In name, this is a playset, but it can be argued that this is a two-figure set with some accessories.
The major player here is Jabba, with movable torso, arms, and tail. When you moved the torso it made the tail move – rather nifty at the time. Accompanying him is his cackling court jester, Salacious Crumb. Crumb has no movement, and is only formed to sit on Jabba’s throne. However, this doesn’t prevent your from trying to imitate his laugh.
The throne features all the accoutrements:
-Trapdoors to simulate Jabba’s dungeon.
-A hookah with pipe and water bowl (for a tasty Klaatoine paddy frog snack)
-A slave collar and “chain”
To be honest, this was probably one of the best figures I ever had.
Why should you own it? I’ll supersize-it with 10 reasons!
1. Jabba’s eyes. No, this isn’t romantic – the figure had really cool lifelike glassy eyes!
2. Where else are you going to find a toy that so blatantly advertises smoking?
3. The detail is actually really good for the original line, down to the little Cyclops faces on the front of the throne.
4. The inside of Jabba’s throne is another one of those “Mom doesn’t know what she’s buying me” things. There are skeletons in there and a random jawbone and everything!
5. Doing the Jabba Shuffle – move the tail back and forth and watch him do the twist.
6. Make Salacious Crumb cackle incessantly at your younger sibling.
7. The slave collar and chain gave you hope that they would make a Leia in Slave Girl outfit figure. This, however, did not come until the 1990’s line.
8. The figure set up on the box, other than Luke wearing the collar, is actually fairly representative of the characters on the scene in the movie.
9. Jabba’s trap-doored throne dungeon is a good place to give time-outs to your figures that have been naughty.
10. Perfect to place next to your Han in Carbonite (either the figure or the accessory from the Slave I ship).
Backstory:
His full name was Jabba Desilijic Tiure, a Hutt who, at only 80 (he was about 622 years old when he died), started his crime empire on Tatooine. His palace is actually an old B’Omarr monastery (the big spider thing you see in the palace? That’s a B’Omarr monk).
He rose to power through gambling, spice smuggling, and other sordid endeavors. He attracted various lowlifes of the galaxy, including bounty hunters, various yes-men, and his majordomo, Bib Fortuna. He picked up Salacious Crumb, a Kowakian spider monkey, on one of his rare off-world excursions. Crumb had been a pest on a space station and hitched a ride on Jabba’s ship, one step ahead of exterminators. Crumb so humored Jabba with his antics that he kept him on as a jester, but only if Crumb made him laugh at least daily.
Jabba’s overconfidence led to his downfall when Luke and the gang, attempting to rescue Han, killed Jabba and much of his entourage by blowing up his sand barge (technically Leia strangled him with the slave chain before that). Crumb died in the explosion.
After Jabba’s death, the B’Omarr monks took their monastery back by force, overcoming whichever of Jabba’s followers were left. Jabba’s father, Zorba, put a price out on the people who killed his son, but ended the bounty once Leia was elected to head of office, to avoid any conflict.
Want more? Jabba's full Wookieepedia article
83rd in alphabetical order
I was surfing and found your story on the Jabba the Hutt Action Playset made by Kenner back in 1983.
ReplyDeleteAnd the reason for my interest is that I have the same set that I bought brand new when it came out during the first day in the store.
But I have a different box than what you are showing in your picture. It has the same basic layout, but is a white cardboard box with a basic green and black screen print image of the playset on 2 sides with the rest of the box blank. It shows jabba in green smoking the pipe on the platform, with no other characters shown.
The box was folded together at each end when I bought it and not taped together.
Although I have looked for months for the same box on the internet, I have not found it anywhere. Is there any way to find out more about this box? Do you know of any experts who might of heard of this box before? I would be happy to send you a picture if you are interested in investigating further.It might make a good follow up story for your blog. You can contact me through my email:steve@rangerralph.com
The "line art box" variation was sold by Sears. Here is a link showing it: http://theswca.com/images-toys/figuretoys/jabba.html
ReplyDeleteI used to have this set (among others and lots of action figures), I even had Leia on the leash. I no longer have the set but I still have Salacious and he is currently sitting on top of my monitor. I wish I still had these toys, I would totally play with them even at my age.
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