Earliest Vintage SW Memories

[pizzathehutt]

It all gets a bit muddled together for me now that I'm older. My brother and sister already had a chewbacca and yoda which were handed down to me and I was born in 82.

I can remember playing with chewy and yoda, also walking down Oxford st one Christmas to see the lights and seeing a loose Jedi figure display in the selfridges window so that must have been 86/87, that Christmas I got a Jabba and ewok glider and catapult and then not long after that going to my local toy shop and picking out leia boussh, lando skiff, teebo, and logray and I still remember opening them all sat in the back of our old Peugeot 309 and almost losing landos staff down one of the seats. Not long after that got a weequay and the energizer mini rig and then a Han hoth whilst on a very rainy holiday in Cornwall.


Even back then because my dad collected antiques I managed to get quite a lot of figures and ships going to fairs with him

Amazing how it stays with you

 

[Robstyley]

Really enjoy reading through this thread, this is what it's all about. I wish I could remember more specifics, my memory is hazy from 30 odd years ago! One of my earliest and clearest memories is getting the Snowspeeder for Christmas in... must have been 81' or 82' and running around my bedroom in my pyjamas with it with all the lights turned off. I can totally remember the sound and the yellow glow of the lights and being proper chuffed to bits with it. Such a cool toy and I still have it. I also have a memory of opening Hoth figures - Luke and Leia and an AT-AT Driver around the same time. And also a Hoth Wampa and Taun-Taun which I still have. It was all probably the same Christmas and maybe the first Christmas I received Star Wars toys.

 

[toyboy73]

One of the reasons I've recently joined this forum is to share and read about memories, and I thought I would start by adding to this thread about first figures memories.

My first introduction to a Star Wars figure was in around 1980, when I was seven years old. A kid down the street showed me an "R5-D4" and must have then told me about the toys. This vague memory is just of being outside, at his house, and seeing the figure. I don't remember playing with it or seeing others. My mom and his mom were friends, and they must have talked about where to get the figures and how much her son enjoyed them.

My next memory is of my mom taking myself and my brother (who would have been around four at the time) to a store called "Coast To Coast", which was a hardware store that also sold toys. We were there to get our first Star Wars figures. I remember a tall wall (tall to the seven year old me, at least) of figures that was very full. My mom bought C-3PO and R2-D2 for me, and Darth Vader and a Snowtrooper for my brother. I'm pretty sure the figures were on Empire Strikes Back cards. I remember cutting up the cardback and saving the little square pictures of the other figures (I guess I was a "collect them all" kid, even at age seven!) making these most likely 30 or 31 back figures, or possibly even ESB 21 back Secret Offer ones. Sometime during this era, I remember seeing the "Secret Figure Offer" cards also at "Coast to Coast", but this could have been on a different trip. I remember being fascinated that there was a secret figure, and wondered for years who it was, as my parents did not mail away for it.

 

[Cazza]

Great memories! Love this thread.

 

[Pomse2001]

Great thread, wow I have missed that in 2018 thanks for sharing it again

 

[Walrusbumface]

Earliest STAR WARS memory for me, was either 1978 or 1979? I was about six or seven at the time.

A friend at Junior Primary School had quite a few figures (some of them belonged to his older brother). I didn't know what they were (from what film / TV show?), but, I knew I liked them a lot.
We'd play with them - sometimes with great violence - snapping off the heads of Obi-Wan and Tatooine Luke. He'd give them to me after breaking them. I'd take them home and dad would fix them, by inserting a small screw (with the screw head sawn off) into the hole in the neck and then screw the head back on. It worked ... for a while.

My first (paid for) figure was Luke Skywalker: X-Wing Pilot, from K-Mart, in 1979. Would've been about $2.00 back then. I loved that STAR WARS cardback. I'd stare at it for hours, studying the other products in the line (loved Greedo and the Dewback lizard).

That card image of Luke, in his orange flight suit, climbing the yellow ladder, is my favourite STAR WARS memory from the late '70s.

 

[Mosh]

One of my first memories dates back to perhaps 1978, some months after I saw Star Wars at a theatre. I had been totally enthralled by the movie and a cousin my age — who wasn't so much into the movie — got from his parents an amazing SW t-shirt. I distinctly recall it was a nice, soft yellow with the image of awide-stanced stormtrooper pointing his gun to the spectator. The shot was amazing, the fabric's colour was unusual for t-shirts in Mexico at that time and I thought to myself that it was not fair, since I was the one who loved the film. Decades would pass before I wore a SW t-shirt, and that trooper is still burnt in my brain. I think it was my first lesson in life: fairness is just a thin ideal in our minds. : D

 

[sith-smith]

I remember watching something on TV about it. I remember us driving through central London and seeing the large display above a cinema. I remember going to see the film, but that was after the previous two memories, I'm sure.

I also remember see my neighbour playing in the back alleyway with some Star Wars figures...which is definitely my first memory of them.

What I can't figure out is if the film related memories came before the toys, or the other way round.

 

[Walrusbumface]

I remember watching something on TV about it. I remember us driving through central London and seeing the large display above a cinema. I remember going to see the film, but that was after the previous two memories, I'm sure.

I also remember see my neighbour playing in the back alleyway with some Star Wars figures...which is definitely my first memory of them.

What I can't figure out is if the film related memories came before the toys, or the other way round.

I definitely remember seeing (and playing with) the figures before seeing the films. I didn't get to see STAR WARS until it premiered on television in 1982 (Australia). I didn't see EMPIRE until it turned up on videotape in 1984. JEDI, is the only one of the trilogy that I did get to see at the cinema (in late 1983).

Apart from the Vader figure (I suspected he was evil, because he was all black), I wasn't completely sure who were the good and who were the bad guys. I thought maybe the Stormtroopers were good - because they were white. I had no idea about any of the cantina aliens - nor Chewbacca.

 

[Cazza]

Really enjoy reading through this thread, this is what it's all about. I wish I could remember more specifics, my memory is hazy from 30 odd years ago! One of my earliest and clearest memories is getting the Snowspeeder for Christmas in... must have been 81' or 82' and running around my bedroom in my pyjamas with it with all the lights turned off. I can totally remember the sound and the yellow glow of the lights and being proper chuffed to bits with it. Such a cool toy and I still have it. I also have a memory of opening Hoth figures - Luke and Leia and an AT-AT Driver around the same time. And also a Hoth Wampa and Taun-Taun which I still have. It was all probably the same Christmas and maybe the first Christmas I received Star Wars toys.

Exactly the same with my Snowspeeder- lights off etc etc. Absolutely loved it- so glad I kept it. I sat on the floor, next to the Christmas tree with my Dad, to put the stickers on and he did his back in. I remember my uncle and teenage cousins had to carry him upstairs and he was in bed with severe lumbago for two weeks. Poor old Dad!

 

[monkey_roo]

My first memory of SW was the first time I saw Return of the Jedi.

My brother and I were playing at a friends house with a bunch of kids and clearly making too much noise, so our friends father put on a VHS tape of Jedi (to keep us quiet...) - I was instantly hooked - the other kids more or less ignored it and went on playing (and making noise) - but I sat fully absorbed watching the film and think I rewinded it and watched it again straight away.

That Christmas I remember going down to London (it was an annual trip back then) and going to Hamley's - an entire floor was given over to SW - my little mind melted. There was a life-size Ewok on a glider hanging from the roof (I really, really, really wanted that Ewok) and shelf after shelf of Kenner goodies - I came out with an X-Wing a Scout Walker and a handful of figures. - I miss the 80's

 

[Mosh]

Exactly the same with my Snowspeeder- lights off etc etc. Absolutely loved it- so glad I kept it. I sat on the floor, next to the Christmas tree with my Dad, to put the stickers on and he did his back in. I remember my uncle and teenage cousins had to carry him upstairs and he was in bed with severe lumbago for two weeks. Poor old Dad!

My first SW toys were a snowspeeder and Empire's Solo, which were given to me not on Christmas but around that date (We have some celebration on January 6th. in which we get toys from The Holy Kings). We had back then no commercial treaty with the U. S., so the toys sold in Mexico were mostly of a very poor quality. These toys were actually bought by an uncle of mine, who travelled a lot to the U. S. I was overjoyed by the quality of the plastic. The figure was OK but the vehicle was fascinating. I distinctly recall "flying" it with my hand while I tried to press my face to the cabin. Since the cockpit had transparent plastic, I could sort of have a view as if I was inside the speeder. One of my nicest memories from such holidays.

 

[Cazza]

My first SW toys were a snowspeeder and Empire's Solo, which were given to me not on Christmas but around that date (We have some celebration on January 6th. in which we get toys from The Holy Kings). We had back then no commercial treaty with the U. S., so the toys sold in Mexico were mostly of a very poor quality. These toys were actually bought by an uncle of mine, who travelled a lot to the U. S. I was overjoyed by the quality of the plastic. The figure was OK but the vehicle was fascinating. I distinctly recall "flying" it with my hand while I tried to press my face to the cabin. Since the cockpit had transparent plastic, I could sort of have a view as if I was inside the speeder. One of my nicest memories from such holidays.

Have you still got your childhood toys?

 

[StarWarsFan]

As a kid had a vintage Scout Trooper at the time had no idea what it was.

 

[Mosh]

Have you still got your childhood toys?

Yep. Most of them. Some of the weapons were lost, but a few, really.

 

[Gadders]

My earliest Star Wars memory is the kid across the street bringing his figures out for us all to play with. He was 4 or 5 years older, so we all looked up to him. I remember being blown away by the figures - Snaggletooth, Hammerhead and Greedo stood out.
I had no idea what Star Wars was, but loved these amazing toys - I wanted my own.
The next christmas I got my first figures and remember how excited i was by this.

The toys were my first introduction to the Star Wars universe and are my first love - the films are secondary to the toys for me.

 

[lee gray]

I got a few, first time i can remember was in Sainsbury's when my parents hot me darth vader and my sister Leia
Then when i got Denger mail away and took it on school holiday with me

And lastly getting my nan to go into a shop to get me a carded dengar in Patrick's fulham as it was for 50p but i was at the age where soending just 50p was too embarrassing for me