As the kid whose dad had his Master’s Degree in Fine Arts and a mother who had her Master’s Degree in Elementary Education, I was constantly playing with Play-Doh growing up. Sometimes my mom would whip up a homemade batch using a recipe that involved flour, corn starch, and food coloring, but just as often she’d let me get a can or two whenever we went to a department store at the mall. I was never very good at making stuff with Play-Doh (sculpture has never been my strong suit), but it kept me busy long enough for my mom to get things done around the house. I’ve written before about the Play-Doh Fuzzy Pumper Monster Shop. And of course I had the Fun Factory, because everyone had the Fun Factory.
But as I was digging through boxes of stuff at my parents’ house a while back, I was happy to come across a Play-Doh toy I had kind of forgotten I had – the Star Wars Action Set from 1978.
When compared to something as dynamic as the Fuzzy Pumper Monster Shop or even the fairly simple Fun Factory, the Star Wars Action Playset doesn’t exactly live up to its name.
The set consists of a set of three molds – Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia/R2-D2, and Darth Vader – a simple X-Wing fighter, and a plastic playmat featuring a cut-away Death Star. If you were a skilled young artist, you might be able to use different colors of Play-Doh placed strategically into the molds to make some fairly accurate depictions of the characters. But chances are you were like me – a mediocre young artist at best – who would just cram a single color of Play-Doh into the mold and pop out a figure. From there, Luke and R2 could sit in the X-Wing, or you could have Luke, Leia, and R2 try to escape the Death Star with Vader on their heels.
Even if it wasn’t the most exciting thing Play-Doh could have done with the license, it was still a heck of a lot of fun to be able to make your own Star Wars figures over and over again.
The Empire Plays Doh
Of course Play-Doh wasn’t going to stop with just a playset based on the first film in the trilogy…
The Empire Strikes Back Action Set is based on the battle of Hoth, complete with a mini Snowspeeder model. The molds included with this set are Luke and Leia in cold weather gear, a Snowtrooper, and the same Darth Vader and R2-D2 molds from the Star Wars set (no need to totally reinvent the wheel, ya know?). Vader and Luke don’t get lightsaber molds, however there are two blaster molds – a rifle for the Snowtrooper and a pistol for Luke and Leia. Considering the Snowtrooper is one of my favorite Star Wars designs, I kind of love that I could make a Play-Doh figure of them!
While the molds and the Snowspeeder are cool, I kind of feel like the playmat misses the mark. The artwork is great, but it’s very disjointed. There are three separate areas of Hoth represented, but none of them really make sense as a space for your Play-Doh figures to occupy. This definitely feels more like a placemat, than a playmat.
There was also a Yoda Play Set that reused the X-Wing ship, as well as the molds for R2, Luke, and Vader, so you could recreate the vision inside the Dark Side cave.
However, you also get a Yoda mold, as well as a mold for one of Luke’s survival gear crates.
But the real star of the show is the playmat. Once again, the artwork is incredible – a detailed look at Yoda’s house with plenty of space in the foreground for your characters to inhabit and interact. The real genius of its design is that the play area can either be solid ground or the swamp, depending upon what you need it to be for your adventure.
Remold of the Jedi
For Return of the Jedi, Play-Doh really went for it when they released the Jabba the Hutt playset.
This set includes a desert skiff toy, inspired by the one that took Luke, Han, and Chewie to the Sarlaac Pit.
Luke’s mold is very similar to the one used in some of the other sets – it definitely looks like the designers just tweaked the sculpt a little bit – but the rest of the molds are completely new. You’ll also notice that these molds aren’t the double-sided “sandwich” molds, but only imprint on one side.
First up we have Leia in her Boushh disguise after she’s taken off her helmet, along with a Gamorrean Guard with his axe. Then, Han in Carbonite, and Jabba’s right-hand man, Bib Fortuna. Squid Face and Luke are on another mold, and, of course, Jabba the Hutt and his sidekick, Salacious Crumb.
And, once again, they really outdid themselves with the playmat this time, recreating Jabba’s throneroom. His pedestal sits in the background while the trap door floor is in the foreground. Like the Yoda set, there’s plenty of room to create your own adventures on this mat.
Along with Jabba’s Palace, Play-Doh also released a Wicket the Ewok playset to tie-in to the new cartoon series.
There are molds of R2-D2, C-3PO, and a , as well as four Ewoks, presumably one of which is supposed to be Wicket. There was also a mold of a horse like the ones seen on the show, that could be hooked up to the plastic wagon that came with the set.
Once again, the playmat is pretty solid, depicting Ewok Village platforms up in the treetops. However, the perspective here is maybe just a little too wide, because any of the figures you make would look out of proportion on the background platforms. There’s also a lot of wasted space showing a river flowing down at the trees’ roots that could have been used for more platforms or something. Personally, I think I would have focused the design on one platform – maybe the one with the big bonfire in the center where the Ewoks were prepared to barbeque Han and Luke – put a couple of huts on each side and I think it would have been a much more useful space than what we have here.
Power of the Doh
Finally, in 1985, during the Power of the Force era, after most fans had moved on from Star Wars, Play-Doh released the Attack the Death Star playset.
Compared to previous playsets, this one is pretty underwhelming. There are a couple of molds featuring an X-Wing, a Y-Wing, Vader’s TIE Fighter, and a regular TIE Fighter, as well as some explosions and/or laser fire bursts. Instead of a toy vehicle like all the previous sets, Attack the Death Star features…a landing dock. Whoo! All the kids love a landing dock!
The playmat features a space battle between A-Wings, B-Wings, TIE Fighters, and Star Destroyers, all while the second Death Star floats in the background. The artwork itself is fine, but the design of the playmat leaves a lot to be desired. While, yes, you can put the Play-Doh versions of spaceships on the playmat, they don’t really have a lot of room, nor do they make a lot of sense in context.
Needless to say, this was not a big hit for Play-Doh. In fact, this playset is pretty hard to find online, because it didn’t sell very well at all.
More Dough for Doh
Play-Doh has obviously rekindled its relationship with Star Wars over the years, including the pretty neat series called Can-Heads, where the cans of Play-Doh have been printed with the faces of your favorite heroes and they’re the ones who sit in the miniature vehicle that comes with each set. The dough molds in these sets are mostly accessories or minor characters, like Jawas and nameless Ewoks.
In the modern era, the focus is less on Play-Doh molds of the characters now and more on molds of the clothing/armor those characters wear that can be created over thin-limbed action figures with the Play-Doh providing proportional bulk of the arms and legs; it’s kind of neat, and is definitely doing some different.
My Play-Doh Action Set
While the Play-Doh Star Wars Action Set might not have been a high-octane space adventure, it’s still a pretty solid toy. The molds had a lot of great details. The miniature ship that was included was often pretty cool. But the playmats were the shining star of the series. While I do feel like there were some really solid playmats, I have to give a special shout out to the artist behind the Death Star playmat.
Seriously, this is a thing of beauty.
The playmat manages to encompass all of the big moments surrounding the Death Star in the film – the landing bay docking platform where the Falcon is hauled in by the tractor beam, the trash compactor (complete with one-eyed Dianoga monster), the tractor beam tower, C-3PO waiting in the control room, Stormtroopers firing at Luke and Leia as they swing across the chasm, an X-Wing starting his trench run, all while the Death Star is firing its superlaser. It even includes the iconic Death Star wall design!
The playmat is kind of perfect, even if mine has seen better days.
While I did manage to hold on to the molds and playmat (but no box), I had misplaced the X-Wing at some point in my childhood. There’s a very good chance I used it with my regular Star Wars figures in some capacity, even though the scale was completely wrong. But, in order to complete the set, I hopped over to eBay and picked up an X-Wing for less than $8 including shipping.
Inside the same bin that I found the Fuzzy Pumper Monster Shop and this Star Wars Action Set, there were a few more obscure Play-Doh sets, so keep an eye on this site for more sculpting clay surprises!
