Not Yeti Friday - Ovion

When I was a kid, I went over to this other kid's house in my neighborhood to play. I coveted this one action figure of his that I'd never seen before. I bought it from him for a quarter. To this day, it is the greatest thing I have ever bought for 0.25 dollars.


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I had the figure for about a week. Then it mysteriously vanished without a trace. As I grew up, I kept expecting it to turn up at some point in my house. Behind some books in a cupboard. Wedged under a couch cushion. But it never did.

I missed it.

Later, when the Internet came around, I realized I could track down what this figure looked like and find out where it came from. ...Who were you?

It seemed pretty obvious to me that it was meant to be Tars Tarkas, warrior leader of the Tharks in Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series.

How many four-armed, green insectoid aliens are there?

Some other artistic representations of Tars:




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But try as I might, I could not find the specific action figure anywhere. Then I went to library school.

Years of advanced training in informational retrieval have provided me the skills to find anything.

I was able to determine that the figure actually comes from a single episode (the pilot in fact) of the original 1970s Battlestar Galactica. It is an Ovion. Here's what they look like in the show:



Oh Ovion!