Kenner Six Million Dollar Man Critical Assignment Legs

This is the Six Million Dollar Man Criitcal Assignment Legs set from Kenner, produced in 1977. This was another add-on set for the Bionic Man figure... similar to the Critical Assignment Arms set that I've reviewed previously.

Despite Steve Austin's legs being bionic (robotic) in the television show, the Kenner 12" action figure only featured bionics in his right arm. With this set, kids playing with Bionic Man figures everywhere could finally have bionic features in their figures' legs, as well.


This set features two legs (naturally) that both perform unique bionic "actions."

The left leg is an "exploding leg." It features flesh-colored panels that hide the true nature of Steve Austin's powerful appendages. When the appropriate button is pressed, "Pow!!!" the panels explode off the leg. According to the back of the box, this function is to simulate a "bionic malfunction." Ouch.


The right leg features two opening panels. The panel in Steve's thigh opens to reveal wires and bionic circuitry. The panel in his shin provides the necessary tool to perform bionic surgery on Steve's leg, should he need it. It features a small blue hook that aids in pulling the wired panels from Steve's thigh... kind of like a mini Operation game without the lights and buzzer.



This set also features a pair of white shorts. In his regular, red standard-issue pants, it would be difficult to play with the features in Steve's new legs. The shorts allow adequate access to the various parts and panels in the legs. Cool beans.

I didn't have this set, as a kid. I picked this one up close to this past Christmas on Ebay. However, I did have the Critical Assignment Arms as a kid and did always want to add this set to my Six Million Dollar Man. So, it was great to finally add this set to my collection. I still think it's pretty neat that Kenner would produce add-on sets like this that would allow kids to add new features to their figures without having to buy an all-new figure. I guess Kenner really did care. After all, that WAS their slogan.

Kenner Star Wars Large Size Jawa (12" Scale)

This is Kenner's Large Sized 8" Jawa from 1978. He's the last of the twelve that I'll be reviewing on Yesterville. Maybe I'll have to set up a Star Wars Large Sized "family photo" as a finale to finally finishing all the Large Sized Star Wars figures.



One of the great things about the original Star Wars trilogy was the fact that George Lucas didn't feel like he had to explain everything... or give us a glimpse under every helmet or head covering. Who was under the Stormtrooper helmets? Who knows? What does Boba Fett look like? Is he human? Who knows? This was part of the fun of Jawas, too. As a kid, it was pretty fascinating to see Jawas for the first time in Star Wars. Those covered faces, strange voices, and light-up eyes were pretty startling. I always wondered what their faces looked like and if those lights were actually their eyes... or lights that they needed to see with. Who knows?

Kenner's Jawa is a pretty basic figure. He has swivel shoulders, swivel thighs, and swivel wrists. He's really not too different than his 3 3/4 inch counterpart. I am glad that Kenner included bandoliers that could be worn over his cloak this time, though, instead of being sculpted underneath the cloak.

I found this Jawa many years ago at a comic convention, as well. I would always make it my yearly goal to add one more 12" vintage Star Wars figure to my collection each time I attended a comic book convention.

A complete Jawa should include his brown cloak, rubber bandoliers (one piece), and his blaster.

Ooootini!!!

Kenner Star Wars Large Size 12" Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi

This is Kenner's 12" Large Size Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi from 1978.

Before the Star Wars prequels, we knew that Ben Kenobi had a past as "Obi-Wan Kenobi" but we still pretty much always referred to this character as "Ben." If I'm not mistaken, Luke even refers to him as "Ben" during the entire old trilogy.

At any rate, I have to give Kenner credit for producing a large scale figure of the "old wizard" we know and love. Maybe I'm off base here, but it seems like companies would have shied away from producing toys based on older actors. Perhaps, the runaway sales of all the smaller Star Wars figures gave Kenner the freedom to say, "What the heck!"

Like other characters in the line, Kenner produced a nice likeness to actor, Alec Guiness. He looks older and wise without looking geriatric.


The only time I saw this guy for sale back in the 70s was at a small hardware store that had a very small toy department (our major sources of toys were Kmart, Labelles, and a mall store called Clown Town). We used to ride our bikes to this hardware store to see what new Star Wars action figures might be on the shelf. They only had one of the Large Sized action figures for the longest time... and that was a Ben Kenobi. He sat on the shelf for, what seemed, years. This store also kept an air-popper popcorn popper on the front counter with a well-stocked bowl of buttered popcorn for customers to enjoy. Free popcorn and other things like Wacky Packs and Cracked magazine were other reasons my buddies and I made frequent visits to this hardware store.


I picked this guy up in a trade with a very good friend back in the 80s when collecting Star Wars action figures wasn't near the top of our priority lists. An offer was presented to trade Ol' Ben for a couple of comic books and the deal was made. Ben had a taped up, busted leg and was missing his lightsaber. I've since replaced the leg and given Ben back his weapon "from a more civilized age."

Ben has the standard articulation for the human figures in the line... swivel hips, swivel shoulders, swivel neck, and very limited "click" articulation in the knees.

A complete Ben Kenobi should have his white tunic (with black neck and chest insert), brown robe, two rubber brown boots, and his yellow lightsaber.

Kenner Star Wars Large Size 12" Princess Leia

This is Kenner's Large Size Princess Leia Action Figure from 1978. Alright, to be fair, this is a dolly... plain and simple. Sometimes, it takes the manliest of men to succumb to buying a DOLL to complete a collection. Convinced, yet?

Princess Leia was one of the original four large sized action figures (dollys) that Kenner produced alongside Vader, Luke, and Chewie. However, she was marketed towards little girls and not the boys that were typically prowling action figure aisles in pursuit of "plastic gold."


As a kid, she was an easy pass. You could hide a 3 3/4 inch Leia at the bottom of your action figure case, if need be, but a ruler sized Leia was another thing altogether. If one of your buddies were to spot her in your collection, you could instantly become the target of constant ridicule and torture (having a Luke that looked like a Ken doll was bad enough, believe me). She didn't come with any kind of weapon or action feature. In fact, she came with a brush and comb set that allowed little girls to style her hair in several different hairdos. There was even a hairdo how-to booklet that came with Leia. Unfortunately (maybe fortunately), I do not own any of Leia's hair-styling accessories.

Again, Kenner came through with a great likeness that looks quite a bit like Carrie Fisher did at the time. Sure, it's a doll-like sculpt but it does a nice job of looking like the character. More so than many more recent attempts from companies producing six-scale version of Leia. Articulation is fairly limited... swivel hips, swivel shoulders, swivel neck, and maybe a tiny bit of "click" movement in the knees.

I picked this figure up in 1988 at the San Diego Comic Con. I've only recently discovered that she's wearing the wrong shoes. Oh, well....one more thing to track down. (If anyone has a spare pair, let me know.)

A complete Princess Leia should come with her white gown, two stockings, two white shoes, a belt, two donut-shaped rings (that are inside her ANH hairdo), a comb, a brush, and a hairstyling booklet.


I've always thought that Kenner should have included a blaster with Leia. That way, girls could join in the "action figure" fun and maybe, just maybe, a boy or two might have wanted to add Leia and her "Empire Crusher" blaster to their collection. Eh, probably not.

All in all, though, what Star Wars figure line would be complete without Leia? In that respect, I'm very glad that Kenner produced her and she makes a great addition to the Large Sized line-up.

Kenner Star Wars Large Size 15" IG-88

This is Kenner's Large Size IG-88 from early 1980. He stands about 15" tall and is scaled to the other figures in the vintage Large Sized line. He was released in an Empire Strikes Back branded box.

IG-88 was the last large-scale figure that Kenner produced when the "Large Sized" line was phasing out as the new decade of the 80s dawned. Consequently, he's the hardest of the large sized figures to find... especially complete.


I've always thought IG-88 was kind of an odd choice to get the sixth-scale treatment in the original Kenner line. In the film (Empire Strikes Back), IG-88 really doesn't do a whole lot... he just kind of stands there and adds an interesting and cool silhouette to the bounty hunter line-up that Vader has assembled. Of course, this is most likely why Kenner chose IG-88 to produce in this scale... he's just plain cool looking... and he's a robot.

I remember seeing this figure on the shelf at our local LaBelle's department store (which subsequently became a different dept. store, then a grocery store, and is currently a Hobby Lobby) back in 1980. The funny thing is, he was always alone. I don't recall ever seeing any other large Star Wars figures on the shelf next to him (I do seem to recall seeing 12" Mego Star Trek The Motion Picture action figures very close by, though.). Maybe being a late release, he shipped by himself... I don't know.


I picked this guy up in the 90's a little bit at a time. I started with the base figure and then added pieces as I found them available. I've found it's fun to collect figures this way, sometimes... "the thrill of the hunt" really comes into play, along with a healthy dose of delayed gratification as the figure slowly comes together.

At any rate, I think he's a great-looking figure. He doesn't have much in the way of articulation, though... swivel neck, swivel shoulders, swivel wrists, and swivel hips. So, he's not much for posing in front of the camera. Maybe he's just camera shy.


A complete IG-88 should include his bandolier, four red grenades (that attach to the bandolier), and two blaster rifles (one very long one and one shorter one).

Kenner Star Wars Large Size 15" Chewbacca

This is Kenner's 15" (1/6 scale) Chewbacca from 1978.

Chewbacca has always been a difficult character to "pull-off" for toy companies. We usually get a figure that's all plastic or one that's all plush but haven't really gotten one that's a mix of the two.


Kenner chose to go the "all plastic" route with their first sixth-scale Chewbacca action figure. In fact, Chewie's construction is very similar to another large action figure that Kenner produced for their Six Million Dollar Man line of toys... Bionic Bigfoot. In fact, early prototype images of Chewbacca reveal that Kenner used a repainted Bigfoot with a bandolier strap as a stand-in for our intrepid furry hero until an official figure could be produced. If you examine both toys together, it's very apparent that they were "cut from the same cloth," so to speak.

Chewbacca was one of the first four large-sized action figures produced along with Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia. Chewie's articulation is somewhat limited. He has ball-jointed shoulders, of sorts (held in place by rubber banded tension), and swivel hip joints... that's it. Due to the way he is sculpted, there is no head or neck articulation.


I like the way that Chewie is sculpted. There's plenty of sculpted fur detail but not too much. He's somewhat simplified and this choice works well with the somewhat simplified features of some of the human characters (like Han or Luke) in the line.

One neat aspect of this figure is that the cartridges on his strap are actually removable and can be placed on a peg on his crossbow blaster.

A complete Chewbacca comes with crossbow blaster (make sure the crossbow piece is present. It's a separate piece), bandolier strap with plastic pouch, and enough cartridges to fill all the slots on the strap.

Chewbacca has always been one of the more lovable characters in the Star Wars saga. This figure is fun representation of the beloved furry oaf.

Kenner Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back Toy Brochure #2

This is another pack-in toy brochure from 1981. These usually came with the bigger toys like vehicles, playsets, and larger figures. I was always excited to find a new one of these in the box. I used to pour over these little brochures as it was almost the only way to know what other toys were available or were being released soon. Notice the upside-down Tie Fighter.

More vintage 12" Star Wars and other vintage toy reviews coming soon.