From: v113np2v@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (George D Emmons)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.starwars
Subject: Yak Face: Why he wasn't released stateside
Date: 17 Oct 92 00:04:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: acsu.Bw8o86.74u
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

I think it was Ray Chramega who posted last year about the dispute
between Lucas and Kenner. I'll do my best to remember all the 
details.

    Way back in 1975-76, when George was looking for a studio to
finance the first film, no one would touch it. They figured it 
would turn out to be the biggest disaster in history. Anyway, 
20th Century Fox finally agreed to finance the film, but only
if Lucas turned over all the merchandising rights for seven years
to Fox. Fox promptly sold the rights to the highest bidder, which

was Kenner. Kenner also didn't anticipate the immense popularity of
the film, and when the public wanted toys of the characters, all
they had were a few cheaply made (so as not to lose money) 
prototypes, so they released what they could produce, and sold
early bird kits to attempt to meet the demand that Christmas. The
figures were a smash hit, revolutionizing the action figure 
industry (The predominant form subsequently switched from the 8"
Mego-style Superheroes/Planet of the Apes dolls and Big Jim dolls
to the smaller, cheaper, and easier to produce 3-4" figures). Asw
(oops, that should have been as) the new series came out, Kenner
sold more and more toys. However, George was never fully satisfied
with the quality of the figures, and had intentions that, as soon
as he was legally able to do so, he'd cancel the contract. Well,
six years and two movies later, the contract was almost up. Kenner
finally came to their senses and, partly as an attempt to appease
George, partly as an attempt to compete with the Hasbro's enormously
popular GI Joe line, jacked the quality of the figures into the
stratosphere (thus the coins, the better quality packages, although
the renaming the line to "Power of the Force" was meant as a 
blanket term so that they could go back and make figures of every 
character who ever received screen time in the trilogy...can you
imagine a "Two fighters against a Star Destroyer Guy" action figure?
Or a "Mos Eisley pauper who gets out of the way for stormtroopers"
figure?)
 However, the attempt was no go. The first thirty-eight figures
were produced, some in VERY limited quantities; see FX-7, Gamorrean
Guard, Nikto, AT-AT Driver, and TIE Fighter Pilot on POTF cards.
Kenner had intended to produce all the figures on the POTF card, 
and printed coins for all these. However, Lucas pulling the plug 
sort of put the kibosh on that. They were stuck with the following:
     Limited print run of one of the proposed 1986 figures:Yak Face
     Several New Toys: Ewok Battle Wagon, Tatooine Skiff, and
     A-Wing Fighter, along with a few blister packed new mini-rigs:
     Security Scout, Imperial Sniper, and the One-Man Sand Skimmer.
     The three new mini-rigs were introduced at the 1985 toy fair
     and made their way to the rebate coupons given away at the
     1985 Re-release of ROTJ, but I've never seen one....
     Lots of new coins for figures that wouldn't be released
What was Kenner to do? Well, they released the Ewok Battle Wagon
(currently appearing in Toys R Us as the Robin Hood Battle Wagon),
and the Tatooine skiff in POTF boxes. They threw the A-Wing in with
the Droids toys they were sending out the remnants of, and sent 
retailers a mess of stickers to plaster on the figures on their 
shelves advertising free coins as a mail-in offer. The Toys R Us
and Lionel and Child World chains got their quotas, and the rest 
went overseas, to Europe and Australia. Some of the European stuff
came back to the U.S. via Kay-bee, but the assortments sent
to Kay-Bee never had Anakins or Yak Faces among them. American 
colectors who watched the first shipments of POTF figures come in
saw the complete assortment was in the case, save Anakin. They 
got in touch with the people in Europe & Ozzieland and had them 
save as many as they could on the card. Yak Face was not so lucky.
Since he didn't appear on the backs of the POTF cards, and the
european figures were being released on the Tri-logo cards, nobody
really noticed or was informed of his release. Thus these puppies
are TRES valuable...

    And there you have it. Sorry if I've been rambling, but stream-
of-consciousness writing is all I seem to be doing these days...

                                       George...
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.starwars