A History of BAD Star Wars Products 

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"how do we let people know this horrible nightmare bug is supposed to be from Star wars?" "Let's give him a shirt that says Star wars"

Marfalump would’ve been substantially better if his backstory was that he had travelled billions of light years to earth for the sole purpose of watching The Phantom Menace in theaters. While also trying Pepsi.

Funniest thing to me about Grogu merch is that for season 1, we didn’t know his name. But for some reason merchandisers love slapping the name of the thing on whatever they are making in addition to the thing itself. Put Boba Fett on a t-shirt? Gotta have the words “Boba Fett” on it too. But again, Grogu wasn’t named until season 2. That didn’t stop merchandisers putting the words “The Child” on everything. I thought it was dumb and ruined potentially good merch then, and now I think it’s funny that it was only really relevant for one year.

I actually met the voice actor of Marfalump (Billy West of Futurama fame) at Atlanta once and got him to autograph my fan art piece and he was amazed like as if he found a treasure map or something.

That JarJar candy is hilarious, it’s so funny to me that you’re basically forced to make out with him if you want to eat the whole thing without removing it

I love the baby Yoda bop it game. It’s you being told by Dinn Djaran to physically abuse a baby. It gets me every time

I love that Pepsi was wasting time with Marfulump meanwhile Lays had the brilliant idea to include puzzle pieces in the chip bags to build an Episode II collage, brilliant toy

As someone that was 10 in '97, I got Luke's green lightsaber, and let me tell you. Those things absolutely DID NOT extend with a push of a button. In fact the bottom tube didn't even go inside. You had to flick it out. But we were happy with it!

I had the Chewbacca landscape head and I basically refused to play with it as a kid because the idea of opening chewies head made me feel so dead inside I could cry

I’m gonna be honest, Marfalump was probably a better idea than using an actual character. Like, imagine if you saw Jar Jar or C3P0 telling you to go drink some Pepsi. That just sounds weird to me.

The reason you kept sniffing that expired Jabba goo (that's gonna be taken out of context I'm sure) is because you wanted to make sure your brain wasn't fooling you into thinking it really smelled that bad.

But do yall remember the Ep 1 Pepsi machines with young Anakin? Apparently there's still one in Pittsburgh that fans go and visit. One day I will make the pilgrimage there to pay my respects.

I think they could pull off making Marfalump canon again. I feel like he would fit right in with Galaxy's Edge at the Disney Parks. That tells a story, doesn't it? He could literally sell pepsi to park guests. Am I crazy for saying this??

Yeah I remember the first wave of lightsabers didn't automatically extend, but it meant you got to do a quick whip motion to extend it and frankly that made it feel way cooler. It was even cooler when it actually extended all the way in one go instead of getting stuck at half mast.

I love Star Wars to death (as I'm sure you can tell by my profile name) but even I thought things were going too far when Disney started slapping Star Wars stickers on Dole Bananas. No, I'm not joking. They were literally using fruit to market Star Wars.

They should give Marfalump his own Disney+ series.

Can we talk about the fact hes talking Star Wars while wearing a Star Trek The Next Generation shirt. I love it.

It should be known that when the mandalorian s1 came out, rise of Skywalker also came out and Disney focused all the marketing on ros and didn't expect the mandalorian to be such a hit so it was months and months after Christmas 2019 that grogu merch actually hit shelves, very similar story to when the 1st star wars came out

Pepsi's marketing at that time was very much "Pepsi is fun to drink" so it wasn't such a weird thing to say at the time.

Mego didn't reject Star Wars. That is a toy industry myth. The Mego Corp owner Marty Abrams was in Japan getting the rights to Micronauts at the time the Star Wars license was being shopped around. Kenner offices in NYC was in the same building along with other toy companies. Kenner was in the right place at the right time to scoop the Star Wars toy license in 1976.

When I was a child, lightsaber bootlegs were very common cheap toys on circus, festivals and touristic places, and most of them were a plastic envelope with some Christmas's lights on the inside and the cheapest sound chip available. A lot of them were orange, yellow or even rainbow colored. Fun times, anyway.

The balloon lightsaber was notorious, they all developed leaks immediately and they even came with sticky repair patches because they knew that instantaneous leaks were guaranteed. In the past the reason for its existence was explained that the "peace craving environment immediately following the Vietnam War" had soured the public on toy weapons of any kind, which is why there were so few children's sword and weapon toys created at that time. And the ones that were eventually released I guess were justified by having a warning saying adult supervision only or age 12 and up. A simple hollow, coloured tube would have been the easiest thing to make and would have sold millions and been no more dangerous than pogo sticks or wiffle ball bats, but they still hesitated. I eventually used a hollow aluminum tube stuck in a rubber bicycle handle grip, far more dangerous than any plastic tube would have been. They didn't even allow a semi rigid foam lightsaber at that time. But a few years later (before the actual good retractable ones with sound), a holllow hard plastic (non-retractable) tube with a flashlight in the end was made, with holes in it so when it was swung it would make a kind of whistling sound, like blowing over the opening of a bottle, and those weren't so bad; you could actually conk someone over the head with it without it popping and going limp. I had the balloon version to go with my Darth Vader Halloween costume that my mom made. Yes it popped before the end of the night. At least the flashlight worked.

OMG I gave the "Jabba Glob" to my friend as a birthday gift when I was 10. I had no idea what my mum had wrapped as a gift and when he opened it, I was sooo JEALOUS. I might have to buy one too

Funny how I've never heard about that pepsi mascot and I've been a starwars fan for 26 years. I was there for the special editions and episode 1. This is literally the first time I ever hear of it.

Nothing quite like a 1999 unsuckled jar jar binks cherry flavoured tongue in mint condition. Extra flavour if it's fermented

I am here for the Star Wars branded Baby Yoda hand sanitizer that was recalled due to it containing methanol and benzene which are carcinogenic and smell bad.

As a lifelong Star Wars fan since age 4 (born in 94) most of these were never bad ideas and you sir have given me a heavy nostalgic trip to my childhood with the Jar Jar stuff, the lightsabers, the Jabba Glob….I either owned or wanted half of what you showed and it makes me want to go back and appreciate what I didn’t at the time Sad thing is I owned a Jabba Glob that got lost in a move and was never opened and I still kick myself to this day for losing it

I can still remember the Star Wars Episode 1 hype like it was yesterday. I regret not buying a Jar Jar tongue lollipop. Not to eat. But to preserve and archive that craziness back then.

"so guys, how are we going to make luke's aunt and uncle?" *"make them as charred skeletons"* "Great idea"

I work retail, and we have so much Grogu merch. I'm talking pillow cases, decorative pillows, clocks, Bluetooth speakers, plushies and dolls, beach towels, and ton of different types of toys. It's ridiculous

The lego sounds when you were putting Jar Jar's head together killed me lmao

I get annoyed when company's over use a character for profit and I never did buy any of the merchandise but "Baby Yoda" was about one of the cutest things I've seen lol

Ive seen Marfalump on some vintage t-shirts before, never knew what the character was. Prices are usually around $300 from what I remember, pretty hard to find online

Funny that now at the parks disney sells Coke in the star wars section and pepsi is nowhere to be seen

“Squeeze the Hutt’s head to ooze his slimy treat” The internet has absolutely ruined a sentence like that for me completely

Brilliant video, Thanks for crediting me for the music. So many big creators like Nerdrotic just use it without credit 😅

I appreciate the use of Battlefront death and menu sounds throughout this video. So much nostalgia just from those sounds.

Darth Maul! One of your best videos yet! Keep hitting these home runs! 👌

Super well done! The TT lego game noises was a clever touch. Everything post-disney is pretty much bad lol.

Micro machines were the best Star Wars toys. I hated the head transformations, but they had some great ones that made more sense, like the death star playset. The scale made so much more sense than the bigger toys. I love baby yoda, but I don't want all the merch. I got a figure of Mando, and Baby Yoda. But I gotta admit, I have a porg collection though. Haha Having more of them makes more sense to my mind simply because there were actually lots of porgs on the island. There's only one baby yoda.

While the Ewoks definitely had marketability in mind when created, you can actually blame the Ewoks spinoffs on the TV Network. It was more the success of their marketability that led to that than actual intent to make those spinoffs. The thing they were most likely designed to market were plushies. Had they figured out they could have made cute plushies out of pretty much every character (like they do now) rather than design characters that were literal teddy bears, they probably would have stuck with Wookies. And you can follow the success of R2Ds and Yoda to the inevitability of Ewoks. They wanted the loveable appeal that these characters had in a easy to make plushie that they could sell multiple different versions of.

Iirc, due to Baby Yeed being a secret, a lot of companies didn't actually have merch ready when the first episode of the show dropped. Hasbro was a big one, we didn't get a figure of him for awhile. I don't think Disney quite realised how big baby Yoda would actually be.

The sniff counter was a great addition to tie everything in.

I remember those head transformers very well. Starwars micro machines were fantastic

Again, your presence is a huge boon to the video, especially the comedy. Your commitment to the bits warms my heart and the editing has perfect timing as always. I love wondering whether I learned more about something or was entertained more by how I was informed. Bravo Slow.

Your delivery and the way you carry yourself on camera is superb. The subject matter itself had me interested but your camera presence hooked me really quickly. Very funny and pleasant to listen to and gives off big - this guy knows what he’s talking about vibes.

They've made lightsaber toys worse. They no longer hide the blade fully in the hilt. Now the bottom part of the blade is always extended.

I'm also shocked my first lightsaber toys were the first good lightsaber toys as well. Too bad they broke from too much use but most of the hilt still remains. I loved them. Very fond memories playing with my dad and going out trick or treating dressed as RoTJ luke and vader

Those grogu plushes are so annoying when I am trying to find Star Wars figures. Just tons of them.

The 1997 Jabba figure is supposed to be of the CGI Jabba from the deleted scene of A New Hope's special editiion, originally Jabba was supposed to be in it but at the time they used a real human actor when the original version came out, and then they re-released new hope and made it a 'special edition' and put the CGI jabba in.

Oh my god everytime you said marfalump with increased seriousness i laughed even harder. Seriously though how did i never know about this Pepsi alien?? Where did you find that documentary btw?

I can finally have happiness again, new SS video 🎉

18:43 I was that guy. (I owned that one) I remember having fun making double bladed configurations. Also in my opinion the peak Baby Yoda cult was the actor who played the Scout Trooper who hit Grogu receiving death threats. I found that just really brain dead.

18:53 two more pieces and you get Darth Himler's saber

A few weeks ago I actually got some new in package 3D glow in the dark Darth maul stickers from a vintage toy shop. Definitely worth the 5 bucks.

The customizable lightsaber looks like the Star Wars version of those mall ninja weapons.

I'm unaware of any Star Wars products released in the years 1988 - 1990. I think the claim that something was released every single year may be a bit inaccurate.

Okay I could be wrong, but I've been collecting Star Wars stuff a looooong time and I'm fairly certain the Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru figures were just custom figures posted as a joke.

If I was kenner, I would have made the empty Box some kind of supscription, but prepayed. Every box-owner gets an action figure every month for one year. here you go, no product in store, but still sold

I can only imagine how much those very first Star Wars action figures are worth these days.

You really had to be there for micro machines. Micro machines got a LOT of playtime in my house. I had the Darth Vader one and let me tell you I played with that every day.

OKAY THIS- this was recommended to me and I had a blast watching it. The hands-on segment was too damn good, I had many laughs throughout it. even took a screenshot of the Jabba the Glob toy because of how WACKY it is. I absolutely lost it there, that's going in my folder of Star Wars out of context memes---congrats, you earned it.

I had that Chewie head micromachine for Ep VI and the Battle Droid one from Ep I. There was also a Hoth battle box. Had a lot of fun with them back in the day

I remember seeing the Pepsi commercials with the little alien. I think the idea was to collect all the characters on cans from Pepsi products, while trying to find the golden Yoda

Well, marketing people being completely tone deaf and living in their own fabricated universe is a classic. Relating to the examples in this video: yes, the Hieronimus Bosch-inspired openable heads are baffling, but in my opinion nothing beats the 90s Crystal Pepsi campaign push. There is on RU-vid a Crystal Pepsi training video for employees that is the epitome of this reality bending attitude, which works... Until it doesn't, and comes back crashing down.

Seeing a young guy actually use the $50 dollar bubble bath soap and it still WORKS Did make me smile and laugh a little yes . You sir are committed to the bit I would have just put it on a shelf and wondered why I bought it

Speaking about Baby Yoda; I used to work at a school district in technology where I would fix projectors and computers and what not. At one of the schools I worked at there was a Teacher who was obsessed with Baby Yoda and in her room she had Baby Yoda stuffed animals, posters, stickers and even memes; she would even wear a Baby Yoda shirt occasionally. Also, this was in 2023 which is a good amount after the Baby Yoda craze. So I can understand hating a lovable character who in all actuality is just another cog in the Disney money making machine.

Great video Slow! I totally remember the dancing JarJar and Jabba slime from back in the day! I'm so glad you pulled those 2 out because they were the ones that really stuck out to me back then, such crazy times

The bubble bath segment made me wheeze

Highly educational as always. Never knew where Equatorial Guinea was before or how important Surfshark was for me and my family.

Man I can’t wait to hear about weird Star Trek products! (edit) ; (

I was 9 when Episode 1 came out. I had a ton of merch, books, action figures, corporate tie ins, whatever I could get my hands on. I was as obsessed as a kid could be with that film at the time. I have no memory of Marfalump, at all. Which makes me think it wasn't as big a deal as it seems, OR, it was so traumatic that my little kid brain erased it from the archives to spare me the madness that would surely follow.

18:34 I think that’s what you want to use when you get sent to the Star Wars universe, you are right behind darth sidious, your toys became real, and the writers were replaced by literal children.

I had the galoob jar jar😂. Shit was fire cause it was micro machines! Polly pockets were also big back then! 😂

It’s refreshing to see you’ve actually done your homework and research for this video

Ackshually, Maul's double saber wasn't a first for the franchise. They appeared on the Tales Of The Jedi comics a couple of years before.

Baby Yoda is really a character designed from the bottom up for merch, same with BB8, and those ewoks.

To be fair, a very real argument can be made that nearly the entirety of post-Disney acquisition Star Wars media are bad Star Wars products unto themselves.

Great video! The wacky products really let you work more comedy into it, I liked that.

Disney made a whole lot of bad merch that would easily qualify for this video, especially the sequel trilogy action figures.

He doesn't know the the Aunt Beruu and Uncle Owen figures were fake

This was pretty entertaining. All things considered, the Jaba Glob was intriguing and kinda wanna own 😂

I still have the Jabba the Hutt bust, and the AAT from the Jar Jar bust, lol. I was born in 2004, and had no idea what they were/where they came from since they were before my time and used to be my older brother's.

Oh, I remember that Jabba Glob thing, I saw commercials on tv! Repressed memory unlocked! The slimy toys sure was an era that existed

The way you read those baby yoda memes was hilarious 😂

Am I the only person who didn't take much of a problem with that picture of the dog with human eyes? I don't know, I've seen enough dogs with very human-like eyes to where that didn't really bother me or grab my attention. I probably wouldn't even be able to tell it had human eyes if he didn't say it.

Surprised you didn’t bring up the strange early 2000s Yoda Furby that delivered all of its Yoda speak in the robotic voice that is synonymous with the toy that it’s based on. Just pure nightmare fuel all the way across the board.

At least the Jar Jar Binks lolly gave you a thing that looks like the character and a lolly shaped like his tongue. Weird but it at least makes the product use the brand in some way. Not just slapping someone on the outside of a bag of apples and being done with it.

Fun fact: I have a Grogu plushie. Some idiot threw it away after winning it at a claw machine game, and it was STILL IN GOOD CONDITION! So I ended up adopting the poor guy and welcomed it to my plushie collection (Grogu is now friends with my Tyrannosaurus rex plushie, my shark plushie, my Mega Charizard X plushie, and my Godzilla plushie).

Yeah the merch of ‘baby Yoda’ is how I found out about him before Disney + became available in the U.K. 😂 that’s how insane it was (also people wouldn’t shut up about him online)

I still have a lot of the 1995 toy line somewhere. Pretty much lost all the accessories for the characters, so had to use a Q tip for Ben or Luke's lightsaber. Man, no idea why they made the characters look so buff, but hey, part of the charm.

I got that Jaba toy really young and had it for well over 15 years, glob still intact. His smell reaction is no exaggeration, I can still smell it till this day. The sound it makes in the container, the way it looks, and the smell it had are permeant fixtures of my childhood memories.

You remind me of a friend I had, same sense of humor. I laughed out loud many times. 😂 Good video, I look forward to future ones.

Darth Maul? DARTH MAUL!

I forgot about the Jaba Glob toy, but I had that as a kid and this unlocked memories that I think were locked away for a reason. I remember getting bored of the toy after doing it like 3 times and then just playing with the goo like it was one of those 'slime toys' until it solidified. By the end, it was full of random debris and I'm pretty sure it got stuck in the carpet in my parent's basement and there is still a stain from it to this day.

The bubble bath bit was 100% worth it.

First of your videos I've seen and it was great. Some hilarious edits, jokes and also spot on in a documentary sort of way for all of the old footage. Well done!

I'm totally not laughing at the Nute Gunray cup you got.

Yes, my son loves the buildable lightsabers, and I think they're not bad either. You can make some crazy stuff. He also has the voice one which is hilarious with some of the things you can make it say lol. The lightsaber academy ones are really good as well, a kind of a mix between the buildable ones(much MUCH less customization) and the early 00s ones.