They may not play weddings, but next month Fiery Figrin D’an and four other members of the jizz-wailing all-Bith cantina band– aka the Modal Nodes– will be ‘playing’ Star Wars Weekends! And best of all, you can take them home to play for you!
Just announced at starwars.com, this year for Star Wars Weekends, Hasbro is bringing back the Cantina Band!
The figures are the same sculpt which was originally offered as a Fan Club Exclusive ten years ago, and which returned last year for a Wal-Mart exclusive five*-pack tin set. And it should be noted that all five action figures are the identical sculpt since all seven* costumes in the film were identical too.
But this time the Modal Node figures will be offered on single cards rather than mailer boxes or group cards. The only way to distinguish them will be by careful observation of which musical instrument accessory the package contains.
Notice that we’ve added exclusive text to our versions of the images of the five figures, so you can know at a glance which Node is which. As an added enticement for collectors who just bought these figures last year, the Star Wars Weekends release will include a lights-and-sound base for each figure which plays a snippet of the memorable Cantina Band song (aka Mad About Me.)
According to a slide presentation at Celebration IV in Los Angeles, the bases for all five figures are identical but will interlock to make one big stage.
The card backs will resemble the current Thirtieth Anniversary design but will be generic for all five figures rather than identity-specific like the 12″ versions that Hasbro produced in the late 90’s. The front of the card will say simply “Cantina Band Member” with a sticker on the blister reading ‘Star Wars Weekends 2007’.
The obverse of the card will call them ‘The Modal Nodes’ with a blurb summarizing the six* members of the band, as first identified in the Kathy Tyers short story “We Don’t Do Weddings” from the anthology book Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina:
“Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes entertain the customers in the Mos Eisley cantina with lively music. They play without pause over the sounds of blaster fire, which is heard all too often in this seedy hotspot. The band includes frontman Figrin D’an on kloo horn and gasan string drum, Doikk Na’ts on the Dorenian Beshniquel, Ickabel G’ont and Tedn Dahai on fanfars, Tech Mo’r on the Ommni Box, and Nalan Cheel on the bandfill. Whatever trouble erupts in the cantina, the Modal Nodes keep on spinning their tunes for the crowd.”
Notice that the text on the card back misspells the proper noun ‘fanfars’ as ‘fanfares’… a spell-check auto-correct, perhaps?
*So, is it five members, six, or seven? There are seven costumes in the film,
six characters in the short story, and traditionally five action figures, since
some play identical instruments. Choose whichever number works best for your wallet… the suggested retail price on these figures is $14.95 each. The SKU # is 87537.
If you want an accurate short-story group of six, you’ll need two of the figure who includes the Fanfar– one for Ickabel, and one for Tedn. But if you want a film-accurate seven-member group, you can buy any two extra figures since the sixth and seventh instruments seen in the film (and the Holiday Special) have never been sculpted by Hasbro.
And just in case you’re wondering what Cantina Band Members have to do with Star Tours, don’t forget these images from the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Star Tours back in January 1987!
Boy, I’d love to see the SWW figures come with THESE instruments!
By the way, Hasbro, please don’t call Doikk’s Fizzz a Dorenian Beshniquel, unless you’re a symphonic ridgebrow. This is jizz.
