I was born in the early 80's & kind of missed out on the first round of Star Wars.  I didn't discover it until the early 90's I was about 10 yrs old and my friend showed me ROTJ.  I didn't understand a lot of it (not knowing it was the second sequel) but was hooked.

Anyway, non-film related memories would have to be another friend showing me a small grainy picture in an action figure magazine previewing NEW(!) Star Wars toys being made that would be released in 1995.  I have many memories of collecting those toys.  One in particular was trying to find the newly released speeder bike.  My mom checked everywhere over the phone & finally found a Service Merchandise halfway across town that had one instock.  That was an exciting drive... 

Thinking about that stuff kinda makes me miss the days before the internet when news & rumors were so much more difficult to come by & you could actually walk down the toy aisle & be surprised by new figures you had no idea were coming out!

• Getting a Land of the Jawas Action Playset for Christmas

• Dressing up as a Jawa for Holloween in the 4th grade
• All of the sweet Star Wars shirts I had

No real non-film memories for me. Maybe it's because I was a little older in 1977, but I wasn't a toy person.  For me it was just a few things hanging on my wall - the poster that came in the soundtrack album, the lobby card set, the teaser one-sheet, and the regular one-sheet. (I still have that teaser).  I used to go to movie conventions and had a fair amount of film memorabilia in my room.

I played the soundtrack constantly.  I made a cassette of it several months later because I had a driver's license by then and wanted a copy of it for my car. The score has always been a favorite of mine and it was a big part of the adventure for me, away from the theater visits.

Weirdly enough, not even t-shirts for me back then.  That would later change and I would silkscreen my own regularly, but I never made a Star Wars shirt. I had already moved on to Raiders Of The Lost Ark by the time I started silkscreening.

I had two Chewbacca figures.  So I pretended that they were the Chewie brothers and that they were frontmen in a rock and roll band.

They would sing "Chewies!" in perfect harmony.  It was their signature.

Sometime in 1983, Darth Vader was stood outside a toy shop...

me and my sister went in to get an autograph - but when we got there he had walked back in and there was a queue of kids down one aisle...

So i left my sister in the queue and ran down the other aisle so i could run up behind him - i got pretty close and as i reached out to steal his lightsabre he turned round! he made me jump and scared i ran away! as i looked back he was stood there pointing at me - which made me even more scared!!! so i ran outta the store ....

i looked back again as i got to my parents and he walked out of the toy shop pointing at me!!!! aaaaaaaaaaagh!

lol thats a great memory...something similar happened later at the cinema....i won 2 tickets to go see Return of the Jedi in fancy dress.......i was luke skywalker (but everyone thought i was Obi wan, cos i had the wrong colour cloak...) and my m8 was Darth Vader.

After the film, Darth Vader walked out onto the stage for autographs and was imediately surrounded by hundreds of other kids.

....so me and my m8 snuck under the iron fence and sneaked around behind him! (we were terrors!) but didnt get as close as last time before he turned round and saw us (it must be the force!) so we ran away thru the fence and up the steps as fast as we could go!! at the top we turned round and he was stood there ignoring everything going on around him and pointing at us!!!! its really scaring being pointed at by Darth Vader! -

afterwards i just thought wow that guy is really in character but to this day i often wonder..... was he the real Darth Vader???? I was lucky to get out of there!

anyway they're my favorite childhood memories of star wars!

The first figures I bought were Luke,Darth,Chewie, and Han. I played with them like no other.

About a week later, after a long day of Star Wars adventures, I noticed that Han was missing!

I looked everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. But alas, everyone's favorite lil' smuggler was nowhere to be found.

I searched every nook and cranny of the house for the next couple of weeks, and after awhile I gave up.

About five years went by. I was about 9 at this point. I had never forgotten Chewie's best friend. Sometimes I would stop and think where I had possibly put it.

One morning, when I was watching cartoons, A nickel fell out of my pocket into the cracks between the sofa cushions.

I lifted them up to retrieve my money, and HUZZAH! There was Han, in the exact same pose I last had him in five years ago.

I still have that little guy. He now rests next to my computer as a decoration, always reminding me to check between the cushions next time.

                                                      THE END

I remember going to Gamleys to get a red Force Beam for my birthday (probably my eighth) and having it at my birthday party (I only had a few birthday parties when I was a child). I was also given a Dracula costume and a little girl was very scared of this vampire waving what seemed to her to be a elongated bar from an electric fire around and ran away crying. I had to take the costume off and put the Force Beam in the cupboard where people hid their balloons if they didn't want them popped.

xhonzi said:

I had two Chewbacca figures.  So I pretended that they were the Chewie brothers and that they were frontmen in a rock and roll band.

They would sing "Chewies!" in perfect harmony.  It was their signature.

I would totally buy their album.

xhonzi said:

I had two Chewbacca figures.  So I pretended that they were the Chewie brothers and that they were frontmen in a rock and roll band.

They would sing "Chewies!" in perfect harmony.  It was their signature.

It is also my signature.

My non-film related Star Wars memories mostly revolve around the toys.

I remember going with my mother to this department store in my home town about once ever couple of weeks back when I was maybe around 6-8.  The main level was just clothes and stuff, but the basement level housed the toy section.  Every time I went there I remember running down the stairs to the Star Wars aisle and looking for C-3PO (for a long while, the only droids I owned were R2 and the Death Star droid... "RA-7"... and I was getting tired of pretending the Death Star droid was 3PO).

I also remember getting Walrusman and Hammerhead for Easter one year.  I was so young I couldn't even get their guns in their hands by myself, so my dad had to do it for me.  I LOVED those two figures... to this day it remains one of my fondest memories of getting a gift.  I just thought they looked so cool.

I also remember playing with my Jawa, R2, and "3PO" figures on my parents' brown couch.  I'd lean a pillow against the arm of the couch, stick the Jawa back in there, and reenact the scene where they ambush R2.

I also used to have one of those Star Wars "Give-a-show" projectors from Kenner.  I remember playing with it in our basement at home while my mom did the laundry.  I especially loved the slide with the Sand Person weilding his gaffi stick.

But, looking back, perhaps my favourite Star Wars memory is of my dad endlessly drawing and redrawing his best rendition of the Vader / Obi-Wan duel for me on my little chalk board.  He was no artist by any stretch of the imagination, and the drawings were just simple outlines of the characters' profiles holding their lightsabers, but for me it was magic :)

...

And people say Star Wars is "just a movie."  It's clearly so much more than that... it was my childhood.

^ has a good point.

I didn't want a prequel cake. My parents were pretty good to me back in the day. Sixth birthday back in 2000... -insert note about Frink feeling old-

Your name is Kevin. Interesting.

My username is a pretty big clue dude.

Me be stoopid sometimez

My favourite Star Wars childhood memory revolves around this delightful commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxafIhYFOr0

It made me an instant fan of Darth Vader and Star Wars - years before I ever got to see the films.

Sluggo said:

xhonzi said:

I had two Chewbacca figures.  So I pretended that they were the Chewie brothers and that they were frontmen in a rock and roll band.

They would sing "Chewies!" in perfect harmony.  It was their signature.

It is also my signature.

What?  But... Hey!  I was going to...

Ah, man...

Can he do that?

bkev said:

My username is a pretty big clue dude.

I thought your name was "bkevin."

I just found out the b is for badass. Gotta love my friends.

I was in my teens when the films were in the theaters (11 in '77, you do the math on the rest) and some of my first younger cousins were born right around that time (oldest of them was born in '75) and this particular one has his younger sister in it, so I'd say it dates to around '79 or '80.

Bobby (the little cousin, about 4 or 5 years old), my sister and I are playing with SW figures on the floor.  I forget who had which figures but we were acting out one of the scenes from the film.  Kristin, Bobby's sister (about 2 years old) just shows up out of nowhere, Greedo in hand, and gets right into the action...

"I PLAY TOO!"