Amanaman was the second Fans’ Choice figure in the history of the line as indicated by the callout on the bubble.  The first Fans’ Choice figure was Ellorrs Madak, which sold poorly.  Madak was a case of the fans outfoxing themselves.  Most agreed at the time that Amanaman was “next up” from the Original 96 list, but felt that Hasbro would eventually release an Amanaman figure, so it would be a wasted vote.  It was assumed the poll was the only way to get a Madak figure, so the less in-demand figure won, and the sales reflected that.  For the second Fans’ Choice vote, Amanaman did win.  And it sold poorly, but not because of demand.  Fans were outraged that the winner was released in the deluxe line which cost $4 more than the basic line.  Hasbro claimed that Amanaman could not be costed out at the then basic figure price of $6.  Ironically, the massive Ephant Mon won the third Fan’s Choice poll and was released at $5.  It goes to show you how much costing pressure can be relieved when brick and mortar is making massive orders for new media, as was the case in 2002.

To justify the “Deluxe” price point, Hasbro included some extra accessories beyond Amanaman’s requisite staff.  The first is an unarticulated figure of Salacious Crumb doing a hand on hip “no you didn’t” pose.  This was a completely arbitrary inclusion as the two characters never interact on-screen.  Furthermore, we didn’t have a proper Episode IV Jabba the Hutt at this point in the line.  We had an Episode IV Special Edition Jabba from POTF2 and the unfortunate “spitting” Jabba the Hutt from the Episode I line.  So the inclusion of an arbitrary accessory, for which fans had little practical use, did little to salve the pain from the increased price.  The other extra accessory is a decomposing corpse.  You know.  For kids!  This accessory is not arbitrary as Amanaman can be seen holding the corpse in behind-the-scene shots:

This Amanaman can actually hold the corpse quite well as it firmly grips the rib cage.  The same cannot be said about the staff, and this is far and away the most frustrating thing about the figure.  The large fingers are sculpted in a loose curl that does not positively grasp the staff in any meaningful way.  It more rests in the figure’s hand, and is subject to twisting around.  The bottom portion of the staff has all the structural rigidity of a cocktail stirrer, so it does not assist in posing.  The staff just slides through the loose grip until it is stopped by the skull decoration at the top. Because the bottom of the staff offers no structural support, it just bends in compliance.  In my opinion, there is no way to get the figure to hold the staff similar to either the movie, or as shown on the back of the package.  I’m calling shenanigans on the packaging photo.

The hips swivel in such a way that the legs rotate up and away from the body.  This could actually allow Amanaman to sit if it weren’t for the tail.  The tail also prevents the right leg from rotating backwards, so this effectively renders the articulation pointless.  As with other Jabba’s Palace denizens, the figure’s job is mostly to stand there looking bizarre.  This figure does that, but the frustrations with the staff compel me to give it a score of 5 out of 10.

Finally, this character proves that Return of the Jedi is the greatest science fiction movie in history.  No other sci-fi movie would have the guts to have a character that is a walking zucchini, and play it completely straight the way ROTJ does.  If Amanaman were in a Marvel movie, he would be voiced by Jon Lovitz.