A Christmas Story

 The movie A Christmas Story is one of my favorite Christmas movies, but if I'm being honest, my absolute favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard. Yippie ki-yay, Merry Christmas! But back to the topic, I relate so much to A Christmas Story because of Ralphie wanting nothing more than a Red Ryder BB Rifle. How many of us growing up wanted something so much for Christmas that we actually got it? And of course didn't shoot our eye out! Fortunately for my parents, I never got anything that would make me shoot my eye out, although a couple GI Joe vehicles with launching rockets came close. I'd even get a BB Gun when I was 10, and never ever shot it at a metal target. Which was Ralphie's mistake at the end. Fortunately for me growing up, I got 2 straight Christmas's where I got my version of the Red Ryder BB Gun. 

Since this is a Star Wars blog, I'm going to focus on what I got in 1983, instead of what I got in 1984: which was the entire collection of both Super Powes and Secret Wars. But I loved getting Superman, Batman and their vehicles the Supermobile and Batmobile. And you better believe I had so many adventures with Superman and Spider-Man teaming up to stop Lex Luthor and Doc Ock. My younger brother had Wolverine and Batman take on Dr Doom and the Penguin, while the Justice League Playset was the good guys base while the Tower of Doom was the bad guys HQ. But the year before, I got 2 of the best action figures ever: 

While the Chewbacca is the one I got from 1983, the Luke Skywalker isn't. That Luke ended up as my dog's chew toy around 1986. That dog also never chewed up another toy I had after that. That Luke is one of the Jedi Luke's I've bought in 2009. The accessories though is what I'm going to talk about the most. You see, they were easily lost. I lost Luke's blaster, and robe that day in 1983. His lightsaber I had kept in the X-Wing Fighter I got that day, but eventually I lost that as well. Chewie's bowcaster was also easily lost. I bought some reproduction Kenner weapons a while back and that's what Chewie is holding. Luke is holding an actual Kenner lightsaber, but it's extremely loose. So as a kid, what were you to do if you lost the weapons to your Star Wars figures?! Fortunately I had 2 options at hand. Both were relatively cheap, too. 

1. Lost Lightsaber Fix

Cocktail swords made for a great swap if you lost a lightsaber. Not only could the figure hold it without it falling out, if you clashed swords with another figure, they wouldn't fall out! Luke is holding a cocktail sword from about 1988, I have a feeling left over. Now, to make it look more like a lightsaber I used scissors to take off the finger guard, and trim the sides. It doesn't look like a lightsaber in the traditional sense but it worked for Jedi Luke, and also Bespin Luke which after Jedi Luke went to Toy Heaven that became my primary Luke figure. I also used GI Joe figures to be bad guys, such as the gold headed Destro, and the 1987 Battle Armor Cobra Commander, the latter of which I painted all black. Those figures could hold the trimmed cocktail swords, but their thumbs couldn't. I would have to super glue them into their hands. Over time the O-Rings wore out and those figures are in pieces now. This past year I acquired a super articulated non O-Ring Cobra Commander and I hope to recreate my childhood adversary of Luke Skywalker once again. But, years later I discovered the Forgotten Force Ultimate Resource Guide (the late, great ffurg.net which sadly no longer exists), that gave great advice on how to make custom weapons. But, I took their advice and pit my own spin on things. 

On the FFURG site, the instructions to make replacement ligjtsabers were to cut the cotton off of Q Tips, paint it the desired color and you have your lightsaber. Yeah, it was good, but around 2009 when I was resuming my collection of Kenner era Star Wars figures, I needed to make a change. After removing the cotton, the tips I noticed were flat, and didn't look like a blade. I put model putty on the tip to give it the look of a blade. The process was a lot of trial and error, but I eventually got it to look decent. So I painted the new lightsaber green and once it dried, I realized the weapon still easily fell out. I had a bunch of coffee stirrers lying around, so I cut them into hand size strips and put a little super glue on the non blade end of the lightsaber. And once it dried, I had a working lightsaber! The figure could hold the lightsaber, and it wouldn't easily fall out! The trimmed Q Tips work even better on your Ben Kenobi and Darth Vader figures, as they easily fit in the handles. You just can push the blade back into the arm. 

2. Spare GI Joe Guns 

The gun I have Chewbacca holding comes from the 1990 Stalker figure, but as you can see Chewie can hold it quite well. A spare M-16 rifle was Chewbacca's primary weapon in my childhood days. The best part is Star Wars figures did a better job holding GI Joe weapons than GI Joe figures did. To this day, I still have some 1980's GI Joe weapons in my Kenner Star Wars weapons bags. My Bespin Luke used the pistol that came with the GI Joe Metalhead action figure, as it kinda looked like his blaster from ESB. General Madine shared 1986 General Hawk's Colt 45 pistol. And since I showed Chewie, I am required to also take and post this picture: 

So while I wanted to share my versions of Ralphie's Red Ryder BB Gun, I also wanted to share just how I played with my childhood toys. It's one reason that I've come to enjoy Christmas as an adult, because it manages to take me back to those Christmas's in 1983 and 1984, and it brings back those memories of not only getting those toys, but playing with them as well. As I have nieces and nephews now, I'm kinda upset they don't like action figures, but they enjoy their Lego's and scooters just as much as I enjoy my Kenner Star Wars and Super Powers, Mattel Secret Wars and Hasbro GI Joe figures. So as the Christmas season unfolds, I hope the memories of your childhood Christmas's come back, and that if this is the time of year you feel down, to look back on the good Christmas memories, and hopefully it can help you feel a little bit better. So in closing, thank you for reading this, and I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas!