Looking at the relatives of the Spacex Cricket has a fine tradition on this blog from it's very outset in 2008 to just this month's Howzat by Wotan. Continuing this tradition and inspired by Patron Zero's recent question regarding the dates of Crickets, I thought I'd look at the family tree of US toy-maker Remco and their own Cricket fleet.
The three basic Remco's are pictures above. First and top is the green Mosquito Jeep, which was part of the famous Hamilton Invaders range. The window box is copyright dated 1964.
Second and middle is the white Tiger Jeep, which may also be part of the Hamilton Invaders range but I'm unsure. Again the fine window box is dated 1964.
The final picture shows the vehicle 'repurposed' as the yellow Star Trek Astro Cruiser. Wikipedia dates this at 1967. Again it came in its own box, this time non-windowed [all pictures from Ebay and online auction sites].
The giant insect-inspired Hamilton Invaders range were part of the monster craze in toys in Sixties America as reported at the time in Ebony magazine. Apparently the Hamilton Invaders line was unpopular with American Mums and hence short-lived, only lasting a year! [Wikipedia]. Is this the reason for Remco's recycling of the Jeep and tank [unpictured] and the [unpictured] Pistol, which also featured in their Monkey Division and Star Trek ranges?
Interestingly all three Remco 'crickets' came boxed individually, as did the UK Codeg and other versions. It was perhaps the later 1969 UK Tri-ang Spacex and US Golden Astronaut versions which were the first and last blister-carded lines. With the possible exceptions of the Space Glider and Probe Force 3, it's feasible that there are more versions of this design than any other toy in the Spacex/SWORD world.
So that's Remco. It would be interesting to see a full list of all the Cricket toys showing all the years of manufacture.
i think the white one was a canadian only version
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