12.19.2017

Cloud City Phantom

The lack of Lando in the new Star Wars and comments about race in another facebook post triggered an old memory. This is absolutely true.
I had two Star Wars Bespin Guard action figures, one was white and one was black (not African-American, as neither of those places exist in that galaxy). They both had the same mustache as Lando, as this was regulation in Cloud City. As far as I know, they were the only figures Kenner made that were the exactly the same, except for their race.
One time when I was playing with my figures, I placed the black guard, gun in hand, on the Death Star elevator shaft near the tractor beam controls. While I was turned away, the gun flew out of his hand and hit me in the face. Scared the shit out of me. I never played with that figure again. I swear he didn't like me.

UPDATE: My memory seems to have played tricks on me. In researching images for this post (my figures were in storage), I found that only the white guard had the Lando 'stache. I'm leaving the above as written, though, because I find my childhood memories to be more fascinating as memories than actual fact because it's the memories that I've lived with for my whole life.