that we were convinced the figures had to be worth getting. We'd rather accept that than try to figure out why the kids made Princess Leia talk in an alien dialect known only to a group of three Weequay figures.

It's admittedly pretty neat to look back on them now and realize how much times have changed. Even by viewing the stupid progression of toy commercials, you can easily see how much simpler life was back then, before aliens took over our planet and started sewing our hands together so we look like we're perpetually praying to them. What? Back then, all it took was putting a few kids in the backyard, gleefully toting their figures from one rock to another. If this commercial was shot today, there'd have to be three onscreen murders and a CGI Yoda doing a rap song to make the hard sell.


Some of the ads mixed worlds with Star Wars lore that really should never be mixed. Why is Han still in his Hoth clothes when he meets up with Lando up above? Are they trying to imply that he made that whole trip through space all the way to Bespin dressed like that? My only explanation is that there's a Nintendo on the Falcon and Han likes to dress like the characters from Ice Climber so he could really feel the role and rack up more points.

Plus, notice how they're all holding rifles at each others? Trust doesn't grow on trees in the Star Wars Universe, that's for sure.


Some of the Star Wars playsets weren't exactly lending themselves to immense playtime opportunities. While stuff like the Ewok Village and the Death Star Station still top my list as some of the best toys ever, period, there were others that were, well, kinda cheap and useless. Oddly, because everyone recognized that and fewer people bought them back then, they're pretty rare today and thus cost more than many of the better toys. My God - if I ever had a conversation with someone on a train or something, and repeated what I just wrote above, I'll bet you anything that the person behind me would smash a brick against the side of my head. Usually, when people talk about 'getting away with saying anything on the Internet,' they're talking about bestiality porn and presidential assassination plots. Not in-depth psychological reviews of Star Wars toys. I guess it works for everyone in their own way.

The assorted Hoth playsets weren't too terrific - simple white plastic bases that came with a gun or a cardboard backdrop. Not exactly end-all, be-all toys. I've still got some of these in the closet somewhere, stripped of all accessories. Now they're just blocky pieces of albino plastic meant to annoy me when I'm trying to organize the apartment. I can't throw them away because, after all, they are Star Wars toys. If only I could find a better use for them -- maybe I'll glue ceramic elves on 'em and sell them as Christmas dioramas at the local fair. Old ladies love dioramas.


Han: Chewy, look at all this snow! What kind of a Rebel base is this, anyway?
Chewy: Grrrronk.
Han: Listen, I know I pretend to understand what you're saying when the others are here, but that's just because I don't want us to look foolish. Can you draw me a diagram or something, I don't know what you're saying.
Chewy: The endless capabilities of this foreign territory, far out of the way of Imperial intelligence, offers us the chance to formulate a better attack strategy without the threat of treason or blind retaliation.
Han: CHEWY! You can talk?!
Chewy: Of course I can talk. I don't do if often because, the way I see it, if people knew I could speak, they'd ask me to do things for them more often.
Han: Wow, this is amazing. So tell me, what do you really think of Luke?
Chewy: Grrronk.
Han: ...huh?
Chewy: Sorry Han, same goes for you. I don't want to be your gopher anymore than I want to be Leia's. Gronk, growl growl, gronk gronk. This conversation never happened.


Now if you wanted a cool playset-like toy, there was none better than the Millennium Falcon.

This thing was positively gigantic. Even at age 23, it's tough for me to hold the ship with one hand. (usually because my other hand is busy throwing a cat away from the computer) At age seven though, the toy just completely dwarfed me. And it had the works - the top hatch opened up to reveal an in-ship area where you could make the toys do all sorts of movie-themed things. It had everything from Luke's Force-practice track ball, to the chess table, loads of guns, even a secret hatch so the good guys could hide from inspecting Stormtroopers. This was the kind of toy that kids held in the highest regard - nobody ever willingly threw a Falcon away because they got tired of it. Hell, I'm way too old for the toys and still I'm here trying to find suitable spots on my wall unit just so I can keep the beast out in the open.

They actually re-released the Falcon a few years ago as part of the new toy line. It used the same mold too, only souped up with extra lights and buzzing noises. It was a slap in the face to anyone who paid a hundred bucks to get the old one off eBay a month prior, but in the end, it was awesome to see a whole new generation of kids able to feel the mighty glory of the Falcon for themselves.

Believe me, this is a real small sampling of the amount of Star Wars toys there were. With nearly a hundred figures and almost as many ships and playsets, it's easy to see why us geeky types still go nuts over the stuff. You can never quite finish your collection because, just when you think you have, you find out that Kenner made a stupid biped snow scooter that never appeared in any of the films. Damn you Kenner.

I hope you've enjoyed this little feature, which ended up being not-so-little and not-so-easy because my computer broke it's previous record by freezing up eighteen times in the course of writing it. Perhaps I should stop spending money on Boba Fett mugs and start saving for a new computer. Nahhhh...

By the way - new from the Star Wars brand, a landmark that the world never thought it'd ever see.


CHRISTOPHER LEE: THE CEREAL.

- Matt
matt@x-entertainment.com