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I was never a Star Wars collector. Oh I liked the AT-AT of course, and the Falcon and the weird Tatooine-based, non-movie Stormtrooper transport (damn you Marvel Comics and your intoxicating cartoon advertisements!), and I really wanted to get my hand on my parent’s friends’ kid’s Tie-Fighter, but I had very few toys from the line itself. I was more impressed with the Micronauts (for which the Battlecruiser was my pride and joy, even if an incident with my foot separated the left rear wing from its peg on the very Christmas day it came into my possession) and Shogun Warriors (which I never seemed to be able to get as presents).

Really, I never played with that many memorable toys as a kid growing up. It was not until the unholy combination of (a) Hasbro decision to release a military-based line of 3 3/4″ figures in 1982 with super poseability and really cool details, and (b) my two best friends of the day decided they were also going to be completely swept up by the line, so much so that we could spend pretty much every afternoon after school for two years playing out elaborate military scenarios.

And knowing is half the battle.

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Anyway, back to Star Wars. It was impossible not to have a few Star Wars toys. I had a Boba Fett (one I certainly do not misremember firing its missile) and a Hoth-suited Han Solo. I had the die-cast Cloud City ship and Snowspeeder. And I had the Droid Factory. Seeing it on the ActionFigureOfTheDay certainly brought back memories. And I can attest for certain that:

• yes, it was really freakin’ cool to have the only R2-D2 available with a third leg, and
• every so often to this day, I find those little bitty bits that constituted the set, even if the majority of the set is long gone.

(Apologies to www.toybender.com for the theft of the print ads.)