Max Rebo was the heart (or at least the fluid sac) of the band that bore his name, and could be found onstage behind the pedals of his red ball organ. From there he kept an ear on his bandmates' playing and an eye on the sleazy clients who hired his ensemble for their entertainment.

Droopy McCool played the chindinkalu flute in the Max Rebo Band, an ensemble that performed as Jabba's palace band on Tatooine. A veteran musician, Droopy was used to seedy dives and gigs for unsavory clients. But the depravity he saw in Jabba's court shocked even him.

A shaggy Yuzzum with a big stage presence and an even bigger voice, Joh Yowza sometimes sang with the Max Rebo Band. Even the most jaded music fans found it hard to ignore the vocal fireworks of his duets with Sy Snootles.

Sy Snootles, a long-limbed Pa'lowick, was a popular singer and dancer whose patrons included Jabba the Hutt. Very few realized that she also worked as a spy for the Hutt criminal cartels, and that she betrayed her love, Ziro the Hutt, in exchange for a big payday.

A single, winding dirt-swept road curves up into the crook of a rocky canyon, leading to a lone structure in the desert wastes beyond the Dune Sea of Tatooine. Here stood the palace of Jabba the Hutt, an immense curving building of sandblasted metal and pitted stone. Inside, the dregs of the galaxy congregated to do all manner of illicit business, to curry favor with the grotesque crime lord, or to avoid his fickle wrath. Jabba reclined atop a stone dais within the throne room of his palace, a bustling chamber that overlooked a secret pit that contained his favorite beast, the vicious rancor monster.

Jabba the Hutt was one of the galaxy’s most powerful gangsters, with far-reaching influence in both politics and the criminal underworld. There were no second chances with Jabba, something Han Solo would find out -- though the slug-like alien would ultimately fall victim to his own hubris and vengeful ways.