This display is very interesting, since not much is known about it. It was apparently used in stores in Italy around 1983 or 1984. It’s pretty similar in concept to the Power of the Force 3D Jabba’s Palace diorama, although considerably bigger. When I got the ad in hand, it was obvious that the display was actually a bit different than the one on theswca — there was text about a Rancor Keeper figure giveaway across the top (similar to the one on this Palitoy flyer), as well as a mention of some sort of contest where you can win 61 figures. I’ve been told that the display on theswca may be the only one known to exist in a collection, so finding a photo of this different version is pretty interesting.

I’d love to have one of these displays, but it might be a little tricky to find. If you know where I can get one, please let me know!

According to Google Translate (with a little editing by me), the text of the ad reads something like this. If you can improve on the translation, by all means leave a comment.

(Text at the top)
A GIFT FOR YOU
ANSWER YOU KNOW (?)

(Text on the display itself)
If you buy 5 figures, get a RANCOR KEEPER as a gift.
And also you can win the 61 stars of Star Wars.
Details through TOPOLINO (Magazine) or at this store.

(Text at the bottom)
THE HEROES OF STAR WARS
To relive the emotions of the most famous space movies, use the great characters of Star Wars distributed by General Mills. The packages to play Star Wars can be found for sale in the best toy stores, department stores, and toy departments. You can, however, also win while attending if you know answer!

EDIT: Someone on the Rebelscum forums posted this picture of the display from the SWCA, taken at the auction where it was sold. I’m not sure exactly what it went for, but the bidding started at $5,000. Ouch!

If you’ll compare the two versions, you can see that there are several differences aside from the text about the Rancor Keeper offer at the top. In the ad, there’s no rancor pit in front of Jabba’s throne and the floor is completely different. And while the walls are similar, the pattern doesn’t match up between the two versions. That’s pretty interesting. I would’ve expected them to match up more closely. Maybe the one in the ad was a prototype.

I got this “Gangster’s Palace” print direct from the artist — Brian Gubicza (pronounced Goobeetsa, which is actually his domain name). It has a great simplified/stylized design. I particularly like Jabba. It’s an 8 x 10.

I posted about the Jabba the Hutt Power Plate a while back, but the Slave Leia version is one of the “chase” plates that are much more rare. Since these are blind-packaged, you can’t see what you’re getting until you buy it and open it, which makes finding a particular place pretty tough — especially when it’s a chase version. So I just waited until I got a reasonably good deal on ebay. On this plate you can see Slave Leia in front of Jabba’s sail barge and some skiffs. It reads “SLVGRL” (“Slave Girl”). These little plates are kind of cool, but I’m done with them now that I have the two Jabba-related ones.

Piñatas are a staple of many kids’ birthday parties here in the US. My son had an Optimus Prime-shaped piñata two or three years ago, and we just recently went to a Star Wars-themed party with a Darth Vader piñata. Traditionally, they would be filled with candy and suspended from the ceiling or a tree branch and each partygoer would take turns smacking it with a stick while blindfolded until it breaks apart and the candy falls out. That can take quite a while and can be a bit dangerous, especially with small kids, so now many piñatas just have strings on the bottom that you can pull, one of which will cause a trap door in the bottom to open. Not quite as much fun, but as a parent I can appreciate the advantages.

I got this from Etsy seller PaperMacheSculptures. They have a lot of different piñata designs available, although some are better than others, in my opinion. I like the Jabba sculpt, especially considering that it’s made of papier-mâché. It’s hollow, but it’s rock hard and not flimsy at all. And at 22″ wide by 15″ tall, it’s one of the larger Jabba’s in my collection — similar in size to the Illusive Concepts statue.

Before Repaint

As you can see, the paint was a bit on the rough side when I got it. It’s fine for a piñata that’s just going to get destroyed after a party, but since I wanted to display this in my collection, I decided to repaint it. The seller usually drills holes somewhere in the top of the piñata so it can be hung and also opens up a little trap door in the back so you can fill it with candy, but since I wasn’t going to be using this as an actual piñata I decided to just keep it intact.

Interestingly, there are about as many international versions of the vintage Jabba the Hutt Play-Doh set as there are of the vintage toy playset. This one is from a company called Clipper (aka Clipper BENELUX because it distributed toys in BElgium, the NEtherlands, and LUXembourg). It’s a similar design to the American version of the set, but I find the American version to be a bit more esthetically pleasing.

In particular, I like the back of the American version better, since it includes of some kids with awesome 80s haircuts playing with the set, while this version is rather sterile looking. One reason for this might be that the Clipper set includes instructions in both French and Dutch (fun fact: “gebruiksaanwijzing” means “instructions” in Dutch).

I’m trying to get every version of this set. There’s a German set that is very similar to this one, but with German text on the box. There’s a Canadian version with a silver box, a Palitoy set from England (I think), and a Lili Ledy version from Mexico (down there Play-Doh is known as “Supermasa”). There might be more that I don’t know of as well.

This poster was released in 1983 by Sales Corporation of America (who also released this great Jabba baseball cap, among other things). It’s 11 x 14, so maybe a bit small for a poster. It originally came shrink-warpped to a piece of cardboard, but the plastic was coming off of mine and I knew I wanted to frame it eventually, so I too it off. I don’t know who the artist is, but it’s a nice painting.

It comes in a nice metal box like you might get fancy cookies in. Inside, the parts are protected with some thick foam. It does give it a bit of a high-end feel, which is good when you consider that this cost me a bit over £100 including shipping (or over $150).

Inside you see the main parts of the kit, which consist of Jabba, Leia, the throne, and four baggies with miscellaneous parts (including parts of the throne railing and hooka pipe, the throne gargoyle heads and rings, pillows, Salacious Crumb, and so on). There is also a booklet called a “Pinture Guide” (Picture Guide) that shows you in very general terms how you might paint up the kit (the text is in Spanish). Finally there is a card that has your model’s edition number on one side (I got #40 of 500) and a bit of text about Jabba on the other (again in Spanish).

Here are Jabba and Leia (minus one of her arms, which is a separate piece) placed temporarily on the throne. The throne is about 7″ wide by 3.5″ deep. With Jabba on the throne, he’s about 3.5″ tall. It’s not a bad size.

The level of detail is good, but my first impression was that I was a bit disappointed that Jabba and the throne aren’t made of metal. The throne is clearly resin, as are the pieces of the throne railing and hooka. I think Jabba is resin as well, although of a different type and color. For this price, I expected metal. That said, it doesn’t make that much of a difference once it’s assembled and painted, except that the model will be lighter than if it were made of metal.

Leia and most of the smaller pieces are metal. So far the only real complaint I have about the kit is that the gargoyle heads seem rather “off.” They have overbites instead of underbites and (this is the biggie) they have two eyes when they should only have one big eye. Also, they’ve made the throne so that the gargoyles go all the way around it, but all of my other models, statues and toys just have four in the front and two on the sides. I may leave some of them off when I assemble it.

I’m looking forward to putting this kit together, although it may take a while as I’m rather busy with work and our new baby. I think it’ll be an impressive piece when it’s finished.

I recently got a copy of “The Padawan Menace,” which is a half-hour TV special that aired on the Cartoon Network about 6 months ago. It’s a comical adventure using LEGO Star Wars characters. I was surprised that Jabba has a pretty large cameo appearance, as do Bib Fortuna, the rancor and some Gamorrean Guards. I’ve uploaded a short video to Youtube with just Jabba’s scenes to give you an idea (see below). It’s definitely a fun little show if you like LEGO Star Wars.

I thought it was interesting that they reused Jabba’s lines from Return of the Jedi. Even though the lines in Huttese don’t really match what Jabba is supposed to be saying, I think it probably sounds better than having a new actor record something. I have also added some screenshots to the Articles section of my site.

I’m wondering if the design for the CGI Jabba minifigure will be what we see in the upcoming LEGO Jabba’s Palace set. I think it’s a lot more attractive than the previous version. I’m also hoping that we’ll see a rancor and rancor keeper at some point in the near future, since they’ve never made one.

There are a few differences between this and the retail set. First and most obvious is the fact that everything is glued together. This was done by LEGO, presumably to make it possible to ship the display to stores and allow them to put it out with a minimum of assembly. All of the pieces of the set have been glued with something resembling superglue, and hot glue was used in some places as well (such as the doors on the side, which would normally fold down.

All of the minifigures are also glued into place — even their poses are more or less fixed. You can see this most easily on the skiff, where Skiff Guard Lando is in a permanent pose that has him almost ready to fall backward in to the sarlacc.

They also used some transparent cylindrical LEGO pieces to show Boba Fett just above the mouth of the sarlacc — I don’t think these are included with the retail set. Mine came off in shipping so I’m not sure where Boba Fett was originally placed.

If you turn the ship over, they added some gray LEGO blocks that also aren’t in the normal set. This makes the barge sit up higher and also allowed it to be screwed onto the display base.

Finally, there’s a folded triangle of cardboard that serves as a nameplate. Since I now have two sail barges, I think I’ll keep the store display version in one of my display cases and use the other one for playing with my son.

This cap was released in 1996 by Fresh Caps (who also released the Return of the Jedi cap I wrote about a few months ago). It’s one of three baseball caps (that I know of) that are completely dedicated to Jabba — the other two being the vintage Jabba the Hutt hat by Sales Corporation of America and the New Era Jabba the Hutt cap (aka the best hat in the world).

It’s a little bit of an odd design, with the “Jabba the Hutt” name placed off to one side. As with the other Jabba hats, I’m not really sure who would wear something like this — at least non-ironically.

I think I’ve seen the Jabba artwork in a comic book somewhere, but I can’t quite place it. Anybody know?