Sunday, July 16, 2006

Virago Facts 30 and 31 - Geek edition plus trivia questions!

Virago Fact 30: I was a tomboy.

As proof of Fact #30, I offer you Fact #31: I was a Star Wars geek.

And as proof of #31, I offer you the following photos of my SW toy collection. When I brought them home to Rust Belt from Cowtown, Bullock said, "You were more of a boy than I was!"



For the record, the purple, blue, and green striped wallpaper was Ms. V's doing in the '70s. she even made a matching trash can by using the same wallpaper on the outside of a clean Baskin Robbin's ice cream bucket. She was very crafty. Anyway, I later inherited that bedroom.





This is the original light saber toy, the one with the inflatable "light beam" that would either bend limply over time or come off the flashlight base because the plastic had stretched. Mine suffered the latter fate, and the tape my mom used to re-attach it is still holding it together.





Ah, the Death Star play set! Mine, I'm proud to say, is utterly complete and in working condition. There's a monster and "trash" (foam bits) in the orange trash compactor at the bottom! And if you look closely you'll see a rope swinging from the ceiling over the retracted bridge; it's just waiting for Luke to swing across with Leia!




At last, the action figures. Some don't have the right guns because my set got mixed up with my nephews and a few things got switched. And Luke and Obi Wan are missing their light sabers. But in general I'm amazed that most of them *do* have the appropriate weapons, despite being played with by me, my friends, and later, my nephew and his friends.








And these are the Empire Strikes Back figures. I was getting older and losing interest after the first few came out, so there are only 9 figures here. Meanwhile, my mom had discovered that some of these things were becoming collector's items, so she thought if she saved the cards, they'd be more valuable. She didn't realize that they still had to be *in* the packaging and unplayed with. At any rate, it made it handier to identify them and their guns.




And now the trivia question I promised. One of my nephew's Empire Strikes Back figures made it into my Star Wars carrying case, in one of the blank slots left for additonal Storm Troopers and Sand People. Can you identify which figure it is, and, for extra geek points, tell me the figure's name? (Remember, you can click on the photos to "embiggen" them, as JM says.)

May the Force be with you.

6 comments:

Scrivener said...

Do you mean the Luke Skywalker in Hoth outfit? That's second row from the botton, on the far right.

What's the name of the blue and orange walrus guy next to him? I had that one too.

Dr. Virago said...

You win! It is indeed Luke Skywalker in Hoth gear, on the far right in the second row from the bottom. And the figure he's next to is aptly but not very creatively named "Walrus Man." He's Mos Eisley Cantina figure -- the one who gets his arm cut off, I think.

I should send you a prize or something!

JM said...

I'm so jealous - I didn't have the Death Star Space Station! I had almost everything else, though. Excuse me while I go dust off my collection of Ewok figures (I may be one of the only people in the world who a: love the ewoks and b: can name all the major ewoks). So yeah, we could have been SW pals!

Scrivener said...

Yes! Send me a prize! I like prizes!

I had some of the SW figures, but nowhere near as many as I wanted. At some point long past the movie's release, I bought a Millenium Falcon off of a kid for next to nothing--can't remember the details any more but there was some sort of odd trade involved. The Falcon was the only one of the big toys I had. Other than that, just the action figures, which I so loved.

I can't name any of the Ewoks, though I have seen a picture of Julie dressed as an Ewok.

Scrivener said...

Oh and "Walrus Man" is like the lamest name for an action figure evah.

Dr. Virago said...

Hey Scriv, e-mail me your address (drvirago[at]gmail[dot]com), because I have a little something Star Wars related to send you.