As mentioned earlier in the week the spectacular underwater battle in THUNDERBALL spawned a whole generation of frogmen and skin and scuba divers. Graced with fantastic one-man subs, sleek rubber suits and must-have harpoons, this action sequence, at just under 6 minutes, provided the toy industry with enough rubber suits for the whole of the Sixties.
Probably the most sought after THUNDERBALL treasure is the Tri-ang Underwater Battle board game. It's not one we had in our house but it looks fantastic. Anybody got one?
About 20 years ago during one of my earliest forays into car boot sales, I was lucky enough to net a mysterious frogman torso. Long gone now, it turned out to be the head end of the cool Lone Star Working Model Frogman seen above in its excellent box. Double O Elastic Band!
I suspect though that the single-most popular image of a frogman during the Sixties in the UK was Palitoy's Action Man frogman pictured above. It really is a fabulous rendering and I've even seen it tattooed on someone's arm! Anyone else remember the box art?
Why not dive into some old TV commercials for Action Man courtesy of You Tube, together with a very humorous fan-made diver tale.
As always you can't keep a good bandwagon down and lots of cheaper divers and frogman surfaced to add extra fizz to our bath times. Above is the ARY Deep Sea Diver, which I have half of somewhere in the attic and below is the WF DEEP SEA ACTION DIVER, which I had as a young spelunker and fortunately still have one. Don't you just love all those pipes, hoses and air tanks!
Anyone else have any deep sea divers?
6 comments:
Well, now that you bring Action Man into it I can say we had all three outfits - the deep sea diver, the sports diver and the sabotage frogman, all of whom saw action in the bathtub! I also liked to re-enact that brilliant opening scene where 007 emerges at a jetty in (what must have been) his dry-suit, which he ditches to reveal an immaculate tuxedo underneath before planting some dynamite or similar. What remains of those AM sets should still be stored downstairs somewhere, though sadly the wetsuit components didn't survive - they'd become very brittle to the point of flaking off the two figures still wearing them when I found them again while sorting my toys some 15 years ago.
Best -- Paul
I had a bunch of the Hasbro G.I. Joe 12" action figures including the skindiver with orange wet suit AND the diving sled. When I was a kid my dad had a small summer place in northern Wisconsin and our place was only about 100' from the lake making it perfect for underwater adventures.
I forget, Ed - was your orange skindiver the sabotage frogman (like the black Palitoy version shown by Mr Woods) or the civilian guy with the harpoon gun (who over here had a blue wetsuit jacket)? Or is that a colour version that replaced the black suit (f ex after GI Joe and Action Man turned into Action Team later on in the 70s)?
Best -- Paul
Here's a pic of a Doyusha model I own. Possibly of interest here!
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2072/1501124764_50b1255646.jpg
Here`s a very awesome Plastic Toy.
http://www.007collector.com/bond/?p=500
Hey Ed I had the same 12" GI Joe orange rubber scuba diving kit with the yellow hard plastic diving sled (which I often pretended was the flying Mini-Sub from Voyage). I was envious of a neighbor-friend who had the "Boiling Lagoon" (i think) deep sea diver kit complete with air pump, black octopus and gold treasure coins.
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