Take a good look, kids.  Take a good hard look.  You won’t see a figure like this again in any scale.  Hem Dazon, originally nicknamed “Golden Eyes”, is the first in-focus alien you see in the cantina.  The cantina interior shots open up on a table of Arleil Schous (MIAF), Pons Limbic (BD35),  Braconnor Bakiska (MIAF), and Bom Vimdin (VC53), all four of whom are partially out of focus.  Before even a second of film time passes, Hem Dazon invents the “photobomb” and the rest is history:

(click for the full sized image)

Of course, what you perceived as an alien popping his head up in that scene was pure movie magic.  On set, Hem Dazon was nothing more than a head worked by makeup artist, Rick Baker.  You can see Baker’s hand going up Hem’s esophagus here:

click for the full sized image)

Hem Dazon is of the Arcona species.  There is an Arconan walking through Chalmun’s Spaceport Cantina in the Star Wars Holiday Special right before Ackmena breaks out in her ode to last call.  That Arconan has been retconned to also represent Hem Dazon.  It’s a diminutive character and does not resemble this figure.  The costume of that Holiday Special Dazon is indeterminable due to the fleeting screen time and the low quality VHS copies of the Holiday Special that exist today.  You can see that less than two seconds of screen time in this clip as he bobs past at the bottom of the screen (if you need to replay, skip to 8:36):

Back to the open, there is no way this figure would happen today.  If Hasbro pitched to LFL the idea of making a figure of a character that was nothing more than a head during the production of A New Hope and may or may not have appeared for less than a second in the Holiday Special, that pitch would have been met with one response:  laughter.  There is no way the current LFL would allow a licensee to essentially fill in canon in the way Hasbro did by completing the Hem Dazon design in 2006.  I’m not saying this Hem Dazon design is canon, but for many fans, it’s what we think of when we think of the character.  Today, LFL would have to fully realize the design before letting a licensee run with it.

For that reason, I’m absolutely thrilled we have this figure, and by 2006 standards, it’s not terrible.  The head passes for what we briefly see on screen and, while the color is probably not accurate to the prop, it matches what we perceive on-screen in the darkened interior.  The arms are fairly well articulated with ball jointed shoulders, swivel elbows, and swivel forearms.  The swivel elbows are less than optimal, but at least it allows for posing options.  The legs are a bit of a trip.  They have the canine anatomy that we’ve seen on Shistavanen figures such as Voolvif Monn. It can be a little difficult to balance, and they feature a largely useless point of articulation.  The ankles swivel, but because of the backward angle of the lower legs, engaging that point of articulation means the feet are no longer flat, and the figure won’t stand.  The upper body features a separate bandolier which adds a layer of depth, and the ensemble is completed with a working holster.  An interesting fact about the included weapon accessory is that it’s the accurate Ponda Baba blaster with the red tape grip.  The SE-14C “Dr. Evazan” blaster shown with Ponda’s severed arm is actually a continuity error (as is the arm itself).

As with Momaw Nadon, the accessory count, with the included table and drinking glass, elevates this above the normal limited/inferior articulation figure and scores an easy 6 out fo 10.  Because of the sub-second screen time, this is “close enough” to definitive for the photobombing head.