Ephant Mon Fans' Choice Figure No. 3

If you've collected toys for half as long as I have, you are certain to have amassed your share of toy regrets. Toys you've gotten rid of, toys broken by the cats, toys the kids got a hold of and lost the accessories to, toys chewed on by the dog, and toys you didn't buy when you saw them only to never see them again.

Ephant Mon was a long time toy regret of mine: a figure I passed at retail the one time I saw him at Target way back in 2002 and have never seen since. Not sure why I passed on him then, but it was likely due to having already met my toy budget for that month, or perhaps because I was only a casual Star Wars collector at the time and I may have even been thinning the herd, and had a hard time justifying one more (massive and ugly) addition.

I'm sure I at least hid him behind something to come back and buy him later, only to find him gone upon my return. I figured I'd probably see him again at retail and never did.

Years have gone by, and I couldn't even watch Return of the Jedi in that time without thinking 'Damn, I wish I had bought that Ephant Mon!' Sure, I could have chased after him on eBay, but that's just not how I roll.

"No regerts."

So when I found Ephant Mon at the flea market today I...walked away.

Really.

I saw him at the very first vendor as I walked in. The vendor is there all the time, with different stuff depending on whatever his sources are (my guess is that he generally buys abandoned storage sheds but who knows). Not always toys, but often, and he's generally fair (but not overly cheap). Still, I didn't think I'd get Ephant Mon for less than what he costs on eBay from this guy (especially considering the fact that Star Wars is a hot property now and most sellers are convinced everything Star Wars is gold again. And all the guy had today was Star Wars stuff.) I don't even know what Ephant Mon costs on eBay, but it's safe to say it's more than I am willing to spend.

I also generally hate spending money at the first vendor I see when I walk into the flea market. I always fear I'll end up a buck short when I find some real gold later in the day.

So I walked away, went through the whole flea market, spent a couple dollars, and hit the vendor on the way out to see if Ephant Mon was still there.

Obviously he was. And obviously he was fairly priced. When I asked the vendor how much his figures were, he said '$5 to $7', I picked up E.M. (he was on card but the card had been opened. But he's mint and complete so who cares, I was going to open him myself anyways!) and said 'would you take five for this one?' and the rest is history. (For those wondering, I probably would have passed on Ephant Mon at $7. I know I know, but at that point it becomes more about principle. And yes, I would have regretted passing on him. )

Geez, enough rambling. What about the figure?!?! Oh yeah, he's awesome. Massive and heavy, Ephant Mon comes with a cane and a vibroblade that plugs into the end of his cane or to his belt under his cloak. He only has one point of articulation at each shoulder and hip and is tough to stand (thus-far impossible without his cane to assist.) He also has one point of articulation at his tail, neck, and jaw, which is just too fun.

Ephant Mon is a beautifully ugly background character from the Jabba's palace scenes in Return of the Jedi. Not surprisingly, even though so many Star Wars characters have had thirty different releases over the years, Ephant Mon was only released this once back in 2002 as a 'Fans' Choice' figure (#3 to be exact). And it only took me fourteen years to find him a second time!

LEGO 75034 Death Star Troopers

I love the clearance aisle at Target. They tend to toss stuff there all the time just to make space for more new stuff, and you can get some amazing deals on things all the time. I picked up this LEGO 75034 Death Star Troopers set which includes four minifigures, and at a price comparable to buying BootLEGOs!

The set includes two Death Star Gunners. These guys are iconic characters from the original Star Wars movie that everyone will recognize immediately even if they don't recall their specific function. Those helmets are just so otherworldy! LEGO included quite a bit of detail too, and even painted those tiny lights on the side!

A  fun and unexpected detail: each gunner has a different expression. NEAT!

The main build itself is impressive as well. A Death Star gun, for blasting those pesky X-Wings running down the trench. A little lever on the back fires the topmost missile, and the gunner has a rotating seat. NEAT!

The gunners come with the new standard for Star Wars  LEGO weapons - little LEGO pop-guns. They fire pretty well, launching little LEGO pieces across the room, and LEGO is kind enough to include almost a dozen 'bullets' since you are bound to lose them in the couch or behind the bookcase. But they certainly aren't movie accurate.

The set also included two Imperial Guard minifigures!

Four minifigures in one little set - I think LEGO is catching on that the minifigures are the stars, and army building is easy and fun when you get a pair of these relatively generic troopers at a  time.

The Imperial Guards come with their 'force pikes' which resemble lightsabers but I don't know what good they are against them. In fact, The Imperial Guards literally didn't do anything but stand there in The Return of the Jedi, so your imagination is all you have when playing with these guys!

I never had a Death Star Gunner or Imperial Guard action figure as a kid, so these characters are completely new to my collection, LEGO or otherwise. It's fun to add their iconic visages to the ranks of my LEGO Stormtroopers, Snowtroopers and Speeder Bike Scouts, and that sweet LEGO Death Star Gun will look great on my desk at work!

Random Toy Pic(s) :: Takin' out the trash

Just some fun outdoorsy shots (in an actual redwood forest!) of Ewok Wicket W. Warrick and some Empire troop helmets. I could also call this post 'toys at work' because these are toys I have at work, and the pics were shot where I work.

Wicket the Ewok is from Kenner's Power of the Force collection circa 1998. He was released as a two-pack along with Logray, whom I will probably blog about in the future. The helmets are Lego minifigure helmets, which make surprisingly accurate in-scale helmets for this little guy.

I've been getting nostalgic lately for Original Trilogy toys and characters, and have been hankering for Ewoks (see 'where I work' above), when out of nowhere my parents bring me a bunch of stuff from home including Wicket and Logray. These actually were not mine; I had bought them for my sister when they were released but she could care less about such things now, so I am more than happy to welcome these fellows back into the fold!

I imagine Wicket here is taking out the trash in the form of the receptacles that contained the Ewok's celebration dinner. Stupid Empire and their environmentally unfriendly packaging! At least they make a delicious soldier!

Speeder Demon

'I said 'pull over'!'

In an effort to complete my collection of original trilogy troopers in Lego form, (Stormtrooper, Snow Trooper and Biker Scout,) I finally acquired this Biker Scout along with his Lego Speeder Bike!

There have been a few Lego versions of the Speeder Bikes (and Biker Scouts for that matter,) this one comes from the Ewok Attack set #7956.

Boushh it real good!

I only ever owned one Princess Leia action figure as a child, and this is the one:

Princess Leia in Boushh bounty hunter disguise, from Return of the Jedi.

This is the best Princess Leia variation ever and I loved this figure as a kid. Yes, even better than any slave Leia, Boushh Leia is strong, cunning, fearless and smart. Plus, she has a bitchen removable helmet!

More gals should cosplay this version of Leia!

I sadly got rid of all my original Star Wars toys years and years ago; we all have those stories of when we thought we were getting 'too old' for toys. Oh, the irony. But thank God for adulthood and no longer caring what others think!

I finally reacquired this action figure after many decades of absence. She is missing her rifle but has her helmet, which is the most important accessory in my opinion! It does after all complete the disguise!

She's no Carrie Fisher, but she's at least feminine.

I did once own the POTF Boushh Leia from when Star Wars toys had their resurgence in the early 2000s. I liked that figure a lot too, especially the sculpted thermal detonator in her hand. In fact, it had been so long since I had seen this original 1983 Boushh Leia that I had forgotten she doesn't hold a thermal detonator. 

Otherwise this figure is flawless and one of my absolute favorites of the original Star Wars action figure era.

Welcome back, Leia!

"Thanks. Now will someone get this walking carpet muncher out of my way?"

Star Wars for baby, Star Wars for daddy

We hit some garage sales Saturday; one in particular advertised on Craigslist that their kid was selling a bunch of his Star Wars toys, so you know we had to hit that one first!

There was a lot of great stuff at great prices, but I'm not as huge into Star Wars as I have been in the past, so I am pretty particular on what I bring home. Luckily I found a gem for both my baby and myself.

For the baby, I found this swell cutesy Speeder Bike with removable Biker Scout:

These are from Hasbro's cute preschool Star Wars toyline (EDIT: the line is called 'Galactic Heroes'; thanks Jason!) I would have preferred a white Biker Scout ala Return of the Jedi to this camouflaged version that came from one of the prequels, but at least it's a Biker Scout. His design is accurate to ROTJ, and so is the bike. I am willing to imagine he was in the original trilogy, we just didn't see him - because he's camouflaged!

And for me:

This original 1979 mini Millenium Falcon! All you old school Star Wars fans know what this one is about!

Best part: only three bucks for the scout on bike and Millennium Falcon together!

I never had this Falcon as a kid, but I believe my cousin did. I had the X-Wing and Tie Fighter from the same line. Neat sturdy and detailed little ships all; the Millennium Falcon here has retractable landing gear, a rotating satellite dish and gun on top and is made of metal and plastic.

Last week the League of Extraordinary Bloggers had a 'Geek Confession' challenge. I couldn't think of anything (so I didn't do a post) until I picked up this Falcon; when I did I remembered that unlike all you cool kids who were into Han and Boba or even Vader etc., I was and always will be a Luke man, rooting for the good guy 'everyman.'

I prefer good over evil, Luke over Han, the X-Wing over the Millenium Falcon. I prefer lighsabers over blasters. In fact, as a kid I never owned one single Han Solo or Millenium Falcon toy. I had more Leias than Hans for Christ's sake! (For the record, I only had one Leia, and it was Boushh disguise Leia. But still...)

That's my geek confession.

And here's my geek-girl baby:

ZOOMZOOM!

Legoland Endor

Another awesome Legoland mini-land Star Wars display (possibly the best of them all) was the forest moon of Endor:

This Imperial Shuttle and landing pad were HUGE! It was all I could do to prevent myself from jumping over the guardrail and playing with these things.

Vader greeting Admiral somebody.

With the push of a button one of the speeder bikes would whoosh around the base of a tree and those logs on the sides would swing out and 'smash' back into the Imperial walker. The motions of these displays reminded me a lot of old-school mall Christmas displays. Simple and slow but tons of fun to look at.

The Ewoks and their huts and walkways were built up in the trees!

Uh oh, looks like we're in trouble R2...wait, Chewbacca, is that you?

Here's a closer look at C3-PO and R2-D2; I'd love to build these guys at home, I'm sure I can come up with enough pieces...although they won't be the right colors.

Another MASSIVE component to this Return of the Jedi scene was the shield generator dish. This thing had to have been ten feet tall at least.

The Legoland Star Wars displays reminded me so much of what it was like to play with Star Wars toys outside when I was a kid. After looking at them all I just wanted to go grab some action figures and find a field or back yard to play in!

You're a Mean One, Mr. Gorneesh

Spring has sprung, the birds are chirping, the bees are buzzing, the trees are blooming, and young mens' thoughts are turning to that of...the Swap Meet.

The family and I got a little breakfast this morning and hit a couple garage sales before moving on to the local used-to-be-Drive-In-Theatre soon-to-be-Medical-Plaza that has hosted the local swap meet for decades. The Drive-In closed about a year or two ago, and the Medical Plaza planned for the site has yet to break ground, so in the meantime it's still a Swap Meet on weekends.

I spent my time as I usually do, shuffling through bins of toys of various ages, condition and levels of completeness. I picked up a couple things as I wandered around, but of all the things I saw I was completely caught off guard when I stumbled upon this guy:


This is King Gorneesh from the Ewoks toyline (after the Star Wars Ewoks animated series) of 1985. Finding him at the swap meet is pretty cool considering the fact that I live on Endor. So of course I had to do an outdoors photoshoot with good ole Gorneesh!


King Gorneesh's condition is amazingly mint. He doesn't look like he was ever played with at all.


I never had any of these Ewoks animated toys as a kid but I watched the cartoon, so I immediately recognized him and couldn't believe he had survived in such great shape for so long, only to end up in a swap meet bin full of mostly junky fast food toys.


I offered the guy 25 cents for him and he happily agreed. Wowza!


King Gorneesh has some sort of animal spine headgear and funky turtle shell shoulder pads. Spiffy!


He also has an eye patch cuz he's cool like that.


You can read a little more about this King of the Duloks at his Wookieepedia entry.

Not bad for a quarter! Yay for the swap meet!