Comments on: Comprehensive book about Star Wars action figures

By: Philboyd Studge

Philboyd Studge — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:54:00 +0000

And the aliens were dead cool – Lobros had eyestalks and a glow-in-the-dark brain *in his mouth*. Actually, Micronauts and Transformers both evolved from the Japanese Microman toy line. The Microman “Megatron” was a good guy, and fired plastic bullets.

By: Matthew Petty

Matthew Petty — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 00:13:00 +0000

That sounds cool, and also like a serious amount of work – no chance of any photos?
Chewbacca got a brick on the head later on, during one destructive summer.

By: Matthew Petty

Matthew Petty — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 00:11:00 +0000

he did look fabulous afterward

By: franko

franko — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 23:09:00 +0000

yup. had and loved several micronauts. makes me sneer at those “transmformer” johnny-come-latelys.

By: franko

franko — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 23:08:00 +0000

THAT’S THE ONE!
i had this. thank you, thank you.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 22:34:00 +0000

Sounds like you’re covering up your attraction to daddy bears.

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 22:16:00 +0000

I hacked a few of my SW toys, but generally only after they’d already gotten broken. Somebody dropped my X-Wing, breaking off the wings right at the fulcrum of the X. So I removed the lower S-foils, and stuck the uppers in the hole at an angle (so that the wings pointed downward like the Imperial Shuttle), installed a much-longer nose landing skid, and painted the whole thing glossy black. And it looked surprisingly cool.

By: Bob Knetzger

Bob Knetzger — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 22:06:00 +0000

LIke this?

By: Bob Knetzger

Bob Knetzger — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 22:04:00 +0000

Did you have a Milton Bradley Starbird?

By: vonbobo

vonbobo — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 21:11:00 +0000

My family”didn’t get” the pre order thing, so I had to patiently wait 1 by 1 (I made damn sure I didn’t miss out on the Boba Fett pre buy though!). Also had the micronaut city, and the Space 1999 Eagle. My grandmother was an avid garage sale addict.

Anyone else have that electronic spaceship that made ascending and descending noises depending on which way the ship was oriented? Laser blast buttons too, anyone know what that was?

By: Mister44

Mister44 — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 20:19:00 +0000

Around 10 + years ago - maybe longer – there was a really good book that had all of the action figures in it. Of course now there must be hundreds more figures from Hasbro (it came out with the green POF cards being the newest figures).

Anyway – definitely on my want list.

By: Mister44

Mister44 — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 20:11:00 +0000

Are you sure it wasn’t just the droid’s love of money? He was a bounty hunter.

By: Matthew Petty

Matthew Petty — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:51:00 +0000

I had a couple of those! I loved that they used clockwork instead of batteries. I had the Photon Sled as shown in the video. My neighbor had the big galactic base thing. Clockwork demolition derby!

By: Matthew Petty

Matthew Petty — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:49:00 +0000

I painted Chewbacca silver because I didn’t like how organic he looked.

By: Ryan Griffin

Ryan Griffin — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:09:00 +0000

my bad..it was the Eagle from Space:1999 http://space1970.blogspot.com/2009/11/coolest-toy-ever-space-1999-eagle.html

By: gorfulator

gorfulator — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:06:00 +0000

Ahhh the Star Wars action figure drought of ’77 !! Anyone remember how Micronauts swooped in and filled that void?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5db9bEOnLY

By: Ryan Griffin

Ryan Griffin — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:05:00 +0000

I had a BSG toy ship as a kid. It worked great with my GI Joes and Star Wars figures. I also had the Millennium Falcon, but trashed it. Sadly.

By: Bob Knetzger

Bob Knetzger — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:39:00 +0000

The other revolutionary idea here was how toys were marketed. Mattel and Hasbro had passed on doing the Star Wars toys as at the time SW was unknown. By the time Bernie Loomis and the Kenner had the SW toy license, it was way too late to manufacture and ship toys to be in the store by Christmas–what to do? Bernie dreamed up this unique promotion: give your kids this coupon for Christmas and ship the toys later. Oddly, it worked.. BTW, Mattel passed on Star Wars, thinking that a summer space-themed move would be long forgotten by the time the next Christmas came around. They instead picked up the license for a regular, weekly space-themed TV program, Battlestar Gallactica. You know how that turned out…

By: Christopher

Christopher — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:37:00 +0000

A little more of what may be Star Wars apocrypha: one of the bounty hunters, a robot named 4-LOM, was given that name by designers who meant it to mean “For Love Of Money”, because the more toys were marketed the more money Lucas made.

By: Lewis Baumstark

Lewis Baumstark — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:32:00 +0000

I have the older edition, probably published in the late 90s / early ’00s. Wore it out and would love to get the new version.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:31:00 +0000

Every time I see one of these I think about how badly I need to clean out my attic.

By: Michael Wiik

Michael Wiik — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:21:00 +0000

A long time ago I recall reading how Star Wars changed everything about the movie theatre industry. Prior to that film, theatre owners received a share of the ticket price. With Star Wars, the industry changed so that the movie companies wanted all the ticket proceeds and a share of the concessions. This is when popcorn changed from being dirt cheap to ridiculously expensive. iirc the same article also suggested that new Storm Trooper variations in RotJ were there purely to sell more action figures. Anyway…

By: oasisob1

oasisob1 — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:17:00 +0000

The very first ‘gotta catch ‘em all’.