1. The Imperial Troop Transport began plastic life as a Kenner toy, made its way into Rebels and then The Mandalorian, coming full circle to land on toy shelves again.

Is there another toy design that you'd like to see similarly updated and canonized? Personally, I thought the Cruisemissile Trooper was pretty fun but there might be a Mini-Rig or two that passes muster.
--MisterPL

I genuinely don't have the love of the Cruisemissile Trooper that other collectors seem to have. I get the "wow that's weird" angle, but as a toy it's no fun. Having the figure stuck in there robbed me of playing with it, as I like putting figures in ships. Once the figure is stuck in a ship, I've got no interest in seeing it return.

There's a vehicle in the Droids cartoon that, if memory serves, shows up a few times and looks like an old Kenner Mini-Rig. It's now known as the IG-1000 and the Droid Fighter (Fromm Gang) on Wookieepedia, and if I would love to know if this was intended to be a toy first and the toy never made the cut. Quite a few of my favorite mini-rigs showed up in the cartoon, but not all. The Side Gunner did and I love that stupid thing to death. (Did you know it used to be worthless? You could get 'em for under $10 boxed, and there were few takers.) It might be a little silly for TV, but so was the Imperial Troop Transport - and yet, it worked.

I'm also extraordinarily fond of the PDT-8 and MTV-7, but presumably, nobody else wants a giant steamroller. The PDT-8 really does look like it belongs as a sort of personal shuttle vehicle, complete with a step opening, so I think it looks like it would do well on Disney+. But what I really would love to see is that Droid Fighter. I'd pay good money for a good toy of it.

More than anything, what I'd love to see are more enclosed one- or two-person fighters with visible (but not exposed) pilots. So your ISP-6, AST-5, and MLC-3 really push my toy buttons.

Ad: Get New Star Wars and More at Entertainment Earth! Get Free USA Shipping on Orders $59+ with code FREESHIP59

 

2. Around 2008 during the height of collecting the 30th anniversary line, I went into a regional department store (Boscov's) and found a POTF2 FX R2-D2 on the pegs. The cashier working toys said "oh yeah, we found that in the back under a shelf we moved". The price on it was more than it was going for even a decade later, like $10, but I couldn't let it go and saved it. Do you have any memories of "saving" toys from pegs that were well beyond their release?
--Alexander

In (or shortly after) the Sega Dreamcast era, I outright stole a Sega Saturn demo kiosk manual from a Sears that was just laying around. Oh sure I could have asked - but there's no Sega Saturn stuff to be sold, and no kiosk in sight, and it'd probably go in a pile until it went in the trash. Of course, I misplaced it. It's probably here somewhere.

I've seen a lot of weird "why is this here?" items over the years, one of the weirdest was stumbling on a 1986 Zoids Geruder - a Japanese toy - in the wind-up toy bins of Phoenix, AZ Jutenhoops in 2003. Around the same time I also stumbled on some Transformers Machine Wars stuff at Kay-Bee toys, and those were not quite nearly as old... but they belonged there. I've had a lot of toy sightings of things around 10 years old in stores back when I used to frequent way too many shops, but not as much lately. One of the reasons I don't bother anymore is when I find something weird, it scans at "PRICE NOT FOUND" and I have to ask myself just how much work I want to do for someone to most likely say "we don't know what it costs so we can't sell it to you." I also bought a lot of 1990ish Playmobil from Hobby Bench around 2002-2004, as I lived across the street from the now-demolished Paradise Valley Mall and wandered in a lot.

I also live in an area with some weird shops. For example, a record store had a 1979 Mego 3 3/4-inch Mr. Spock on a peg this year for $9.99 (and yes I bought him.) It gets to a point where if you go to enough stores, you can't save everything. I went into a Goodwill this week and saw a giant tube radio that may have been nearly 100 years old... cool as it was, it's heavy, it's big, and it's not like I'm going to be better off having it. I didn't even know if it worked and I'll probably throw that anecdote around for ages as one of those cool things I saw, did not buy, and hope someone else out there got and loved.

Become a Patron!

Special thanks to our generous Patreon patrons, especially: JT, Jared, Bobb, Christopher, Daniel, Tim, Jayson, Matthew, Michael, Robert, Stephen, and Todd! Thanks for helping us keep the servers on!

FIN

While there are exciting things in my review pile (Pride Droids! Retro Kenner 12-backs!) and we just got a season of The Mandalorian that, while charming, had its butt kicked by the action from the season two premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. There's not a lot on the horizon to get excited about. Ahsoka is coming, and it'll probably be fine. I assume Skeleton Crew will get punted back to some point in early 2024. And movies? Two Star Wars films are now set for 2026 and that link probably has the best round-up of all the Disney/20th Century Studios franchise shake-ups. There are lots of films, all of which are delayed a bit, and I would go as far as to say I would be willing to bet money those two Star Wars flicks will not see release in 2026. As Star Wars fans - really, all franchise fans - we have to consider that the push of familiarity with the pull of innovation might leave us stuck in a loop where things will come, go through the motions, and entertain us while going down the memory hole. (See: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.) I've got decent hopes for Ahsoka but with no Force Friday-style marketing push, I worry. People are over and through the new thing before the toys come out these days.

I also have to confess I am still slowly getting through Star Wars Visions, as binging it was rather unpleasant. Thankfully, nothing really amazing happens, so spoilers aren't exactly a problem. (I'd say this is true of almost everything these days. Telling me what happens might actually get me to check something out.) I've got hope for the future as San Diego Comic-Con is around the corner (see you there?) as are the looming threat of Toy Fair in September, numerous industry/trade events in the fall, and a lot of uncertainty as to what will happen to the massive glut of warehoused inventory in a lot of toy company warehouses. (You heard about the Funko landfill? That's a part of it.) It's possible the post-release merchandise combined with the Marvel-style "here's an ad for the next thing" at the end of each movie which alters fan discourse from "let's see that again!" to "wow I can't wait to see this next thing!" probably means the pattern we're in now will continue to favor our shortened attention spans something fierce.

So yeah, not exactly a lot of Star Wars news. But in the kind of news that may only interest me, I stumbled on a new, 2023 Combustible Edison release while farting around the record store. Forbidden Isle of Demos is out, and it's 2023 release of a demo from a band from 1992 remembering the music of the 1950s and 1960s. I love this kind of stuff, and I only saw it because it was put in the wrong bin at the store and I accidentally found it. It's that kind of thing that keeps me floating around looking for weird, old stuff in an era where the best action on new toys is online. And of course, the looming specter of the Ghost is expected to be revealed as the next HasLab at Comic-Con next month. A new G.I. Joe 6-inch scale helicopter went up the other week and got funded pretty much immediately, which could lead to some sort of lessons that could help/hurt whatever the next thing is. Who knows?

Also stopped in a Toys R Us mini-store inside a Macy's for the first time in a while, and it was impressively big - and stale. Lots of leftover Marvel goods from last year, some Kenobi stuff, and generally not a lot of "new" - but certainly, a bigger toy selection than I've seen as of late. It might not be worth your while, but it was nice to wander around toy aisles, in a mall, seemingly completely without any other human beings in sight. Although that may not bode well for leasing space inside the Macy's.

Anyway, back to the mines. Or not, it's a three day weekend here so I'll probably work on Figure of the Day and get stuff in the can so I can go around and take some pictures at Comic-Con to share with the rest of the class. See you next mission!

--Adam Pawlus

Got questions? Email me with Q&A in the subject line now! I'll answer your questions as soon as time (or facts) permit.

I'm on Instagram! All Pictures from a GameBoy Camera.