The above small grey copy of the classic ORBITRON figure from Colourforms' Outer Space Men toy line on feebay has had me wondering for a while whether it came from a game or set. Quite by chance I saw a playset called ALIEN ATTACK [by Toyco 1983] online and lo and behold, it contains none other than our little brainy friend as you can see pictured below. It's such a cool looking playset. There can't be many including copies of Outer Space Men. You can see more pictures of the set online over at the ubercool Mego Museum's Mego Talk. The set appears also to include a squadron of MPC-style spacemen and some excellent 'scenery'.
Are there any more sets, games or knockoffs of Colourforms Outer Space Men. Pictures and tales welcomed, as well as of the actual Colourforms toys themselves of course!
BTW if you like boxed sets from the 1980's there's a nifty page full of Dimensions sets at the Virtual Toy Chest [link courtesy of Mego Talk]. Alas, by the early 80's I was in my twenties and already 'too old' for these!
7 comments:
Hi Woodsy,
This Star Attack set, a mix of Colourforms Outer Space Men and Thunderbirds vehicle knock-offs is still available at
http://tinyurl.com/79f69yn
offered by Ideal Toy Manufactory Co. (HK)
Arto
I know you probably already know about these, but the Four Horsemen have brought back the OSM:
http://www.fourhorsemen.biz/
New figures going up for pre-order tomorrow! They're trying to finish up the whole series and even add a new member for Earth. Orbitron is in the next wave.
The other space folk are from Tim-Mee Toys/Processed Plastic.
This brainiac figure is cool! Whenever I search 'colourforms' or 'colorforms' here Stateside all I get are those flat plastic cut-outs that stick to a cartoon backdrop - which I had as a kid but not what I'm into now - although a cool vintage Batman set might be nice :-)
Ed, try adding Outer Space Men to your Colorforms search. There's some videos on You Tube too. The inventor, Mel Birnkrant, even has a site! http://melbirnkrant.com/outerspacemen/
The origins of his toy designs are fascinating.
Cool! Thanx Woodsy (it's the AM right now and I'll have to go to work - so I'll check it out later tonight) This whole time lag thing is a bummer - impossible to stay on top of things!
I followed the link and the pic of them in the box looks like the same ones I bought at my local Museum of Natural Science in the gift shop. I also want to complain about the quality of this review, and maybe help the reviewer improve his skills in the process. Like well over 95%+ of the on line reviews I see, this one does not include any physical data about the subject, such as size, scale, or dimensions. As a collector of things in one scale, I am curious if this is something I would be interested in, and that information would answer my question, especially since it is basic information that any journalist would know without thinking to include. Any idiot can write a review, as the internet proves every day, but a reviewer can and will write a good review that informs.
CCC.
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