Cheap Ass Vintage Star Wars Toy Stories...

I'm looking at doing a series of mockumentries on the looking back on what things we did to enhance our Star Wars toys.
These are the things we added, substituted, made or imagined as a short tongue-in-cheek look back at the way we played with toys.

i.e. freezing Han in ice for 'carbonite'.
or using the figure bubbles as boats.
or propping up your bedsheets to make the Rebel Echo Base.

Was there anything you did, remember or made?

For example, I used to make Speeder Bikes out of X-Wing guns and the bag loop from marbles and strip bark off logs for Ewok huts (ok, so I lived out in the wilderness as a kid, not everyone had to cut up trees to keep warm, but you get the idea).

The idea is to recreate as much of this nonsense as possible for a tribute series of videos, so if there was anything you did back in the day and are happy to share please post below

Dave

I used to place my figures around my bedroom and then fire elastic bands at them. I'd score points for difficulty of shot and for knocking over heavy figures like Gammy Guard. I'd hide them everywhere like curtain rails and light switches

Can't remember what I made to enhance stuff but I have some memories of how I used my environment which I don't mind sharing:-

1. Underneath my bed was perfect for a Yavin or Hoth base, X-wing nose and Snowspeeder just poking out! (Rebel Transport would never fit!)

2. The rear gunner seat from the Rebel Transport was awesome as a lone outpost gunner atop the upright of the bannister just outside my bedroom, right at the top of the stairs. Looking out for enemy fighters all the way downstairs and was usually destroyed first in any enemy attack.

3. I had Darth's TIE Fighter but never a standard Fighter or Interceptor. Swapping the wings over and reversing them meant you could have a sort of TIE Interceptor that my TIE pilot would be happy with!

4. Fairy lights on the xmas tree were awesome for Rebel Commando. Putting his hands in the air he had a great pose for traversing along a 'zipwire', creeping up on CAP-2 who was also nestled in the tree manned by bounty hunters!

5. I had a large set of drawers which the Falcon always sat proudly on, ramp down - to me it was my Bespin landing platform. It was just my head height and I got exactly the same view as the shot in the film.

6. My brother and I shared a room and that gap between both single beds made a pretty good trench run - culminating in the exhaust port (bedside cabinet) being obliterated by a torpedo (shoe etc).

Richard_H said:

I used to place my figures around my bedroom and then fire elastic bands at them. I'd score points for difficulty of shot and for knocking over heavy figures like Gammy Guard. I'd hide them everywhere like curtain rails and light switches

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ha awesome, Richard, have you ever tried Attactix? It was essentially that, very easy to pick up and very fun to play, but panned by collectors because of their look, which is hilarious as it wasn't for looks ... stoopid fickle collectors

stratpack said:

3. I had Darth's TIE Fighter but never a standard Fighter or Interceptor. Swapping the wings over and reversing them meant you could have a sort of TIE Interceptor that my TIE pilot would be happy with!

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Ha, yes!!! I did that I would also use Vaders TIE wings and the Falcon cover for additional scenery/ bunkers. The cutaway that would connect to the quad guns would make a good gunners trench for a figure sat down.

stratpack said:

6. My brother and I shared a room and that gap between both single beds made a pretty good trench run - culminating in the exhaust port (bedside cabinet) being obliterated by a torpedo (shoe etc).

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Now that is cool!!! I have older sisters, I would have been kicked out of the room long before ever trying that one out

me and some friends found what we thought was a large piece of warped wood and took it home and sprayed it with white car-spray to look like Hoth. We were hapily playing on it for a few days when a friend's dad came and took it from us!

We didn't know what asbestos was back then!

....it did look fantastic though with all our vehicles and figs on it :lol: :lol: :lol:

David Tree said:

Richard_H said:

I used to place my figures around my bedroom and then fire elastic bands at them. I'd score points for difficulty of shot and for knocking over heavy figures like Gammy Guard. I'd hide them everywhere like curtain rails and light switches

Click to expand...

ha awesome, Richard, have you ever tried Attactix? It was essentially that, very easy to pick up and very fun to play, but panned by collectors because of their look, which is hilarious as it wasn't for looks ... stoopid fickle collectors

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Never heard of it. Will check them out

i had a big cabinet on top of the wardrobe which swung out and up (you could fit duvets or bears in it.. massive). it was dark but became the death star. Was great for ships to fly around the room and get caught in a tractor beam, or dock.

Hoth was always a papier mache creation that didnt last long. toilet roll holders as the turrets and the red Maxmillian robot from the Black Hole had to substitute for probot/probe droid.

for tatooine i had an orangey yellow rug.

in the summer it was out in the garden to a mud spot the caravan sat on, when it was out in the drive me and my bro dug trenches and my dad I seem to remember painted white. but it wasnt that great.. i think i got worms.

What a great thread - I am going to have to drag the memory banks as for the life of me I really don't remember what I did with them - just that I could spend hours and hours with all the ships and figures in one room !

We never had any of the vehicles so made all our playsets out of lego, which we had loads of.

How about playing Cluedo with the Palitoy Death Star?

It was Hammerhead... in the trash compactor... with the Gaffi Stick.

I remember reenacting the Endor celebrations and my Luke x-wing falling in to the camp fire. I also strapped my many spare Vaders to firework rockets as a nod towards the destroying of the first Death Star........ Yeah, I was that kid. Surprised so much survived.

Ah yes, the memories come flooding back...

When I was 9 I somehow got hold of a cardboard hospital piss pot and made a space ship out of it. Even had a a slide for figures to go down (the tube where your cock would go). I drew on a control panel and some windows. The imagination of a child eh? :lol:

I converted an old writing desk/bureau into the Death Star, long before I got the official playset. It had lots of separate compartments so it was perfect, I wrote signs all over it including 'Trash chute' 'Docking bay 19' 'Prison area' and 'Droid repair'. I probably had more fun with it than the Palitoy version.

Later it became my model making desk, and I spent many hours hunched over it assembling and painting Airfix and Tamiya kits. Amazingly my parents still have it, tucked away in the shed and full of plant pots.

I remember me and my sister made a paper mache Yoda cave and painted it. One Christmas me and my cousin did a similar thing to Rich. We had got them two foot long pea shooters that were knocking about in the 80's and we put his figures all round the room and spent hours firing wet bog roll at them. By the end there were hundreds of bits of bog roll pebble dashing the entire room on one side! Also did a bit of Christmas tree play with figures like others have said. Seem to recall making zip wires and stuff like that out of thread and string.

Magic thread -

Used to love playing with my figures on the stairs, lots of figures on different steps, bad guys getting knocked down.

Used to use a St Ivel Gold container as a Crabon freeze, either freezing solo in water or as a more permanent set up use talcum powder mixed with water - looked great when dry but my mum didn't think it was so great when all her powder kept disappearing

My fav was winter though - leave my Hoth figures on the roof overnight so when I looked out in the morning they were covered in snow!

Used to hide figures in the living room especially at xmas (in the tree) so I knew where they were but obviously my folks didn't - used to love sitting there at night beaming because the figures were "watching us"

Oh and kitchen cupboard was another planet my figures had many adventures in, dread to think how many blasters were lost in amongst cans of soup!

Nevermind then, i still ask the wife to take her knickers off so i can use her nether regions as the Sarlacc

Joking aside i used to use Chips figures etc to have on going battles against Star Wars guys Luke always wooped Ponch,s ass I also used to use my chest of drawers as a landing platform for the Falcon, and each draw was a different part of Bespin or a Star Destroyer.

Obviously snow gave me the Hoth settings, especially after i used to empty the old dears salt over the table. Holidays on the beach was always the first choice in Devon in 1984

x-pack said:

Ah yes, the memories come flooding back...

When I was 9 I somehow got hold of a cardboard hospital piss pot and made a space ship out of it. Even had a a slide for figures to go down (the tube where your cock would go). I drew on a control panel and some windows. The imagination of a child eh? :lol:

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You could have made a decent dagobah swamp out if that, assuming it was used :lol:

Palitoy78 said:

her nether regions as the Sarlacc

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I'm curious - Original Sarlacc or Special edition?

i flipped the rebel tranport carrier upside down in water opened the bottom hatch and i had the poisdon adventure going on :lol: