A long time ago, in a sweetshop far away... Swizzels Matlow rolled out a series of candy containers shaped like spaceships. Each one was filled with sherbet and was made of coloured injection moulded plastic. Unscrewing the lid and eating the candy inside, left the plastic shell ready for a quick wash and then the containers could be joined together to make various shaped spaceships, or by using the three different spaceport sections, a large and expandable space station. The ships were sold in a counter box and at 10p each it was easy to cherry pick the ones you wanted to complete your collection. Way back in the mid eighties, I made regular pilgrimages to newsagents and sweetshops to find as many of the little spaceport sections as I could. The candy was horrendous and made my teeth ache just by looking at it and as I had previously made myself ill by consuming boxes of KP Outer Spacer crisps in order to get the Alien Space Fleet, I usually just emptied out the sugary contents and went straight on to building the station. There was also a Spacefleet 2000 poster showing all the ships in the line - but i cant recall where this came from, possibly it was a mailaway.
Sometime later, I happened across a similar candy premium called Astro Fizz in the shape of a space glider type ship. This one was hastily filed in the vaults and still has the sherbet inside! Yuk..
A long time ago, in a sweetshop far away... Swizzels Matlow rolled out a series of candy containers shaped like spaceships. Each one was filled with sherbet and was made of coloured injection moulded plastic. Unscrewing the lid and eating the candy inside, left the plastic shell ready for a quick wash and then the containers could be joined together to make various shaped spaceships, or by using the three different spaceport sections, a large and expandable space station. The ships were sold in a counter box and at 10p each it was easy to cherry pick the ones you wanted to complete your collection. Way back in the mid eighties, I made regular pilgrimages to newsagents and sweetshops to find as many of the little spaceport sections as I could. The candy was horrendous and made my teeth ache just by looking at it and as I had previously made myself ill by consuming boxes of KP Outer Spacer crisps in order to get the Alien Space Fleet, I usually just emptied out the sugary contents and went straight on to building the station. There was also a Spacefleet 2000 poster showing all the ships in the line - but i cant recall where this came from, possibly it was a mailaway.
Sometime later, I happened across a similar candy premium called Astro Fizz in the shape of a space glider type ship. This one was hastily filed in the vaults and still has the sherbet inside! Yuk..
12 comments:
These were sold in the USA around 1980, though filled with sour powdered candy, not sherbet (unless that's just what you call such candy in Merrie Olde England). I don't recall that many different shapes, but I assume that we got all of them. No recollection of any poster, though.
Technically - 'Blow Moulding' not 'Injection' (the Astro's injection)
Otherwise a fascinating post, I must have missed these during my sojourn in Germany...something else to look out for on eBay!
'Glosta'...Glue made out of 'Glooms'
YEP - 'sherbet' equates to sour flavour candy. Matlow probably licenced the designs from one of the big Candy makers like Topps etc.
Odd and interesting product.
Never arrived in Italy, otherwise I would certainly buy :)
Oh my, but I like these!
Did you ever have that Spacefleet 2000 poster, WOTAN? Toad wonders if perhaps there were advertisements for this in comics?
And Devlin, you have piqued my interest. Answers required, please. (1) What is the USA word for that sour, powdered candy you mention? And (2) to what does the word Sherbet refer in America?
Toad - i did have several of the posters, they were A3 and full colour. Im 90% sure they were available as a mail in offer. But the labels which came with the sweets dont have any info on them relative to the poster. I never had one of the counter top boxes and cant recall them ever being in comics. It would have been around 1985.
Luvverly stuff Wote. Glad your back!
Pity you don't still have one of those posters, Wote - would like to see one. It might be worth a trawl through some late eighties comics at some point ...
And Toad echoes Woodsy's sentiment - so glad you are back.
good to be back in such good company chaps!
How can I get my sticky mitts on some of these. I've checked ebay but I guess they are all in landfills :(
I have some of these from back in the day...great to find information online!
Have you got the poster?
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