The phrase, “you’re dating yourself,” usually carries a negative connotation.  When talking about about fandom or hobbies, however, dating yourself is somehow seen as a positive.  Fans love to prove they were first on the scene.  If you say you saw A New Hope in the theater, you’re begging for someone to tell you that they saw it in theaters when it was still Star Wars.  Then that will hang in the air for a half a second when someone will say they read and early draft of the movie when it was still The Star Wars and to them, Alderaan will always be Organa Major.

If you think I’m satirizing other fans in a moment lacking complete self-awareness, that is not the case.  I fully admit I do the same thing all the time.  I can’t wait to plays games of “remember when” with the line SO I CAN REMIND YOU ALL THAT I HAVE BEEN HERE SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL AND YOU ARE ALL ON MY TURF!. Back on point, if you want to date yourself with Star Wars, remind people that Jar Jar Binks was far from the first character to divide the fanbase.  The Ewoks sent a portion of the fanbase packing their bags by Return of the Jedi.

I am not one of those fans.  Return of the Jedi is my favorite Star Wars movie of all time, and it’s been that way since the day is saw it.  While I do now cringe at an army of Snuggles taking down an entire armor-supported legion of the Emperor’s best troops, that view point didn’t settle in for years. It probably took one hundred viewings before that cringe developed.  As they say, fan boy hate delayed is fan boy hate denied.  Therefore I welcome Ewoks into the line wholeheartedly, and my favorite part of this “collection within the collection” is how rapidly it evolved.  In a seven year sprint, seemingly all the important Ewoks were made or updated. This is presumably because of the tooling re-use that Ewoks offer. The Ewok-a-palooza, which began with 2006’s Chief Chirpa, wouldn’t conclude until 2013 when K-Mart forgot that the Vintage Collection ended, but it’s hard to argue that it didn’t peak with this 2012 Toys R Us 5-pack.

Remember that we are more forgiving on Ewok figures because of their small size.  We’re calling all of them “definitive” or “definitive enough”. Also, i don’t feel like doing the forensic work to determine which previous Ewok figures these figures are based on.  I’ll just leave it at that, aside from the head on the Kneesaa figure, there is no new tooling for the figures themselves.  If the figure has swivel hips, I’m calling it 7 out of 10, and 8 out of 10 for ball jointed hips.  Aside from the Teebo figure, I’ll mostly be talking about the character below.  Teebo needs a little more figure-based discussion.

Flitchee (a.k.a. E-11 Ewok)

Flitchee is the Ewok who celebrates by pointing a commandeered E-11 blaster skyward when the tide starts to turn during the Battle of Endor ground war. He probably starts celebrating a little too early.  He’s your jinxy friend who calls “ballgame” when your team goes up 10 points halfway through the third quarter.

Nanta (a.k.a. Corpsey)

Nanta is the reason we don’t go into diabetic shock from the sugary-sweet the third act of Return of the Jedi.  His death is one of the few consequences of war for the heroes.  Romba’s mournfulness over Nanta’s death still tugs at the feels nearly forty years later.

Teebo

Teebo is the star of the set, but it was a bigger star in the earlier design shown on the back of the package.  That early heads sculpt perfectly captured the character, who I always thought of as the “jerk Ewok” as a kid, but the George Lucas Lucasfilm objected.  I remember hearing the phrase “too angry” as part of the objection.  The figure comes with a knife.  But the head was “too angry”.  So Lucasfilm was okay if the figure slit throats so long as it does so with a pleasant demeanor.

It would be great if Disney Lucasfilm would allow Hasbro to restore the “angry” head some day. 

Kneesaa

If Teebo is the star of the set, Kneesaa is the co-star.  The fact that this figure was released is a testament to the golden age of the line.  While Kneesaa does appear in comics and books, the primary source for this figure is the 1980’s Ewoks cartoon.  That’s all sort of awesome.  We couldn’t have been too far away from a Holiday Special figure had the golden age continued. 

Tippet

Tippet should not be confused with Hall of Fame New England Patriots linebacker Andre Tippett, who had the great misfortune of being a contemporary of the greatest to ever play the position.  Tippet does not appear in Return of the Jedi, and is sourced to the Marvel comics, but you can sneak him into your Endor display.  We won’t tell and your square non-Star Wars friends will never know.