Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 1,594: Robonino

ROBONINO Bounty Hunters from Hostage Crisis Animated Series Episode
The Clone Wars Target Exclusive Gift Set
Item No.: Asst. 19540 No. 19543
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: n/a
Includes: Pistol, detonator, explosives, backpack, additional figures, crappy DVD
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $24.99
Availability: October 2010
Appearances: The Clone Wars

Bio: Bounty hunters and droids take senators hostage on Coruscant. Robonino, Shahan Alama, assassin droids and commando droids help Cad Bane force the release of Ziro the Hutt. The villainous posse infiltrates the Republic Senate, captures a small group of senators, and frees the imprisoned crime lord. Cunning and ruthless, the criminal gang gets the best of clone troopers, Senate commando guards, and even Anakin Skywalker before fleeing the planet. (Taken from the figure's packaging.)

Image: Adam Pawlus' kitchen.

Commentary: Colorful, weird, tiny, and-- surprisingly-- an exclusive. In 2010 Hasbro gave a lot of all-new molds to its retail partners in exclusive sets like Robonino here, who'd admittedly make a crappy carded figure at $8 or so. As part of a $25 set he's not bad-- Shahan Alama and the two blue Assassin Droids make up the weight. Robonino's impressive deco sports tons of colors, with dots, stripes, pink highlights, and more making up this figure's look. He has an eyepatch, a squinty eye, and fins all over the place. It looks great, like it jumped out of the cartoon. He's jointed at the neck, shoulders, waist, hips, and if you can believe it-- the ankles too. (I barely believe it.) He's quite the neat little guy, and even neater than the figure is his gear compliment.

The blaster is rubber-banded to his hand and if you're thinking about removing it, you may as well leave it there. It really does help. His remote detonator fits snuggly into his right hand, so no worries there. The coolest piece of equipment is his backpack, which sports an honest-to-goodness jointed hatch on the top plus four removable explosive packs, each of which sport a little paint. There are silver highlights on the backpack, as well as white Aurebesh letters that read "THERMAL" on it-- no doubt short for "Thermal Detonators." Hasbro had a small figure and really stepped up to the plate in terms of adding value with all the extra paint jobs and the added gear. If you buy one-- especially individually-- know that there should be four removable explosive things for the backpack, and also know you can store the detonator in the top compartment of the backpack. I like this one, and while I bought the set at $25 you may not feel it's worth the asking price. Because you are cheap. It's a good pack.

Collector's Notes: While all the other October and November 2010 exclusives went away pretty quick, this assortment hung around for a while. How long? Well, it was still there today. So you might still be able to find one at a Target near you.

--Adam Pawlus

Day 1,594: July 25, 2011