The Coolest Star Wars Playset YOU Never had!

Follow the Junk:

[cwa]

I not only had this. I HAVE this! The whole set including the original Woman’s Day instructions! It was built by my dad, and both of my grandfathers over years when I was just a kid. I thought I was the only person in the world to know about this. Thanks for the memories. I always loved playing with the spring-loaded one. The third one you reviewed. That platform is spring-loaded and you could send your guys flying! That blue part was a conveyor belt that connected to the “stairs to nowhere”. It fits a 4x8 sheet of plywood all assembled. Cheers!

[darthcleveland]

My parents had a coffee table that was made out of big thick natural tree roots with lots of curves and holes. On green shag carpet it was the greatest Dagobah anybody ever saw

[toddjones]

Hands down the best “play set “ I ever had was a pile of broken up concrete. In the early, early ‘80’s, my dad busted up the tiny slab under our back door to make way for a proper porch. The concrete rubble was only there for about a month before he hauled it away but man did I have fun playing with my figures around that pile. Good times! I had the Hoth play set and that concrete beat it by a mile.

[andrewtaylor]

My Mom had a copy of that Woman's Day. I saved it for years, just to look at the pictures of that amazing home made playset. Now that I am an adult with actual crafty skills I keep being tempted to go back and re-examine it, and maybe actually build it using modern tools and materials.

[behindthespotlight]

My mom made my brother and I the Hoth Rebel Base from Empire Strikes Back: it started in a 4 foot square board. Whipped up some paper mache’, blew up numerous balloons. Then crumpled newspapers to make Hills and berms. The big balloons made snow caves. The finishing touch was white and light blue paints that turned crunchy strips of newspaper and wheat paste into Planet Hoth. It had a 2-story cave, an escape hatch and a secret tunnel.

[Warsie-Fan]

When I was younger, my Dad always brought home 'spacer boards' from work. I made playset bases outta them and it was so much fun!

[xenofett]

A few adjustments and you have Cloud City. Another Kenner fail. We had a ton of Hoth playsets but next to no Cloud City playsets and the flimsy Sears cardboard one barely counts.

[RansomeStoddard]

My friend's dad tried to make this using only the pictures and not the instructions, and it turned out way different, but still really cool. It was about 3' by 3' and about 4' high. It had a big landing platform at the top for the Falcon (not sure why it was at the top instead of the lower level, but it was still cool). It had a trap door that led to a non-compacting trash compactor filled with little rolled up bits of paper. It had a plexiglass wall on one side for some reason. It had lots of little rooms, including one with a big table that was from some doll house store. It was the conference room. This was made in 1980 or 1981, I think. But it might have been 82 when they re-published the photos of it. Not sure. But I do know we made a custom Grand Moff Tarkin out of an Imperial Commander figure for it. It lasted a long time but eventually the dad took it apart when my friend went into high school. Not sure what happened to the parts. But it was so cool. He spray painted little ovals on it, like the pattern on the original Death Star walls. There were little doors and everything. Very cool.

[philaga]

Thank you so much! You just solved a mystery for me, I've been trying to track this down for decades. I have been asking every SW collector since 1991, " Do you remember that magazine that had a build your own Star Wars playset, nothing forever until today! Just got one off Ebay!

[CLS]

You may already know this, but Woman's Day did another issue when TESB came out that had instructions for a Hoth and a really bizarre looking Dagobah playset. They were both pretty impressive for the time. I've got some pics of them still, somewhere.

[_The_Worst_]

Holy mackerel, Junkman!!! 😯 I'm actually more excited looking at that playset then I am actual licensed playsets...💯✔ I always liked clear see through play things and action figures, so something like that would have been right up my alley...🧒 Heck, one time when I was a little kid this magazine came through the mail and inside was a little paper cut out of Sesame Street with Bert and Ernie's building and it had little Bert and Ernie paper figures and I enjoyed the hell outta it...🤪 I'll never forget that day me and my mom put it together and sit there and played with it on the couch while she watched her soap operas and the news...👌🏼

[steveharvey]

Super cool, definitely has a Logan's Run vibe going on!

I wonder what Kenner thought of it? As soon as Mother's day (sic) mag. started charging 1$ for the instructions, they put themselves in a precarious, legal position.

But F all that SH. I want that playset. Time to get to work!

Cool find Junkman.

Cheers from Canada

[NathanLeeJames]

That looks like it’d be a sweet Logan’s Run playset!

[AdmNaismith]

I think my mother had the 1982 book from back in the day. You built it using a couple of household items and then a bunch of specialty stuff like laminates for the professional finish.
Each individual piece had something movable on it- elevator landing platforms, people elevators, moving walkways, and best of all was a trick staircase that turned into a ramp. That staircase had intrigued me for 40+ yrs.

[paadin]

I know this video is a couple of years old but I just saw this and had to comment on it. My Dad made most of this playset for me. It was amazing. My favorite part was the soda bottle monorail thing.

[LudditesRUs]

I have the 1982 Woman's Day Book of Best Loved Toys and Dolls. Both the Mego city and the Space Port look ultra cool but honestly it was quicker and easier 14 years ago to get a used USS Flagg on Craigslist for $100 and have my kids use that as their main base.

I do remember building my own Cloud City in my bedroom with styrofoam left over from my Dad's TV and some other purchases. No photos exist but it took up a whole corner of the room, Dagobah was easy as long as there was a tree stump uprooted in the neighborhood.

[muddfoot]

Another cool find JM...the USS Flagg of the 70s. Complete sidebar but I wish somebody would color print and reproduce the palatoy Death Star playset. I’d love to have one for display. Currently all my dudes are just standing on a boring shelf.

[Dragonrider]

This arguably makes a better Cloud City playset than the actual Cloud City playset

[kenhoneyman]

I would have loved to make this play set when I was younger . Definitely the best play set I’ve seen . I had 2 Vinyl caped jawas and 4 cloth caped but in the pictures there are 10 Vinyl caped jawas . They would be worth a fortune now especially if they were still on the cards .

[toddnolastname]

Also, I bought the Sears Cantina pack. It had this cardboard insert that held the figures from bouncing around. I cut it in two and made a couple of boxy speeders out of it. My older half-brother visited and cut the fronts so they came to a point. I kept those things for years.