Return of the Return of the Jedi Glasses
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Like every other right-headed person born in the late ’70s and raised in the ’80s, I had a healthy appreciation for Star Wars (read: near-crippling obsession). I moved past that in 1998, when I bought every Star Wars toy I could lay my hands on, healing the open wound left when my mother threw away my original action figures.
I have since filled other holes missing from my childhood – I now have nearly an entire set of M.U.S.C.L.E.s, something that eluded me as a child, and a full set of Time-Life Books’ The Enchanted World series, which was forbidden to me (the fact that 6-year-old Stu wanted those books based on the commercial featuring Vincent Price, whose movies did nothing but give me horrible nightmares, probably explains a lot about me). However, one seemingly minor gap remained.
When Return of the Jedi came out, the Horvath family fast food restaurant of choice was Burger King (or, as my father always called it, Burger Whopper – dad always had a thing for the Whopper, even when he was stuck in his hospital bed). The tie-in promotion was a series of four collectible glasses (real glass! Unless you were on the West Coast, then you got stuck with cheap plastic) depicting scenes from the movie, with a new one released each week. You can see how this was a mutually beneficial arrangement for my father and me. We got all four: Jabba’s palace, Jabba’s sail barge, the Emperor’s throne room and the Ewoks.
Over the years, one by one, they broke, until the Ewoks remained. Easily the lamest of the bunch, yet treasured as the sole survivor. For years, it never dawned on me that the set could be replaced. Until this past week. Five minutes and $19 on eBay later, I had a brand-new, never-been-used set of Burger King Return of the Jedi glasses traveling through the mail to me. They arrived today and they are glorious.
The only problem? Now I have TWO lame Ewok glasses.
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Stu Horvath knows this isn’t news in a traditional sense, but it’s his website and he gets to do what he wants. Follow his quest for nostalgia on Twitter @StuHorvath.
