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It is said that Vincent Van Gogh reserved the colors of yellow and blue for portraits of people he really liked. The grand country of Sweden chose those same colors for their flag (and for their discount furniture store). The greatest college football team of all time, the West Virginia Mountaineers, also chose those same two hues to wear on their Jerseys.

Finally, in 1981, the Kenner Toy Company officially chose the colors of Blue and Yellow for the special offer announcements featured on the front of their Star Wars Toys. Though the Red and Yellow Starburst had served them for a couple years (see here for an example), they switched to a more harmonious circle and replaced the red with blue. Observe the effect below on a complete production and pre-production run of the first cardback that employed these colors: The Empire Strikes Back 45 Back "Display Arena Offer"...

(CLICK ON EACH CARD FOR MORE DETAILED PICUTRES AND INFORMATION)

Top Row: Proof Card Taken from Sheet of 8 (Still connceted to Black Bespin Guard / Palitoy "Bounty Hunter" Offer

Bottom Row: Production Like Proof Card / Common Proof Card / Production Carded

Now, I have to admit that this is a strange and quite specific run to complete. To my knowledge, no one has ever tried to complete a "Multinational, production and pre-production 45 Back with Blue and Yellow Circular Offer" run on any character. That is probably because it is kind of a stupid idea! I only thought of grouping them this way when I saw them displayed, and then I thought about it (a bit too much). A surprisingly large amount of "Display Arena" pre-production materials has survived, which leads me to believe that the switch to the new color scheme might have had some importance.

What makes this run fun is the fact that 2 of the proofs may be 1 of a kind and the other stuff is surprisingly rare. Even the production carded figure was the last to add to my American run. You will note that the Palitoy figure is not a "Display Arena" offer. That is because they had a different offer, yet, they still switched to the new Blue/Yellow/Circle design.

There are Canadian examples of the Display Arena offer, but no Chewbaccas have ever surfaced. I guess the run will never feel truly complete.

Please enjoy the feature... or at least marvel at the the pretty, pretty colors.