Terrific episode so far fellas. Still have about an hour or so left, but as usual you guys nail it each and every month. Great to have Stu back and Simon did a "bang up" job with co-hosting duties this month (my British slang gets better and better each month by listening to you guys too). I was bustin' a gut listening to the Carbonite Blockbusters bit. Rich's "Mmmm, bad motivator" buzz in was hilarious. I may have to change my incoming text message tone to that.
Great interview with Lee. It is always interesting for me to hear how other countries experienced the Star Wars hype back in the day.
I have a couple thing I wanted to bring up about the Imperial Shuttle. It's a fantastic ship and definitely one of my favorites as a kid, even though it came out toward the end of the vintage line. I have a little story to share from the summer of 1985.
I grew up in a very small town on the Washington State coast and it was a little challenging finding the new actions figures. However, every summer my parents would take my sister and I to the "big city" of Portland, Oregon so we could go school clothes shopping. This was about a 3 hour drive. Well, needless to say, there just happened to be a Toys 'R' Us right next door to the mall we would shop at.
With a little begging and pleading (like promising to clean my room the next day), my Mom and Dad took me to the "store of all stores". On this particular occasion, I walked in and before my eyes was aisle upon aisle of Power of the Force action figures. My mom said I could pick two figures and then we had to go." Immediately I started thumbing through every single row searching for the figures I needed most. Mom and Dad would help me thumb through also as I explained what figure I really needed. "Luke Stormtrooper....YES!" I continued to search and then, "Han in Carbonite!" Bam!! Mom said that was enough and we had to get going.
As we started to walk away, I couldn't help but keep my eyes on all the figures and ships. I then spotted an Imperial Shuttle down one of the other clearance aisles. This was the "ship of all ships"! I walked over to it as my parents were trying to leave and my sister was whining because we had spent the last 15 minutes looking at figures. Mom said, "C'mon Jason, no more." At that point, my Dad stepped in. I think he sensed his own memories of childhood as I stared at that massive Imperial Shuttle. He walked up to me and said, "Son, if we get you this, you have to promise to clean out the cubbie hole." My eyes widened. The cubbie hole was sort of like the basement, except it was upstairs, and it was our household pigsty. This little room was one you had to crawl in on your hands and knees. It was filled with boxes, toys, and most of all junk. This seemed a heavy price to pay, but at that moment I would have done anything to get that ship. I then promised that I would and good 'ol Dad grabbed the box and off we went to the check out counter.
I still have it to this day, as well as the original box it came in. I have attached a photo of the ship and the price sticker. As you can see it was marked down to $14.92 USD! What a bargain eh?
Great memory I remember vividly 32 year later.
As you guys mentioned on the podcast, the wings are a huge issue. That same summer I took some pictures of my figures while setting up scenes from ROTJ and you can see that the wing already had the issue where it would not stay up. A couple summers ago, I decided to open it up and try to fix it. The square shaped nubbin on the gear mechanism snapped off under pressure. This is the biggest design flaw for this ship as the wings are way to heavy. I would drop those wings all the time after liftoff as that was the coolest feature of the toy in my opinion. I ended up using superglue to fix it, but I dare not drop the wings as I'm sure it will snap off again. It at least allows the wings to stay upright for display purposes.
My childhood shuttle restored
Huge discount, which I'm sure contributed to my Dad overriding my Mom that day.
Pic I took of my Shuttle the summer of 1985. I'd only had the ship for a week or two when this photo was taken and you can see the wing mechanism is already broken.
Photo of the gear nubbin that I glued back on to fix the issue, but I dare not drop the wings as I'm sure it won't hold.
