Original Thought? I gave that up in the '80's.

[Ironwood]

[Can anyone think of a character introduced in the prequelmovies that needs a TV show? You know, a character that is still alive at the end of Ep 3 AND worth telling about?

It could be a show about Yoda hiding away from the Empire on Dagobah. With nothing to do except sit there and eat gruel, it will be like Waiting for Godot without the dialogue.

"Come he said he would, and he has not.  Hmmm ?"

I'd watch that.

[Sky]

All in all it was an unwatchable train wreck unless you were hopped up on goofballs. Shortly after the special aired is when they did the original mail-order-with-proof-of-purchase-seals Fett action figure offer. The cool one with the backpack missle that actual shot out. Shot out and pparently managed to blind and choke enough children that they stopped the offer until the redid the figure.

Ahh...thank god for teh goofballs. I loved all the crappy SW stuff, it was so bad. But then, I listened to Dr Demento and had the christmas album on vinyl, pretty sure I still do in storage somewhere. Lost my Pac Man Fever album :(

And Fett (I had a mail-order Fett who later met demise via gunpowder bomb):

Urban Legend: A rocket-firing Boba Fett action figure was made and several were shipped to early buyers.

This one's been the bane of many an action figure collector. When the first Boba Fett action figure was planned in 1978, following that year's "Star Wars Holiday Special" on television which introduced the bounty hunter in an animated segment and in anticipation of the character's role in the upcoming film, The Empire Strikes Back, toymaker Kenner Products had plans to incorporate a special rocket-firing backpack.

The Boba Fett figure wasn't available in stores initially. It was first unveiled as a 1979 mail-in promotion in which collectors could send in cut-out proofs-of-purchase and then receive the rocket-firing figure a while later. While the toy was still in the final stages of planning, however, a similar missile-firing feature in Battlestar Galactica toys from Mattel raised some child safety issues and caused a product recall. Kenner quickly realized it had to modify the coolest and most promoted feature of its new action figure. It experimented with a few variations to see if it could figure out a child-proof "locking" mechanism for the small firing missile, but quickly gave up and retooled the figure. It removed the firing mechanism and permanently glued the missile into the backpack.

Kenner quickly modified all advertising and promotional material so that the offer no longer made mention of the rocket-firing feature. Also, the Fetts that were mailed came with a small note explaining the following:

"Originally, our Star Wars Boba Fett action figure was designed to have a spring-launched rocket. The launcher has been removed from the product for safety reasons. If you are dissatisfied with the product, please return it to us and we will replace it with any Star Wars mini-action figure of your choice."
While some people "remember" getting a missile-firing Fett in the mail, none of the rocket-firing Boba Fett figures were released. Their memories are playing tricks on them. A small amount of production-test figures, called "first-shots", were made for Kenner's inspection, but these were usually rough, unfinished, unpainted action figures, although these and some painted variations have made their way to collectors' hands.

And I still swear I thought it had a firing mechanism. It could have been the Battlestar figure, I'll never know.

[Bunk]

Well I'll be damned. I always thought I was stuck with the inferior figrure. (I still have it, my one remaining Star Wars toy)

I rememeber the Battlestar issue though. The went really stupid with that one. After the recall, the ships still had the little red missile, and it still had the spring. You pushed the fire button and "click" - the missile popped out a quarter inch and stopped. Lame is a word that comes to mind.

Out of curiosity, since there seems to be a few folks here who have read some of the EU stuff (I haven't). Was Fett's story ever filled in in any of the books, or was it primarily the comic series? And were any of them worth reading? I'm not looking for quality literature here, just entertaining reading.

[HaemishM]

Yes, that is why I'm so much better than most of you: When I was a child our toys killed those of us who were too weak.

LAWN DARTS, BITCHES!

[Sky]

Hey, I loved me some lawn darts. I was a deadly lawn dart ninja when I was a kid. Ok, maybe I spent too much time with the lawn darts. And axes. Gotta love chopping down trees. And guns. These kids with their 'dangerous' video games, meh.

[Pococurante]

In college we played deathdarts in the very long hallway of our dorm.  One guy on each end, heaving tournament-grade darts at each other at full speed.

Good times.

[Merusk]

Out of curiosity, since there seems to be a few folks here who have read some of the EU stuff (I haven't). Was Fett's story ever filled in in any of the books, or was it primarily the comic series? And were any of them worth reading? I'm not looking for quality literature here, just entertaining reading.

Fett's 'non death' came about in the Dark Horse Comics series Dark Empire  How exactly he escaped wasn't explained until Tales of the Bounty Hunters which is a short story collection that fleshes-out some of the minor and background characters from the movies.  In all that was a pretty good series of books that included Tales of Jabba's Palace and Tales of the Mos Eisley Cantina Fun stuff that didn't try to be too serious about itself. There's a 3-book series that focuses on Fett called The Bounty Hunter Wars but it was, at best, "Meh."

If you're going to take-up reading the EU books, then avoid anything in the "New Jedi Order." It will most likely give you the same spactic brain response Haemish gets when you mention sb.exe.

The best stuff out of the EU books were Timothy Zahn's 5 books. The 3 "Heir to the Empire" series that started off the EU, and his "wrap up" books that lead into the New Jedi Order crap, Vision of the Future and Spectre of the Past.) I, Jedi by Michael Stackpole was also pretty good, and I hear his Rogue Squadron books are all pretty decent. I can't speak from experience, since I've never read them.  Other than that it's all pretty bad, with maybe "The Black Fleet Crisis" series being tolerable enough to get through these days. I read them all because they were the only SW material out there at the time and I still thought a lot of them sucked.  Avoid The Courtship of Princess Leia and The Crystal Starat all costs. I've seen fanfics that were better and cringe that someone got paid to write those.  

Yes, that is why I'm so much better than most of you: When I was a child our toys killed those of us who were too weak.

LAWN DARTS, BITCHES!

My best friend from early college had a wonderful lawn dart story where he winds up with it in his skull. Those things were great toys.

[Bunk]

Thanks Merusk.


I had lawn darts as a kid too. Big ass steel spikes with wings, whats not to love? Still remember chucking em stright up in the air as high as you could, and then running like hell.

[kaid]

Lawn darts while dangerous were damn fun. We used to use these things in a neighborhood schools football field when nobody was around flinging these things a LONG way.


kaid

[Polysorbate80]

I had the missile-firing Galactica toys; unfortunately they met their demise at the hands of some lighter fluid and firecrackers one bored summer afternoon (which makes worrying about the potential danger of the 'missiles' rather moot, hm?)

Lawn darts were fun.  Also fun (and much more messy, unless you impaled someone with a dart) was loading overripe apricots with firecrackers and throwing them at each other.

I've also heard of "carrot tag", which apparently involves loading black powder rifles with a small amount of powder and a chunk of carrot.  Slightly more extreme than paintball (which is a helluva lot of fun, except for getting hit in the throat--damn, that stings!)

[Pococurante]

I've also heard of "carrot tag", which apparently involves loading black powder rifles with a small amount of powder and a chunk of carrot.  Slightly more extreme than paintball (which is a helluva lot of fun, except for getting hit in the throat--damn, that stings!)

Potato and tennis ball cannons ftw.  I used to make good arcade money selling these to schoolmates.

It's beyond me that me and all my buds survived long enough to become a burden on our children.  Though a few times we did come to school with less hair than we had the previous day.

[Mortriden]

The Rogue Squadren and Wraith Squadren series' are decent enough; although both suffer from bloat a stretch your level of acceptance towords the end of the series.

[Polysorbate80]

Potato guns are nifty; my in-laws have a running "feud" with some other folks who own summer property just down the river from them.  They periodically launch spuds at each other just for kicks (they're far enough apart that the potatoes rarely actually make it all the way, and if they do they're not dangerous)

[Sky]

I had the missile-firing Galactica toys; unfortunately they met their demise at the hands of some lighter fluid and firecrackers one bored summer afternoon (which makes worrying about the potential danger of the 'missiles' rather moot, hm?)

Yeah, note what happened to my "safe" Boba.

Our wars as kids were with bb guns (set to no more than TWO pumps, heh....everyone did ten anyway) and corncob "grenades" (I grew up in corn country). If you've never been beaned in the head with a corncob thrown with full force at ten paces...be happy.

Then there was a favorite 'tech upgrade' to snowball wars, someone would inevitably get a bucket of water and make some iceballs.

Yeah, we were worried about a little plastic bit. I'm lucky to be alive, and that's not even getting into gunpowder bombs and fireworks/quarter sticks (aka 'fish sticks')...

[Bunk]

One summer, before we had paintball guns, we decided to try casting wax pellets for our pellet guns and shoot at each other with those. Some kids eventually got mad at the crappy wax pellets and just started using real ones.

Halloween one year, we came up with a nifty thing to play with. Took all the powder from a bunch of screecheroos, filled up empty .303 shells with it, added a wick and crimped them shut. You could hear those go off for miles around. At least we were bright enough not to throw them at each other.

[Murgos]

There were these little hollow fruits that grew on a tree near where I lived that were about the size of a ping-pong ball.  Guess what happens when you mix those, fire crackers and one of those ping-pong ball guns that used to be popular?

You get exploding fruit in your open bedroom window thats what.

[Polysorbate80]

Then there was a favorite 'tech upgrade' to snowball wars, someone would inevitably get a bucket of water and make some iceballs.

Semi-frozen water ballons for us; ice-cold water inside a hard shell of ice.  Pain *and* a soaking....

[stray]

Kevin Smith reviews Epidsode III

"Revenge of the Sith" is, quite simply, fucking awesome.

Heh

[Paelos]

More or less fucking awesome than Jersey Girl?

[MaceVanHoffen]

Lawn darts while dangerous were damn fun.

We took lawn darts to 11 with a handy dandy water balloon launcher.  I was raised in a very small town in west Texas.  Livestock feared us.  From the next county over.

[HaemishM]

Be honest, lawn darts weren't the "darts" the livestock were afraid of.

[MaceVanHoffen]

Be honest, lawn darts weren't the "darts" the livestock were afraid of.

I did wonder why calls to fire lawn "darts" were often followed by unzipping noises.  I think I've blocked something out from my childhood.  Maybe those weren't aliens who did the probing ...