| Mock-Up Tusken Raider, Jawa and Death Squad Commander Figures | |
| This is the best known photo of the earliest prototypes made for the Jawa, Tusken Raider and Death Squad Commander figures. All three are hand-made mockups, probably thrown together by someone in Kenner's model shop in order to represent the then unfinished toys in photographs and presentations. The Raider and Death Squad Commander figures appear to have been made using figures from the popular Fisher Price line known as Adventure People; the bent arm of the DSC clearly betrays this origin. The Jawa, on the other hand, is somewhat more mysterious. I suppose anything could lie beneath that cloak.
The Death Squad Commander is especially strange. It actually looks more like a TIE Pilot figure than the mushroom helmeted Imperial dude we're all so familiar with. I'm not sure why it looks like that, though one theory is that Kenner, who didn't release a TIE Pilot figure until 1982, actually planned to issue one in the late-70s and replaced it with the DSC only after development began. Who knows? In any case, it looks nothing like a Death Squad Commander. It should also be noted that the Raider and Jawa feature cloth, not vinyl, capes. As most of you probably know, these figures debuted in stores with vinyl capes, with the Jawa's being changed to cloth soon after. This image comes from a 1978 catalog of the Australian Toltoys company. Smaller photos of these figures can be found scattered throughout a number of other sources, including Kenner's 1978 Toy Fair catalog, in which they're shown on a few prototype store displays. |
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| Description by: | Ron Salvatore |
| Photo: | Anonymous |
| From the collection of: | Anonymous |
| Country: | United States |
| Film: | A New Hope |
| Licensee: | Kenner |
| Year: | 1977 |
| Category: | Prototypes / Product Concepts |