Star Wars: My Miscellaneous Collection - UPDATE!!!

[packerbacker180]

I remember watercolor books. Wouldn't have come up with a specific name for them, though.

[AcidDragon]

That's exactly the book I'm talking about. I remember there's some cool artwork in there like the Kid AKA Dick Tracy, Jr. playing pool, the bad guys like Itchy Oliver and Flattop and some other cool stuff. I was a huge fan of Dick Tracy, too. Loved the movie and owned that on VHS and DVD as well. Never got any of the toys as I actually didn't get many toys growing up. I can literally count the ones I had on my fingers but I definitely had that book. I actually loved the comics, too. We had the big collected editions of the old Chester Gould strips at our Junior High School library and I would pretty much borrow them from the library when ever I could.

[BrandonDaCollector]

Cool liked Dick Tracy as well Glad I could help you out about the identity Shame that you didn't get much toys back in the day I have at least 1 comic too

[BrandonDaCollector]

So, as I said, My next showcase here was going to be a very special one. I wanted to showcase it before-hand or wait until I got to the 90s in My Vintage Action figure topic but then I never wanted to do it because it was buried in such a pile of disastrous proportions that one can only imagine Then the unthinkable happen to My Grandma MiMi and I felt so bad on so many levels that nobody could imagine So I maned up and rooted through so much, it was extremely difficult (I'm a disaster at storage) but I got it out and I wanted to showcase it because of many reasons. Its the Star Wars C3-PO & RD-D2 Droid Electronic Coin Bank by Thinkway Toys My Grandparents got it for Me for Christmas, 1996 My Christmas & B-Days from 95 - 96 were arguably the best & funnest ones I ever had So, I was very surprised that they got it for Me which I believe was Sears (they got Me a lot from them then) but I always felt bad that I never appreciated it enough Once in a while My Grandma MiMi would ask Me about it like how is it doing and where is it and stuff and I always felt bad that I always put it away and never truly displayed it Well, now I got it out. It doesn't function was as well as it did back in the day but it still works good.
Without further ado here it is

These guys are plastic but gosh, they feel good to touch but you cannot move them as they are locked due to their feature which I will get to in a bit. Look at the sculpting, the likenesses are truly uncanny here!




Here is the SW logo, the coin slot, the mechanism/feature button, the battery compartment, speaker and of course the Copyright which was 1995 I still had the coins in there that I inserted within close to a generation or so ago that I have yet to take out of the compartment



What the feature is this, when you press the large button the famous SW theme by John Williams plays REALLY, REALLY loud. C3-PO talks and introduces himself and along with R2-D2 and their voices and beep & boops are extremely authentic straight from the original trilogy and pretty loud themselves His arms would move up and down and R2 would move forward & backward and turn his head all the way around and back again. Mine still works a little, C3-PO's arms don't move anymore and with a VERY slight push R2-D2 does still move. When he moves he knocks in the coin you just put in the slot with his robot pod They also light up as well via THEIR EYES Here's some pics that I took to show that great feature and more



Size Comparison: Here they are compared next to their Kenner & Hasbro counterparts of C3-PO from ROTS (Hasbro) and R2-D2 from the (Kenner) POTF2 Electronic Power F/X figure (this one of the only versions they made of him like this)!



Now, here is a video on YT of an example of how the cool the SW Droid Bank operates. Just ignore the music & intro of this person's vid. You can see the box they were in, it was rather good packaging



In this one you can see R2-D2 knocking that coin down that slot



Well, that's it. I hope you liked this a lot and were even surprised. With all I have gone through the past couple of weeks I had to struggle and get this little piece of underrated and possibly obscure SW memorabilia out and showcase with My commentary Now, next I will go about and showcase My original plan soon, until then I'll see you around

[packerbacker180]

Man, I hate it when the white plastic starts to yellow. It's happened to a couple 25th Joes of mine. It sucks.

[BrandonDaCollector]

Gosh PB, thanks for noticing I do to when it happens

[BrandonDaCollector]

So, to continue My ShowBiz Pizza Place talk from My recent entry in My Vintage Action Figure topic, it was special one to Me and I had mentioned Star Wars the Arcade Game by Atari, I thought of posting about it as well so here we go

First off, if you are unfamiliar with this classic game, please go to it's Wikipedia page for more info!

Gosh, as I had said previously in My ShowBiz Pizza showcase, I was so young in 1983/84 but I remember when My Grandparents & Mom took Me to ShowBiz Pizza Place (later to be Chuck E. Cheese), I played the heck out of the "actual & original" SW Arcade game cabinet! My Mom & Grandma got Me many of the SW POTF 1 action figures around this time (look for a special huge showcase of that series in the near future whenever I get to it in My Vintage Action Figure Topic), however I believe this arcade game was My first "true" liking to SW outside of the films & sci-fi in general and the rest is history

Even though it's heavily movie based, it is possible that one could enter it with the Expanded Universe/EU as one of the first major entries within it (the EU was so fun till the Disney takeover because most of it is legends now and NOT canon ).

Now, it was 25 years ago in 1996, My Grandma & Mom got Me a Sega Genesis 32X & Sega CD combo-system for Christmas (this is the 25th Anniversary of this grand event of Mine) and it was then and is still My favorite video game system of ever, of all-time! It was the real deal in...the...house

Here is an old ad for the combo system from back in the day, I remember seeing this in gaming mags like it was last week and it was such cool times and felt so much better than this era because it actually felt like you were getting something really, really special!



I had some major wants for the system like Knuckles Chaotix, Kolibri, Space Harrier, Cosmic Carnage, Doom, WWF Raw 32X & WWF Wrestlemania The Arcade Game but the one I wanted the most was Star Wars Arcade because I wanted to play it since those great times I had at ShowBiz Pizza Place around ten or so years prior I never had an actual Atari system so this was My new and last chance and I was not disappointed. I loved the box as Sega was always ahead of Nintendo because their boxes was actually storage cases I loved the design of the cartridges' too! Since the system is Sega & 32 bit, the graphics was way better from the original port with big time upgrades from Lucasarts. It was very fun to play and I bet I played it hundreds of times. So here is My Star Wars Arcade game in all of it's glory




Here is a commercial of the game from 1983



and here is gameplay from the great port that I have for the Sega Genesis 32X

This is a shortplay of it with the awesome Darth Vader animation!



This a longplay vid of it.



So I have played dozens of Star Wars games over the decades and while many may think this is way outdated by today's standards and of that maybe but I think of it this way like I think of action figures, just because it has a ton of POA doesn't mean its better...well IMO its the same difference with games, just because its from its from yesteryear, has less graphics & gameplay doesn't mean its not good. So many things from the past has so much meaning which IMO is the opposite for a lot of today's offerings. In fact, one thing that get's Me in this pathetic era is companies keep on making the same things that had been made before dozens of times and making them more and more expensive and making them seem better with bigger scales, more POA or better graphics & modes and people keep on submitting to this money hungry trend instead of thinking about how cool the past was and going back to when it was real and the fact of the matter is this Star Wars Arcade game has never been reissued/remastered via a Virtual Console for any system by any company nor has it been remade since that seems to be a real major trend these days (Resident Evil for an example). Come to think of it, the 32X was such a very underrated and misunderstood console that many of the games has been forgotten which is makes Me quite disappointed So with all of that being said, sure, there was a cool Multi-Player version on SW Battlefront back in 2015 that in ways was similar but that was DLC and try playing that again with nobody on the servers See, with all of this little effort they are putting into these games that are MP and close to 100GBs, they could put out this SW arcade game and today's generation could experience what a true classic really was/is IMO  

So I hope you have enjoyed this. I have more great Star Wars to showcase soon within this topic plus much, much more. Until next time I'll see you around

So, if you remember when I posted that, we didn't have video game topics at the time but I wanted to enter this in My SW topic as I am not yet ready to showcase My next special but I thought that it was a rather good showcase that I put together plus it will go along with other video game related items of SW that I have planned that is still yet to come

Now, when I originally posted that showcase months ago, I didn't post the cabinet that I said about that I actually played in it at Showbiz Pizza Place all of them decades ago...well, here is a pic of it, I remember it like it was yesterday which was extremely similar like this

Oh don't get Me started about the SW: Arcade now as I have been waiting for it to be released for so long The Sega Genesis 32X was such a great and underrated system and this was the only time it was released...what a darn shame and it's a big one too

Well, I hope you liked this little recap with a bonus, More great SW to come including an official magazine I just found in storage from 1996, we'll see what's next, until then I'll see you around

[packerbacker180]

The Star Wars Arcade Game was one I was always drawn to at the arcade because it was Star Wars. The graphics weren't anything amazing, and it was actually pretty difficult, but it was Star Wars, so I had to play it.

[BrandonDaCollector]

Cool. Indeed very difficult and one must if they love Star Wars

[BrandonDaCollector]

So here we go with a big bonus! I wasn't originally going to include this in this topic because of reasons however I decided to do it anyway...I will showcase all three of Super Star Wars of the Original Trilogy that was released for the SNES way back in the early 90s when SW was coming back

CLICK HERE for the Fandom Page!

So My Grandma MiMi had rented Me the OT at Star Video over the course of a period of time of their initial releases, it was a pretty cool moment overall. I was a bit flaky about the games however but over time I got to like them a lot. JVC & THQ were companies partnering up with LucasArts & Sculpted Software that were responsible for making such a series of classic games. I bought these in the early to mid 2000s from a great video game store on the web that I foolishly cannot recall that sold a ton of used games at really decent prices as I had bought a lot from them since FuncoLand was gone thus being taken over by EB Games and disappearing altogether much like Hasbro did to Kenner So when I purchased a big gob of games, the SSWOT was one of the main games I really wanted They were all in great shape especially SROTJ! Here we go

The games themselves are graphically great for the time of during the tremendous 16-Bit age. The sound is too as everything is authentic. There are many modes of play like First Person & like Mario Kart but is mostly a 2D side-scroller with special 3D effects that is very similar of games like Contra 3, Alien vs. Predator & RoboCop vs. The Terminator! It has familiar enemies plus new ones & elements as well that many people has forgetten avbout that hasn't really been properly revisited in any format for ages . All the games are really well done and is clearly STAR WARS!

Super Star Wars: Now this is the first one that was originally released in 1992 which was 30 years ago this year It is very classic. Here is The Cartidge!




Super Empire Strikes Back: Released in 1993, now this is arguably the best of the trilogy just like the actual film. This would have one of the if not the first times to play in a epic snow speeder battling AT-ATs that would soon be trended in future games Here is The Cartridge!




Super Return of the Jedi: Originally released in 1994! This is really cool and features the Ewoks and you can play Leia as Boushh! Now unlike My other games in the set, I have this COMPLETE with the box, case and everything else!

The Box!



What's Inside?



The Cartridge!




The Instruction Booklet: It's always a sweet bonus if you can get'em, I've always loved looking at them booklets for games whether I know much about the game or not!



The Copyright!



We're All Together Now!