Welcome to the fourth and final part in a series of articles on Dixie Cups – a thoroughly rewarding and enjoyable sidestep from the world of vintage action figure collecting. Make sure that you’ve read the first, second and third parts before you continue.
Unlike the other three releases the Return of the Jedi run only featured 26 cups. I have mixed feelings about these cups, I am not a fan of the artwork when compared to the earlier releases, however I am very impressed with the range of characters that they managed to include. How many times have we seen the famous Ewok Kieeco appear on any form of merchandise? Or the mysterious character referred to as The Mole pictured below?
I don’t own many of these cups but there are 6 ships and vehicle cups with 20 character cups. These did not include movie scene quotations or puzzle tests but as previously mentioned the range of background characters included is impressive and more than makes up for it.
The Fourth Series (Return of the Jedi)
The final series of cups were released in 1983 and the ships / vehicles focused on the less obvious choices the A-Wing, B-Wing, Imperial Shuttle, Skiff, Tie Interceptor and Sail Barge. No Tie Fighters or Millennium Falcon were included this time.
As you can see the artwork is completely different from the previous versions which were more comic like in their style.
There are no facts presented with the character cups, it’s not as if they left any room to fit any. All cups have artwork wrapped fully around which can make displaying them and choosing your favourite side tricky.
These cups were packaged in amazing boxes which featured 100 assorted cups. For Return of the Jedi series there are 4 to collect with 4 different fronts: Emperor and Vader, Ewoks, Jabba and Leia, and Luke and Yoda.
Photos (c) Richard Hutchinson and Matt Cooper