Tag: Willow

Also, on this #WhateverWednesday from the archives, let’s celebrate the Magic of Willow with this Willow Ufgood (Heroic Protector with Baby)!

I might as well get this out of the way, the vintage Willow toy line was… not great. Prior to the film’s release, the toy rights were given to Tonka, who just bought out Kenner Toys a year earlier. This may sound great, as Kenner had produced many great action figure lines of the 1980s including Star Wars, DC Super Powers Collection, and most recently at the time The Real Ghostbusters.

Unfortunately, Tonka did not divide off this license to the Kenner division but kept it in-house, where their popular 80s brands included things like Go-Bots and Pound Puppies. Long story short(ish), the line was considered a failure, and Tonka never financially recovered from taking on Kenner Parker’s debt and was forced to sell to Hasbro itself by 1991.

As far as this figure of “Willow Ufgood (Heroic Protector with Baby)” is concerned, I have the original ‘choking hazard’ variant here. Perhaps I should have left this one carded, as Willow was repackaged without the baby carrier and the tiny Elora Danan figure shortly after the line’s debut, so I’m not sure which version is rarer.

The Willow film turns 37 years old next week. I figure there’ll be a new Willow item to share here for the rest of the month. Happy 37 years to the Magic of Willow!

Recommended music: James Horner – Elora Danan

Also, on this #WhateverWednesday from the archives, let’s celebrate the Magic of Willow with this Willow film novel!

Canadian writer Wayland Drew was first hired to pen a movie novelization with 1978’s Corvette Summer. A decade later, he was chosen to write the Willow novelization based on the 7th edition of the screenplay to Willow, which was refined many times over from George Lucas’s original story ideas.

The novel is great as it contains many additional scenes that did not make it to the big screen (though some were shot and deleted). My book club edition was also supposed to contain a “Fabulous 8 page color insert”, but according to the teddy bear stamp inside the back cover declaring “This book belongs to CJ”, a previous owner must have removed the color insert 30 years before I picked up this copy. C’mon CJ! 😄

The Willow film turns 37 years old next week. I figure there’ll be a new Willow item to share here for the rest of the month. Happy 37 years to the Magic of Willow!