by Nick LoCicero
OK Disney, I give up, you can have my spare bedroom! You know, I have tried to keep it sane. I started with a few Ear Hats, some popcorn buckets, and photo frames for all those pictures with characters. That stuff scattered my various tables and computer desks. But wait, how about all the books on Disney Imagineering? Just put those right over there on the new book shelf.
Then came the action figures. Donald Duck as a Storm Trooper! Sign me up. So one by one I added the four series collection of Disney Characters as Star Wars figures to the new shelves I had to put in. Wait! Stitch as Captain Barbosa!… make room on the shelf for that…. and the rest of the Pirates series.
Then came the Vinylmation… ya, I don’t have to explain that obssesion to you by now. The new display cabinet is overflowing. Toss in a Pook-A-Loo or a dozen and you get the idea… I have a Disney Gift Shop in my house. Now I’m by no means an Imagineer, so the placement is horrible. Guests are not forced to enter this room upon leaving my house (in fact most females leave the house imediatly upon seeing this room, but that’s a different story).
Now, Disney has decided to put out a series of The Muppets as Star Wars characters. Rest assured, I will be rushing down to Tatooine Traders when they are released this fall to pick them up.
Photo from Disney Parks Blog
Steven Miller just posted a great write up about these figures on the Disney Parks Blog. By the way, that man has the coolest job on the planet. He starts off by explaining how he was just walking the halls and saw these figures sitting on one of the Disney Artist’s desks. Come on! What I wouldn’t give to walk through that building ever now and again and peak into the offices. And yes, I do envision Goofy sitting in one of them messing around with things.
So here are the details about this series. They will be packaged two to a pack. No price point yet. And here is the character lineup: Kermit the Frog as Luke Skywalker grouped with Miss Piggy as Princess Leia, Link Hogthrob as Han Solo and Fozzy as Chewbacca, Beaker as C3PO and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew as R2D2, and Sam Eagle as ObiWan Kenobi with Gonzo as Darth Vader with Camilla as a Stormtrooper.
Photo from Disney Parks Blog
They look great. You can see that Sam the Eagle has a light saber and Han and Chewy have Guns. Accessories galore. Also, notice that Beaker’s arms look very posable. Hopefully the rest of the series has this posable feature as well. The removable helmets are also a big plus. Honeydew’s R2-D2 cap probably just slips on from above, while Beaker’s C-3P0 helmet look similar to Donald’s Stormtrooper helmet where the front and back snap apart and you can take it on and off in two pieces. As far as size, you can see in the above picture a baseball in back of the figures. Using that as a judge, these are taller than most of the Disney Character Star Wars figures (3 inches). However, they look about the size of Pete as Boba Fett, or Goofy as Chewy, Darth and C-3P0 (5-6 inches). Those figures, due to the hight of the Disney characters represented, were taller than the others.
If this continues like the Disney Characters Star Wars set did, we will see a few different series. What Muppets as Star Wars characters would you like to see? I’m going with Animal as Yoda, Sweetums as Boba Fett and Rizzo as Emperor Palpatine.