Figures That Make Me Happy:  Gragra

Gragra was a gorgmonger on Tatooine. She monged gorgs. Gorgs are an amphibian species. Tatooine is a desert planet. The math hardly adds up, and I don't care. If someone was selling delicious frogs in the middle of the Sahara, I would gleefully hand over my seven wupiupi and not question the freshness for a second. However, I do have to admit that I once refused to eat oysters in Utah. Selling seafood in landlocked states should be illegal, but, as per usual, I'm getting off track.

There is a trend with all the "Figurers that Make Me Happy" entries so far. They are all characters that have made a deep impression on me despite minimal screen time. These characters are paradoxically memorable despite barely being on-screen. Gragra certainly fits into that category. The Phantom Menace was starting to lose me a little bit at this point in the movie the first time I saw it. Jar Jar's antics were wearing thin. He had already failed to jump off a bridge (where gravity does most of the work), stepped in poop, and had a Three Stooges routine in Watto's shop. None of that was my Star Wars. Then Jar Jar's grand theft gorg was halted by Gragra. She's has a deeper voice than James Earl Jones and looks like a monster from 80's horror b-movie. But she's not a monster. She's a small business owner, and I'll bet she's a member of the Mos Espa Chamber of Commerce. These contradictions of the utterly otherworldly in our universe being the mundane in the Star Wars universe is my Star Wars.

When the Episode I line came and went without a Gragra figure, I assumed the ship had sailed. The Episode I line didn't shy away from deep cut characters. Gasgano was a launch figure for crying out loud, and the line concluded with Sio Bibble. I felt that if Gragra couldn't crack the line while the media was still current, she never would, but then The Saga Collection had its "hold my beer and watch this" moment. Not only did we get Gragra, but we also got Rep Been and Dud Bolt & Mars Guo in the same wave. That's five year's worth of deep cut characters these days, and it all came in the same assortment. I like the before times better. The now times are terrible.

As with everything in this series, I wouldn't mind getting Gragra repacked in the Vintage Collection. Yes, the figure has no lower body articulation, but it makes up for it with an articulated jaw.

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