A Sincere And Heartfelt Thank You To The Brand Team For The Tonnikas

I don't normally use this space to thank the Star Wars brand team for what they do. That would be weird if I did. It would be like calling the owner of Stop & Shop (or insert your local grocery chain) to thank them for a particularly delicious mango that I got from their produce department. That's not the nature of the relationship. Thanks comes via patronage. Praise comes by showing excitement for well executed figures, great reveals, and inspired pipelines (and the corresponding criticism for the inverse). But when something comes along that is above and beyond, I think thanks are due.

I won't lie to you and say that I've wanted Tonnika Sister figures since I was a little kid collecting the Kenner line. I had no earthly idea who they were until the nineties. I have never considered myself anything other than a Star Wars "super fan", but entering my teen years, it wasn't as all-consuming at it once was. I would come back to it regularly, but I was more likely to slap Robocop into the VCR than A New Hope for a stretch. Then I got swept up by the Star Wars resurgence in the nineties, and there's been no looking back. This was of course put into overdrive with the return of the Star Wars action figure line in 1995.

Prior to the relaunch of Power of the Force, Hasbro conducted a poll on what figures fans wanted to see in the line that were not part of the original Kenner 96. Grand Moff Tarkin and Slave Leia led the results, but the Tonnika Sisters showed up as well. I still had no idea who they were. Then wave after wave of figures was coming at us. It seemed like Hasbro would be delivering us every on-screen character in short order. I mean, heck, it only took two years for us to get the "Uncle Traveling Matt" version of Yak Face. With that burn rate, we'd be on to Fozec in no time. Right? RIGHT?

It was at this time the I started watching the movies differently. I started looking to the margins for characters that could populate my dioramas. That's when I first noticed the Tonnikas. They were always there; I just overlooked them. Then they went from obscure to impossible to miss. Their distinctive beehive hairdos even dot the background of some of the most iconic scenes:


When there were only three movies, getting the Tonnikas would have been a simple ask, but the oft-discussed licensing issue precluded it to the point that we were literally told to stop asking. So we did. Fast forward two decades, and Hasbro conducted another Fans' Choice poll for the launch of TVC 2.0. This time we were told we could ask for the Tonnikas. It's been on since then. It seemed like, for whatever reason, the likeness issue was no longer a hill too far, but there were still obstacles. Nebulous, unnamed obstacles. Whenever the subject would come up at an in-person event, I could sense a weariness about the prospect, and it transcended multiple brand team iterations. My read: it could be done, but it will be a fight.

I have a strong feeling that the brand team went to battle for the community to get these figures done. These are merely my conjectures but I suspect they faced resistance from both within and without. I'm sure professional risks were taken, and for that, I will be eternally thankful. This is a collecting dream come true for me. Getting never-before-made figures from a 47 year old movie is a reason to celebrate. The last such figure from A New Hope was Mosep Binneed in 2015. This sort of thing comes around once a decade, and we almost got three from the Cantina. This is a special event, and my gratitude extends beyond those who merely went to bat for the Tonnikas. Once approved, if the resulting figures were the result of a halfhearted effort, it would have been devastating. But that didn't happen. The sculptors, designers, and engineers absolutely NAILED IT:


I will be counting down the days until next fall, and I will be staking out my driveway waiting for FedEx to arrive.

---

comments powered by Disqus