Walking Wind-Up R2-D2 (Kenner Canada/Takara)

Remember how I wrote a couple years back that my vintage run was complete? Well, I recently had second thoughts on that... of course, this has to do with the figure above - the infamous wind-up R2-D2 by Takara of Japan, sold briefly here by Kenner Canada.

The wind-up R2 is certainly familiar to collectors and was referenced as far back as 1992 in Steve Sansweet's seminal work, Star Wars: From Concept to Screen to Collectible. Sansweet wrote that the Takara R2 was one of George Lucas's favourite toys, and Lucasfilm ordered them by the thousand as gifts for employees and friends of the company. Lucasfilm pressured Kenner to license it or create their own wind-up R2, but Kenner demurred.

However, according to James McCallum in his book Irwin Toys: The Canadian Star Wars Connection, "Kenner Canada had a strong relationship with Takara of Japan" and "frequently took other products from them for Canada" in association with other toy lines. So it was with the wind-up R2. While in Japan it was sold loose, the figure was packaged for Canada on a bilingual blister card (known sometimes as an "18-back") that looked quite unlike any of the other Kenner cards. It retailed at Consumers Distributing (among other places) for $2.99.

The figure has two applied stickers front and back which are often missing. The name of the maker, Takara, is molded into the bottom of the chassis back, below the sticker. The front chrome details are actually quite impressively done, as shown in the first photo.

The COO "Japan" can be seen molded in block capitals underneath the manufacturer ID. The front bottom bit has an embossing of "(c) GMFGI. 1978".

R2's head rotates but doesn't click like the conventional action figure's. But of course, the real attraction of the figure is the wind-up walking action. Check it out in the video above!

Here's a group shot of the entire R2 range. L to R: Takara wind-up, standard R2, R2 Sensorscope, R2 with pop-up lightsaber. [edit: the ever-helpful Mike F. has pointed out that further R2s do exist, including the Droids, Lily Ledy, and Droid Factory three-legged variants. I have a DF R2 that didn't make it to picture day, but to me the Droids R2 is part of the Droids run and the Ledy R2 is a solid-dome variant :-)]

I'm really glad to have a nice example of this Japanese-Canadian figure in my collection, and the way I got him really illustrates the value of friends and community in tracking down rarer pieces like this. In this case, I got to meet some Ontario collectors when I was at Celebration in Chicago earlier this year, and it was in talking to my new buddy Mike F. that I realized that I needed - NEEDED - a wind-up R2 in my collection. Mike had actually brought TWO with him to Chicago but had already sold both, but when he acquired an entire loose run from another collector he suddenly found himself with a spare, which he kindly sold on to me. Cheers Mike!!

Mike also emphasized the importance (and rarity) of the figure being a good walker. Apparently the mechanisms wear out and are prone to damage from overwinding, so make sure to test before you buy. As you can see from the video, this one walks beautifully.

And with that the loose run REALLY IS COMPLETE. I mean it this time! :-)