figure_vile_fett02I remember how I felt the first time I played Megaman X on Super Nintendo — it was both a mix of awe of the graphic upgrade from the NES Megaman series and pure auditory bliss from the continued greatness of the Megaman/Rockman musical legacy.

Then I got to the boss at the end of the first level: a purple guy named Vile that the game prevents you from beating. Only a pop-in appearance from a hero named Zero allows you to progress through the game.

figure_vile_fett01Left: Vile; Right: Boba Fett

At first, I was more concerned with trying to make a dent in Vile’s health bar. When I realized that doing this was impossible, I noticed that, somehow, I was fighting a purple Boba Fett.

There’s no doubt about it, I was fighting the purple Boba Fett, not some random robot guy named Vile.

Of course, Boba Fett doesn’t exist in the Megaman universe, but apparently his Mandalorian helmet style does.

It isn’t even limited to just Vile, either. I swear I saw some guys walking around in The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind that have the Fett helmet style, as well. It sure is a popular helmet style.

conan figure_veers01_small

Its been a rough year for Conan O’Brien.  Except for that huge severance paycheck.   Unemployment and the massive amount of free time that comes along with it leads to a number of things: one of them being a re-evaluation of oneself that results in an analysis of career goals.  Usually joining the Empire isn’t part of those results.

This 1997 figure came as a pack-in in with Hasbro’s AT-AT (the 4-legged walkers from “The Empire Strikes Back”) toy vehicle.  While it is supposed to be General Veers from the movie, it looks more like the ginger-headed talk show veteran than the Imperial officer that it is intended.

figure_veers01

jarjarpop01The Phantom Menace was released to generally-disappointed audiences; except for me.  As I look back on the film’s 15th anniversary, I’m reminded of the onslaught of merchandising.  In this case, it was candy.

From the above image of the Jar Jar lollipop, it is difficult to determine where the lollipop is.  After all, it appears to just be a sculpted head on a stick.  Pressing the back of the device reveals the shocking truth:

jarjarpop02No.  Please, no.

jarjarpop03That’s right, kids — the lollopop is Jar Jar’s tongue, allowing you to re-enact the part of the film where someone shoved Jar Jar’s tongue down their mouth and sucked on it.  Who could forget that scene?  That’s the reason why people generally hate Episode 1, right?

jabba01Last week we showed you the bizarre Jar Jar Binks’ tongue lollipop.  Just in case that wasn’t weird enough for you, here’s the second entry into our look back at ten years of Episode 1.

I purchased this figure back in 1999 because it was the first figure of Jabba the Hutt that actually looked like him: not because he had that great realistic vomiting action that you really need in a great action figure.  After all, they are called “action” figures, and there really aren’t a lot of different actions that you can play with Jabba the Hutt.  Let’s take a quick look at the things that Jabba does in his film appearances:

-He yells at people.
-He laughs at people.
-He eats space frogs.
-He smokes something.
-He watches a green tentacle-headed girl dance provocatively.
-He tries to get it on with the green dancer, but she rejects him so he lets his big pet Rancor monster eat her.
-He makes Princess Leia dress up in a metal bikini.
-He gets strangled to death.
-He falls asleep during the podrace.

This leaves a lot of room for creative liberties, so this figure came with a canister of green slime and little frogs to put in the slime.  To make Jabba vomit this substance, you would put the slime in his head then insert the canister below it, as shown in the image below.

jabba04Pressing the head with the canister inserted into it back into the body would force the glob up through Jabba’s mouth, making him effectively vomit it all over himself.

jabba03Yum?  Does Jabba enjoy vomiting or the taste of his own vomit?  If i was lying around with green slime and space frogs all over myself, I doubt I — or anyone else in my proximity — would be saying “yum!”  Heck, this is in all caps, too, so its not just “yum, that was good,” its “YUM!! Oh man, that was the best vomit I’ve ever vomited!  I can’t believe how green it was!  And the frogs!  Those frogs were so froggy!”  There’s just so much excitement there.

I would show you the slime in action, but the slime has somewhat joined together into a solid blob over the past ten years.  Here is that blob:

jabba02I appologize if you just replicated the action of the “Jabba Glob” figure after seeing the above blob of semi-fermented goop.  You had better appreciate this photo, too, because the odor it emitted upon removal from its canister made me choke.

jabba06Here’s the figure in proper figure-collecting mint-on-card condition.  First of all, did they really think that calling green vomit that’s full of little space frogs “glob” make this stuff seem any less like vomit?  Let’s see: its slimey, it comes out of his mouth, and its full of pieces of food.  Sounds like puke to me.

jabba07Upon closer inspection, the back of the card makes a case against the “glob” being vomit:

jabba08First of all, I don’t see why Jabba would be eating slime.  He’s a rich crime lord after all, and any rich crime lord wouldn’t be eating something that looks like it came out of someone’s nose or caused some pet shop turtles to mutate into a Shredder-fighting, pizza-eating, cowabunga-ing team.

The description of how this couldn’t be vomit isn’t the funny part here.  Read the last sentence.  “Be sure not to eat any yourself — Glob is for Hutts, not humans!”  Im sure that in today’s age of legalese and product liability the folks at Hasbro had to include this for legal reasons.  But really, give me a break.  Why would anyone eat this?  Even a stupid kid wouldn’t eat this.  I’d rather eat dirt than this.  If stranded on a desert island and only given this to eat, I’d start eating the plastic container that it comes in.

This isn’t the only occurrence on the package that they designate this as not food.

jabba05Just in case you missed it the first time, you now know for sure that this disgiusting slime isn’t food.

So there you have it, the infamous “Jabba Glob” action figure in its full glory.  In its defense, the figure itself was fantastic.  Even though Hasbro released an updated and more accurately-painted Jabba 3 3/4 inch scale figure later on, I always found the Jabba Glob figure (sans glob) to be more fun to play with as a kid because you could squeeze his head a little bit and make his mouth open as if he was talking.  They took a chance and I believe that it paid off.  After all, I’m not talking about any of their more successful products ten years later, am I?

Here’s to you, Hasbro’s Episode 1 toy design team.  Thanks for developing what is probably the most bizarre Star Wars action figure in the 30 years of toys from a galaxy far, far away.  And no, I’m not being sarcastic.  It isn’t often that you come across something so legitimate, bizarre, and hilarious that gets an official stamp of approval.