I 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.

Left: 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.

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.

Action figures of topless fat guys usually don’t fly off the shelves (barring, of course, if they ever made a fat, topless Edward Cullen/Robert Pattinson action figure), so its only natural that most people probably have no idea who this action figure is of.  It doesn’t reallly matter… because he looks like Colin Mochrie’s (from TV’s “Whose Line is it Anyway?”) bizarre, Rancor-keeping doppelganger!

In the Star Wars universe, our fellow here is known as Malakili, Jabba the Hutt’s Rancor keeper in Return of the Jedi.  Remember that guy that cries when Luke kills the epic Rancor beast in Jabba’s palace?  This is that guy.  Kids love that guy.  You know, all your friends were playing with the Cobra Commander and Megatron and you had this guy.  You poor bastard.

This figure has had three different versions over the years: an original from the 80s, this figure here from the late 90s, and a new version from 2009 (sometime I’ll update this article with pictures of that version).  This is the late 90s version.

It really doesn’t matter who this character is: the bottom line is that this kind of figure doesn’t have a whole lot of child appeal, so these kinds of characters are thrown into collectible figure lines as collector fan service and often wind up as “peg warmers,” which I discussed at length in my Indiana Jones figure retrospective, because collectors don’t need to buy multiples of them and kids tend to avoid them.