CT The Mystery of Snaggletooth

To start, this mystery isn’t about Snaggletooth’s appearance in the film (though that has its own mystery since the character’s actor is still unknown). I want to talk about the character’s presence in the classic Kenner toy line. At the surface level, most people know the original release was blue and subsequently changed to red in future releases, creating a legendary rare variant. Though something I’ve only been recently made aware of is the reasoning behind such a change.

As most fans know, Kenner was only provided a low quality, black and white image from Lucasfilm to design the toy from; this lead to designers filling in the blanks and making the character blue instead of red, and putting him in a rather generic spacesuit compared to his desert robes in the film (not unlike the Greedo figure).

The mandated revision made one accurate change by making the character red, but the other changes made the character more inaccurate; shrinking him down to dwarf size and removing his boots; two aspects very clearly not present on the original actor.

The card fills in the mystery however; that’s the new Snaggletooth alien from the Holiday Special (subsequently dubbed “Zutmore”). This new version is clearly made to align with Zutmore instead of the original Snaggletooth (note the new actor’s small stature and spacesuit). In other words, the revision from blue to red actually changed the character the figure was supposed to represent, which also quite possibly makes it one of the first Expanded Universe figures before the term came into use.

One further mystery remains; which was based on which? As the story goes, the Zutmore alien was actually based on the action figure, but that’s disputed. The reason is that in 1978, there’s a lack of definitive dates associated with the figures. The only known date is that the blueprint for the original Snaggletooth was made on January 4, 1978; far before the Holiday Special’s production and thus only connected to the original film.

As a side note, it’s been discovered that the action figure’s distinctive belt buckle was the toy designer’s business card logo. It initially looked like this belt buckle was translated into Zutmore costume and thus confirmed the toy connection, but additional photos seems to suggest that this is simply a photo manipulation.

Further research actually seems to provide us with an answer; an official Star Wars article mentions that the blue to red revision was based on additional photos provided from the Holiday Special, meaning that was without a doubt filmed before the figure was revised. I suppose it’s still possible the blue Snaggletooth figure could have inspired the Holiday Special outfit, considering he was one of the few returning aliens to have his outfit changed, now in a spacesuit instead of robes. Still, I think this is unlikely and only a small possibility.

https://www.starwars.com/news/the-vintage-vault-kenners-famous-four-cantina-aliens

Another Kenner mystery I thought of myself is which character was actually intended to be Snaggletooth? Let me explain, the Elstree aliens were often duplicated to help fill the scene (hence why we see no less than four nearly identical Greedo aliens walking around). In this case, there are two Snaggletooth aliens, dubbed Zutton and Takeel. Their costumes are identical, other than the size of their hunchbacks, and the balding of their hair. The Vintage Collection suggests that Zutton was the subject of the original Snaggletooth figure, but I don’t know the evidence behind that.


This is just conjecture, but the only continuity polaroid I've actually seen of any of the original Snivvian aliens is of Zutton and not Takeel, and also only from the shoulders up. Could a black and white copy of this photo been the photo reference for Kenner?

Furthermore, the Snaggletooth figure has Zutton's full head of hair, unlike Takeel's patchy balding hair. Though considering the limitations of the paint apps of the times, I wouldn't consider that definitive proof.

 

Interesting story.

Looking at those original cantina creatures prior to the pick-ups it's pretty abysmal. They would have been better off going to the BBC and getting various creatures from Doctor Who.

 

Thank you for posting this very interesting and informative research.

 

@SlashMan Ahh the good old mystery about snivvians, I love it... great post! Curiously enough, I think at one point Zutmore was de-canonized, and her likeness was given to Rachalt Hyst. It was very confusing, because we had a 2001 figure that sure looked like Zutmore, being called Zutton, and a 1998, Cinema Scenes figure that was named Takeel but seemed to look like Zutton!

Still, Zutmore was mentioned by name in the Holiday Special, so I'm happy that its back to be the official name. Right now there is no character for the blue suited one, other than some secondary characters from CW and Rebels, right?

Seeing that group picture, to this day I regret that we never got a 3.75 figure for Solomahal. Its such an OT design, its just a shame. And we didn't a Ranat, either!

 

The alien (that bought Luke's land speeder) has the same strange cup-shaped hand as Walrus Man.

 

His biggest role is as named and speaking character Morlimur Snugg on the clone wars.