Kenner Colors Boba Fett (& 9 Other Star Wars Toys That Became Canon)

It comes of no surprise Star Wars and toys are synonymous. Nearly every character in the Star Wars movies, up until recently, has found their way into the action figure line first produced by Kenner and since the late 90s, Hasbro. That flow from screen to plastic also works the other way. As Chapter 15 of The Mandalorian recently showed, sometimes the toys end up on screen.

Some of the rarest and most unique Star Wars toys were either misunderstandings or outright inventions by Kenner. Those oddities became part of the greater myth of Star Wars and thanks to fans who became creators, part of the canon of the saga in fun ways.

10 Blue Snaggletooth

Blue Snaggletooth is legendary with Star Wars collectors. This alien was included exclusively with the Cantina Adventure Set in 1979 by Kenner, but they got the reference wrong. Instead of a tall alien in a blue jumpsuit with silver boots, Snaggletooth was a short alien in a red outfit and no boots. Snaggletooth was anachronistic until his inclusion in the background of an episode in the Clone Wars animated series. Though it’s not canon, what appears to be a blue Snaggletooth (or Snivian, as they’re properly known) is present in the background of a scene in the 1985 Droids animated series.

9 Atha Prime

Atha Prime is almost as legendary as Blue Snaggletooth, but he never made it into being a toy. At least, not exactly. When the original Kenner Star Wars line was coming to an end, the company imagined new characters and story concepts, including a new villain called Atha Prime. Those toys were never produced. It did inspire the Imperial Sentinel from Hasbro’s Expanded Universe line in 1998, which in turn inspired the character of Zeta Magnus from a novella set during the Clone Wars era, Skyewalkers: A Clone Wars Story.

8 Greedo

Greedo is no stranger to changes in Star Wars, and neither was his toy. Like Blue Snaggletooth, Kenner initially got Greedo’s costume wrong. In the film, Greedo wears a yellow vest over a green jumpsuit. Thanks to a lack of good reference material at the time, Kenner produced a Greedo with a great likeness, but a very 70s green spacesuit with lots of ribbing. This version of the character appeared in the background of the fifth episode of the final season of The Clone Wars, “Gone With A Trace”, one of the weaker episodes of Season 7.

7 Walrusman

Similar to Greedo, Ponda Baba was a victim of bad reference. The alien is infamous in Star Wars for his bloody encounter with Obi-Wan Kenobi in the cantina. The Aqualish criminal wore a bright orange jacket over a beige tunic and trousers but Kenner produced something very different.

The Kenner figure, dubbed ‘Walrusman’, arrived in a spacesuit that was a jumble of orange, blue, and green. This version of the character later appeared in “Gone With A Trace” and appeared earlier in “Missing In Action,” one of the worst episodes from the fifth season of Clone Wars.

6 Hammerhead

Rounding out the vintage cantina alien cameos in Clone Wars is Hammerhead. This was the name Kenner gave Momaw Nadon, the Ithorian icon from the cantina scene. Kenner originally interpreted the character pretty well but put him a blue unitard. Nadon actually wore a brown tunic faithfully recreated in modern action figures. Like his Kenner counterparts, Hammerhead made an appearance in “Gone With A Trace,” in the underworld of Coruscant rife with scum and villainy.

5 Swoop Bike

The Swoop Bike from Shadows of the Empire, a 1996 crossover event that involved everything in Star Wars but a movie, is something of a collaboration between Hasbro and Lucasfilm. The story imagined a gang of criminals on speeder bikes, which Hasbro guided toward the swoop bike and helmeted rider. This bike then showed up on screen in the 1997 Special Edition of the original Star Wars movie, and variants of it have appeared in other films and television series since.

4 Short-Wing TIE Fighter

The TIE Fighter is one of the best Imperial ships in the saga. Its simple, classic shape made it legendary and ubiquitous throughout Star Wars, including The Mandalorian. Kenner produced a version in 1978 that was very faithful to the screen model but had short wings. In the movies, the TIE has very tall wings compared to its small fuselage. Dave Filoni later included this particular variant of the TIE Fighter in Star Wars: Rebels, as a direct nod to the classic Kenner toy.

3 Yellow Lightsaber

The original Kenner Star Wars toys were full of inconsistencies. A major one was the color of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber. It was blue in the movie, but Kenner produced a yellow version for both the first film and The Empire Strikes Back (later corrected). The yellow lightsaber eventually made it into canon in a variety of ways, but Luke got one as well.

The current volume of the Star Wars ongoing monthly comic explores the time period between the first Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Luke used the saber, an offshoot of the original Jedi Temple Guard saber, for a period in the comic.

2 Imperial Troop Transport

The Imperial Troop Transport is entirely the creation of Kenner. Legendary Kenner toy engineer Mark Bordeaux designed the craft to expand the play options for kids in the early days of the line. This memorable vehicle later made it into canon first in Rebels, and then memorably in The Mandalorian at the end of season one. Hasbro contributed to the circle of canon and toys by producing a toy of the on-screen Imperial Troop Transport early in 2020 as part of The Vintage Collection line of 3.75″ action figures and toys.

1 Kenner Colors Boba Fett

Boba Fett might be the most famous Star Wars action figure ever. As the first mail-away offering in advance of his debut in The Empire Strikes Back, he achieved mythic status (especially with the controversy over his rocket-firing jet pack). A prototype of the figure recently sold for over $150,000. Kenner didn’t exactly get Boba Fett wrong, but their paint scheme was heavy on strong primary colors and short of scruff, which contrasted with the movie version. That changed in Chapter 15 of The Mandalorian, where Boba Fett gave his damaged armor an update to the classic and clean Kenner colors from 1979. His ship, the iconic Slave I, appears to have gotten some interior upgrades as well.

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