Keen-eyed Jim Lewis spotted this bit of Century 21 Obscura on Ebay UK recently, the Amazing Huff 'n' Puff Hill Climbing Engine! A new one on me and continuing evidence that Century 21/ JR21 spread there wings beyond the mega-toys of TV shows and comics. BTW Huff 'n' Puff is not to be confused with the 1960's US TV puppet show, HR Pufnstuf starring Britains young star, Jack Wild ( yes, the Artful Dodger no less). Not sure if it was ever shown in the UK - I never saw it. Finding it very difficult to spell for some reason, I can find only 1 toy on the whole of Ebay US, namely a flute and none on the UK site. So I assume it didn't spawn many.
Whilst watching my favourite film of all time tonight, Enter the Dragon starring the late great Bruce Lee, I came across this doppelganger of the above, this time on Ebay US and made by NASTA, 1971, battery operated, made in Hong Kong and in a large box is measuring 15 x 8 inches. I've come across NASTA before I think - possibley a plastic lorry. I'll have to look it up but for the minute I'm engrossed in Enter the Dragon! After Space and Monsters came Kung Fu! there was a time when my parent's house cellar was my dojo and I what I didn't know about Kung Fu and oriental arts wasn't worth a shuriken!
I've a kwai chang cane of a collection of books, mags, comics, paper cuttings, photo's and LP's. To think, back in the early Seventies when Bruce hit the big time and Gung Fu (it's other spelling) went global, I'd have rather read Inside kung Fu or Karate and Oriental Arts rather than TV21 anyday! By the time I was a teenager and had seen Enter the Dragon, at which point I became a shaolin monk in all but name, virtually all my childhood toys had been chucked - the entire SWORD fleet including Zero X, all the Colorforms Outer Space Men (I know!), the Billy Blastoff range, the Major Matt universe, whole Airfix armies and if all that wasn't enough, a boxed Johnny Seven One Man Army Rifle. It's beyond a joke! I should have court-marshalled my parents on the spot!
Posted originally on my JR21 blog 2009
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