Dromboid's collecting corner

Thank you for selecting Dromboid as your Star Wars Holiday Special related memorabilia guide today.

It's only 229 days until Life Day, or what you humans call 'novembertheseventeenth'. Are you excited? I KNOW you are!

Now today we're going to examine a collection of Star Wars Holiday Special related memorabilia. Yes we areeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

Make sure you keep you Star Wars Holiday Special related memorabilia safe in the very handy plastic container provided, and it will give you a lifetime of joy and satisfaction.

My very own collection of Star Wars Holiday Special related memorabilia numbers over ten thousand items, some of which we are going to look at now.

Now let's get started shall weeeeeeeeee....

Let us start with the TOYS.

My special Life Day Robes 12 inch vintage Chewie Dolly

 

Authentic Tin Tin dwarf puppet

 

Kenner prototype Wookiee family (masturbation chamber not included)

 

My Snaggleboo Zutmore action figure

 

My Zutton Zutmore action figure

 

A whole heap of Baba Fett shit...

 

Baba bobble...

Baba square...

...and Baba Vastly Expensive

 

 

There's music too with:

 

My Jefeerson Starshit 7 inch single of 'Light Your Farts Afire' with a sleeve that proudly boasts it's Star Wars connections...

And fuck that shit, I even got the 12 inch remixed vinyl indeed...

 

Not technically Holiday Special but fuck you anyway, my Christmas LP!

 

The only single off said LP...

 

My beloved mylar-enshrouded Star Wars Holiday special press kit with words from Leia's song cleverly intertwined with the title. Mmmm, shiny!

 

 

 

 

 

My bedtime storybook to send me off to Kazook...

 

 

... I read this thing every fucking night.

 

 

Life would not be complete without my trading card thingees:

 

And of course, the film that started it all! On DVD and Special Edition Blu Ray!

 

 

 

Magazines 'n' shit:

 

 

 

 

 

And what collection would be complete without my signed group photo of Ackmena with Walrusman. Hammerhead and Greedo?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Ermahgerd: Ratsies!

It was a dark and stormy night. The large moon of Panna threw lingering orange shadows across the towers of the stark and foreboding metal prison building. A few constellations Rungs recognised twinkled overhead. His homeworld of Rinn was out there somewhere, glittering green against the velvet blackness. The Tin Tin Dwarf chittered to himself, cleaned his whiskers and remonstrated with himself for not sticking to thinking about the task in hand, which in this instance was an audacious prison break. Reegesk had told everyone he was in a retirement home. Pfui! That would have been easier. Panna's prison complex was all hi-tech and vaunted new machinery, relying on complicated electronic systems and sensors to be nigh on impregnable. But it wasn't heavily guarded by humans, and that might well be to Rungs' advantage. 

Although he looked like oversized vermin and possessed the aroma of damp woodchips, the Tin Tin Dwarf was an incredibly intelligent being. He had patiently perused the schematics of the prison complex on a piece of tattered paper in a darkened booth in the corner of Ackmena's cantina and had memorised every power conduit and control outlet in the place. He hadn't even let the bartender's insane bouts of awful singing distract him. Not that he would ever dare tell his beloved mentor Ackmena she couldn't hit a note; he was an intelligent being after all.  

Having easily breached the perimeter, Rungs scampered through a few ventilation shafts - which were an incredibly useful sci-fi cliché he noted - located the main power bank and chewed through the lighting and electrical cables, immediately disabling the doors and plunging one particular wing of the prison into darkness. This section of the prison building housed the dissenters and thieves, and one particular resident who had shown the audacity to pick Palpatine's pocket and steal his only photo of Darth Plageius. The two guards in corridor 9D9 shuffled uneasily as the red emergency lighting came up.

Reegesk was huddled on his bunk inside a spartan cell half way down the detention corridor. He was curled inside his huge tatty brown robe as always and singing rude songs about the Emperor, just to annoy his captors. Nuffin got Reegesk down; not being a member of one of the most hated species in the galaxy, smelling like trash, having no morals: nuffin. That's what his bitches liked about him most.  

The guard outside Reegesk's cell didn't see the access hatch in the ceiling above slide aside or notice anything amiss until Rungs had leapt onto his shoulders and bore him to the floor of the corridor. The guard screamed 'ermahgerd!' and tried to bat the giant rat away. The other guard unholstered his blaster but the agile Tin Tin Dwarf swiped the man to the ground with one swing of his mighty tail then perched on the man's chest to keep him down. The first guard had soiled his underwear and passed out with terror. In that order.

Reegesk peered through the bars of his cage at the commotion.

'Whoa! Dis is well wicked! That guy shit himself. It stinks in here, man.'

'Row ow ow row!' Rungs bid Reegesk loudly.

'You don't have to tell me twice bro, keep calm and swindle Jawas. Dat's my motto, dat is. Long time.'

Rungs' dexterous claw punched in the correct code on an adjacent panel and Reegesk's cell gate swung open.

'This is a sugar-coated rescue, is well sweet bruv.'

'Row ow. Row ow ow!'

Reegesk instantly leapt on the guard, who began whimpering in fear. Reegesk's beady eyes glittered maliciously under the shadow of his fabric hood.

'You scared, homie?'

The guard nodded slowly.

'Is it cos I is Ranat, innit?'

Rungs was impatient to depart: 'Row ow!'

'Okies. Let's split this joint. I miss me some Owl City on the radio and toking on a doobie dat's wide as Bob Marley's leg.'

Rungs was in agreement on that one. The furry pair scampered for the exit. The first guard was stirring now and summoning up some bravura, aimed his blaster after the two oversized mice. But even as he squeezed the trigger Rungs and Reegesk vanished around the corner. Reegesk hurled a couple of finely honed insults back at the guard.

'Can't catch me homie, innit! You is too slow bro!' 

There was a battered YT-1300 Millenium Falcon class starship parked up in the staff docking bay. It didn't take the murine pals long to bypass the security codes and get on board the empty freighter.

Reegesk was twitching with excitement: 'oooh, our very own miloonium falcow. We can goes on adventures and solve crimes and do madcap things now, bruv!'

'Row ow ow ow!!'

The freighter lifted off and trailing a blue particle tail of light shot past Panna's waxen moon, then turned left and vanished amid the galaxies.

 

Neither Rungs nor Reegesk knew how long the journey had lasted: they had put 'Fireflies' on the boom box and cranked it up to max, broke out some emergency absinthe from the freighter's glovebox and proceeded to get as high as possible on a little stash of contraband Reegesk had found in one of the many pockets of his robe. As the space shrooms and amphetamines kicked in, the furry pals chittered happily and hallucinated like fuck. Reegesk hit the hyperdrive and the newly re-christened freighter Ratfinities made the jump to the appropriately named lightspeed. As Rungs and Reegesk sang songs of the Rebellion and victory and nights in Ackmena's Cantina, they even saw God wave at them through the windscreen.  

Their adventures had only just begun!

 

Ermahgerd! Gerd!

 

 

 

 

 



Tonika Selfies

Why hello. Yes it's me, Ackmena, the best barkeep in the galaxy, bar none. You've caught me washing glasses and reminiscing about the good old days, before the Empire closed me down! I love to reminisce, as you all know! I recall, this time five years ago, just before a New Hope, more or less... it was quiz night and let me tell you, my joint was jumping, in more ways than one. It seemed like the whole of Tatooine was packed into my humble cantina that night. It was the number one G spot for getting down and unravelling your topknot, you might say. Ahh... heady romance. The roar of the Sarlaac and the smell of the crowd... the sound of those teenagers' hormones going into overdrive... a few of them actually made the jump to hyperspace! Good times, you might say, yeeees!

CUE FLASHBACK 

Lapti Nek is blasting over the 'banging' sound system as I push Tork through the Cantina doorway in a wheelchair. His foot is in plaster. He had a nasty run in with some Tusken Raider Space Invaders, and let me tell you those guys are tough! They'd mistaken Tork for some kind of overgrown walnut, and gee, were those boys hungry! They took a considerable bite out of Tork's foot. Fortunately he tastes of six-week old bantha droppings, or else they'd have eaten the rest of him, to boot!

I push past the Tonnika sisters taking selfies as usual and as I settle Tork into a booth I notice Dratun in the corner showing off his new 'falsies' to M'iyoom Onith. False as in pretend. As in fake. Head cones, I mean. Those Gotal head cones are supposed to be arousing. I shit you not, check Wookiepedia if you don't believe me.

 

As it's still early, the quiz is in full swing. Sosio Path is on the mic:

'Question One. What do you get a Wookiee for Christmas, when he already owns a comb?'

The customers look at each other blankly. One puts 'holographic wow.'

'Question Two. Who writes every single factual Star Wars book on the market?'

There's an uneasy muttering among the throng and someone says: 'Ryder Wyndham of course! You'd think there aren't any other fans who can string a sentence together.'

'He's a literary genius!' I hear someone in the crowd cry.

'Shut up, Ryder,' comes another voice in reply. 

Already bored with the quiz, I tune my selective hearing to filter out the crap and listen in on Fixer Loneozner and Camie Bra-strap canoodling at the end of the bar:

Camie - 'we got friendly, down in the sand...'

Fixer - 'tell me more, tell me more!'

It must be those summer nights... I honestly envy these young people. There isn't enough pot in the galaxy could make me feel twenty again!

I scan the heaving crowd for Tank Sunber but can't spot him. I've had a soft spot for Tank ever since I saw him get a hard spot for Camie when they were both skinny dipping in the Dune Sea. That sand must have really got in all the cracks...  I was only there to air off my pooney, you understand. And let me just say that pooney gets heavily discoloured on a regular basis! I'm not your regular cheap stalker or anything, no siree!

Tank is the fittest boy in Anchorhead, but he isn't the brightest star in the sky if you know what I mean. You couldn't hold a conversation about existentialism with him. It doesn't really matter with a shoulder to waist ratio and washboard the like he's packing! Tank Sunber makes me ache in places so far uncharted. He gives me a wide on like the Cohn Drift. Whatever that is. Tank is so fit, he stands out like that six foot Jawa at the Lars Homestead. I can understand why his parents are so proud of him, even if he doesn't know what mathematics is. Not that the other boys from Tosche Station are anything special. Deak is gay for Windy, and Windy likes it Biggs. Are there no straight boys on Tatooine, I lament. Apart from Fixer; but he makes self-harming look attractive.

 
As I'm musing and wiping down and plotting ways to get my revenge on Darth Shitfaced for upstaging me at ComicCon, who struts in but that punk Luke Skywalker, wearing an inane, tooth-whitened grin and a silly hat that looks like an upturned cauliflower with goggles sown onto it. If he thinks it makes him street, I'm here to tell him that it does not.
 

Luke lollops over to Fixer and shakes his hand animatedly, before sticking his hand up Camie's blouse and fondling her giant breast roughly. Camie slaps Luke across his weird face: 'Dornt pusht warm hey' (translation - don't push it wormie).

I won't tolerate violence in my esteemed establishment so I quickly interpose myself between the two altercators:

I address Luke first: 'Luke, face it, she doesn't like you. I don't like you either. Neither does anyone else; you're a whining little pussybitch. Just like your father.'

Luke - 'you knew my father?'

'Knew your father? Why, who didn't know Little Annie Skywalker? When he wasn't bringing the corpse of his mother home he was killing Sand People... and not just the men, but the women, and the younglings! And when he wasn't making inappropriate fascistic comments, he was interrupting and losing his temper, or asking stupid questions!'

Luke - 'are you an angel?'

'Yes, just like that! I don't know how to break this to you Luke, but I'm afraid you're barred. I never want to see your whiny, pussybitch face again!'

Luke - 'but Ackmena, that's not fair! Camie and Fixer get to stay!'

'After what I've been through - what you put me through - all I can say is that whatever you thought I heard I thought you said that you thought I wanted to hear, let me tell you, I wasn't. Now buzz off.'

Luke blinks - 'But Ackmeeeeeeena!'

That's it. I have Tork get out of his wheelchair to turf Skywalker out into the street. Luke attempts to use the Force on him by making his lightsabre move a bit in the sand where it falls but Tork is unimpressed and simply breaks the cheeky Padawan's jaw before getting his curling tongs out and giving him a perm the like of which has never been seen before (or since).

 

'Fighting the Frizzies'

I turn back to Camie, who is looking self-satisfied and foxy all at the same time:

'I don't know what you're looking so chirpy about. Haven't you just broken up with Prince Andrew?'

Camie - 'Dornt geht clef har, Ahk Men Ha...' (translation: don't get clever, Ackmena)

'I wouldn't dream of it, dear.'

 

 

Camie yawns. She's had a long day sucking off random moisture farmers old enough to be her father. She sits at the booth and promptly falls unconscious in her Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

'That's right. Just go to sleep, sweetheart. Pray for brains.'

As I sweep off I say under my breath: 'the things I'd do to that cocky madam... that would shut her wannabe royal mouth!'

 

 

Fixer is watching me with a twinkle in his eye - 'I've been waiting to get you alone all night. You are one tough broad and one hot momma.'

I can't put up with any more of this flirtatious insanity. I'm at a point now that I am so exhausted that I cannot speak. Literally, I cannot speak.

'Look, Fixer, I did you a favour, now you do me a favour.'

Fixer - 'anything for you, babe.'

'Go fuck yourself.'

If you've ever met a man who knows how to push all your buttons, you'll understand where I'm coming from. With that I head out back, past Zutmore, and let out a primal scream which shakes the very foundations of the Cantina, and probably all of Mos Eisley.

 
 

It's time to close up. And we all know what that means:

 

Ackmena -             Just hear my song, friend

                              The tears I'll bring, friend

                                Don't forget me in your screams

 

Sosio -                    Cantina quiz night

                                In the Tatooine light

                                Time to get in your teams!

 

Ackmena -             Next time you're bored, friend

                                I'd like a word, friend

                                Just bring your girl friend

                                To see me!

 

Barbarine -             Our host might be off her face

                                And her damned song's a disgrace

                                Of you there won't be a trace

                                If there's a fight in the place!

 

Bom Vimdin -           Don't be mean, Barbarine!

 

Ackmena -             Try dropping by friend,

                                Give Tork a lend, friend

                                He's on the mend friend

                                And thanks to who, friend?

                                Yes, its me, yours truly!

                                So here's to good times, friend

                                It's too sublime, friend

                                At least it rhymes, friend

                                That it be!

 

Thorp -                    Maybe she has delusions of gender, But everyone loves a sassy

                                bartender!

 

Ackmena -             And when you're crazed, friend

                                When you're deranged, friend

                                Around the bend, friend

                                Insane you will be!

                                But it's just tough, pal

                                I've had enough, pal

                                I'm sounding rough, pal

                                Yes, really!

 

Momaw Nadon -     Gormaanda's really a man, Ackmena's nearly a man

 

Ackmena -             There's Zutmore's new caravan

                                Can't you see?

                                Follow me!

                                Na na na na na!

 

All -                         na na na na na

                                na na na na na

                                na na na na na

                                na na na!

                                na na na na na

                                na na na na na

                                na na na na na

                                na

                                na

                                na...

  

BACK IN THE PRESENT

You know, I should never reminisce. What was I thinking?