STARFLEET SPACE GLIDER

Saw this STARFLEET Space Glider a while back on the cyberbay. I'm not at all familiar with the TV series or the toys. Were there many toys and collectables brought out?

PS. I love that Laverne and Shirley stationary rack toy!

MORINAGA CANDY DEFORMED ZERO-X TOY - NEW TO THE BLOG

Wonder of wonders! Here's another miniature Japanese SWORD toy, the Morinaga deformed* ZERO X, appearing here for the first time with the kind permission of Japanese reader Hiko.

The toy appears to be a three-piece model that snaps together, complete with a section of landing strip. Looking at the Morinaga candy bar leaflet below [seen previously on the blog] it's possible to see the ZX landing strip in position. The small T shaped protruberance on Hiko's toy is a palm tree! The whole Tracy Island base is a plastic jigsaw. Cool or what! I wonder if the base and toys have been painted for the leaflet or where different colours available? Hiko's toy is as it came from the candy box and I must say that's the way I like it! What do you think?

*we've seen the 'normal' non-deformed Morinaga snap-together ZERO X previously on the blog.

The Toys in the Film All Monsters Attack 1969

I recently recived these cool film stills from a reader with a query about one of the fab Japanese toys. With the reader's permission here is the correspondence between us:

Hi Paul!

I found your blog while trying to track down a Japanese toy robot I had from the 1960s. Your blog entry on the Minirobot (which I have not seen in years--I had the same color!!) made me think you are the guy to ask. I am trying to find the robot shown in these pictures:

Apart from the photo in the dept. store catalog, the remainder are stills from the 1969 film "All Monsters Attack" (aka Godzilla's Revenge). The robot appears to be part of a series, because the red top was used to control the direction of the thing, and clearly they made a Flying Saucer that worked the same way with the same red controller top.

Any info or clues you may have on what this robot is called or who made it would be GREATLY appreciated. I'd like to find one of these again, but it's hard when you don't know what you're looking for!

Thanks,

Steve

ps--how in the heck did you find that Minirobot on ebay? Now you've got me going, I've got to get one again :)

Hi Steve

Thanks ever so much for your interesting question, which was fun looking into. As soon as I saw those cool stills from the film I thought - Tomy. It's the Space Robo from the magic Dial Seies by Tomy of Japan. See the link here http://danefield.com/data/displayimage-search-0-3961.html#top_display_media . There's also a Greek version by Solpa http://danefield.com/data/displayimage-search-0-2913.html#top_display_media

Here it is along with some of the other toys in the Bachman 1969 catalogue you mention

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3167/2514029819_c7158ba5a7_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2115/2514855188_79ca945044_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2097/2514855068_143cc47d2b_o.jpg

Many of the toys in the stills will be by Tomy. You can have some fun browsing for Tomy in the Alphadrome database http://danefield.com/data/index.php

Do you mind if I post your question and the film stills on my blog? It will be of great interest to readers.

Cheers

Paul

 

 

Hi Paul!

Thanks for the add'l info and images. The folks at Alphadrome jumped on my post there too, and came up with same answer. Of course, I immediately went to ebay and found an auction for one IN THE BOX that had ended recently (naturally!) So now I'm on the lookout again. I don't have a problem with you posting the question, but rather than link to the Flickr account, I've attached a comp of all the stills, uncropped, without all my scribblings. Please use that instead.

Thanks again for getting back to me so quickly!

Steve

What you got if you had a Skypark

Hope to post the clip of the Skypark Woodsy mentions later (Corgi Rockets Sky Park). In the meantime, a page from the Corgi Rockets catalogue, dated 1970.

The description reads:

The Skypark has an electric elevator which deposits and collects at any one of thirteen levels, selected by the parking bay selector key. It also accepts cars coming from the track at ground level, carries them to the top and tips them into position for gravity take-off. All automatically. Even the release of the car from the starting gate is by remote control. And as the elevator goes up and down, the Golden Key roof sign rotates!

Contents:

15ft. (4.58m.) Track in 3 pre-cut lengths

1 Skypark Tower Garage

2 Hairpin Tunnels with Support Turrets

2 Track Adaptors

1 Rocket Car

(Batteries not supplied)

MINI GLIDER FROM JAPAN - NEW TO THE BLOG

You'll remember I found a tiny Apollo Saturn rocket last month. Well, this week I had another boost to my theory that there's an entire SWORD fleet in miniature lurking in Japan. Here we can see, nestled top left amongst various cute 'Glico' toys, are a pair of what are, quite clearly, miniaturised SWORD Space Gliders! Oh Yes!

Zooming in a bit we can see all the features: blister cockpit and the unique raised 'switch' at the rear. Looking at another picture of the undercarraige we can see the simple 'wheels' and the mould circles typical of all the miniature SWORD toys found so far by Wotan, Terry and me. I can't see a number on the undercarraige but not all of them are numbered.

There's clearly more of these out there. The chase is on!

Pictures: Yahoo Japan

Corgi Rockets Sky Park

You know those eureka moments? The sort where you remember something that you'd long forgotten. I had one last night watching one of BBC2's programmes celebrating the 1970's. Britt Ekland was presenting. the eureka moment came when some footage of kids playing with Corgi Rockets was shown. And there it was, the Rockets Sky Park! Wow! I'd completely forgotten about it despite spending hours parking up my Carabo and Mercedes and the rest of the rockets. It must have been battery operated? Worthy of inclusion in the worlds of Century 21, what a fantastic and futuristic toy it was! Coincidentally my nephew's young son has got some new rockets-style track in his bedroom. It's clamped to a chair just like I used to do. There's even two loop the loops! I'm glad playing with cars on tracks is still around. Did you have any Corgi Rockets or Superfast track for your favourites? Which were the fastest - Hot Wheels?

pic: ebay

Assemble We Will

On the eve of the opening of Avengers Assemble at UK Cinemas, I thought it appropriate to ask who your favourite Super Hero/ Super Villian is? Could be from comics but equally could be someone you knew, know or know about!

To kick off, my favourite Super Hero, from comics, is [The] Wolverine. He's everything I'm not: tough, uninhibited and, oh yes, he heals instantly and he's got big massive steel claws! One thing we do have in common is a profusion of body hair and large side-burns, so there's hope for me yet!

My favourite Super Hero collectables are the Secret Wars 1984 range of action figures, by Mattel, which I collected for a while during the 1990's. They were beautifully shaped, had great backing cards and came with an amazing fleet of accessories and vehicles like the Doom Roller[below], which they were selling off in Toys R Us in the late 1990's.

Titan gives up her secrets

The first few days on Titan had been quite difficult for the Heimdall team. The initial impressions of beauty and strange alien landscapes had been replaced with feelings of stress and to a certain degree, depression. Nascha and Tori especially found the dark cloudy days quite eerie and during the frequent excursions around the little island, more than a little treacherous. Titans atmosphere was rich in hydrocarbons and the sea around the island was largely composed of ethane and liquid methane. The slick colourless fluid behaved differently to water, being slightly thinner and the reduced gravity made it especially tricky underfoot on the loose shale beaches. Every now and then an especially dark cloud would skid by, unleashing a downpour of waxy flakes or sleeting rain. The rain was a particular problem as it penetrated deep into the shuttles engine systems and was a major hazard during lift off. However it wasn't all doom and gloom as Titans ecosystem was incredibly complex and threw up new discoveries daily. By the middle of the second day, Inga Skarvald was ready to explore the seas around the island and had gone over the ROV several times with Tom. The ROV was a small remotely piloted submarine vehicle, that would be used to explore the seas of Kraken Mare more closely, able to reach into the crevasses and caves beneath the shining waves. Now Tom was at the edge of the icy beach and had placed the ROV in the shallows as he made a final test of the systems. Back on the mobile laboratory, Inga sat at the sensor bay controls, manipulating the on board cameras. "ready?" called Tom over the com. "let her go, in three." replied Inga. "1, 2,3 go!" and the little craft edged off the ledge with a spurt of jets, disappearing into the dark sea. Tom trudged back to the Molab and was soon seated next to Inga at the controls. "she's performing well so far - take over." Inga moved across to the second seat and allowed Tom to take the remote controls for manoeuvring the ROV, while she switched on the onboard floods and sensor array. The screen lit up with an eerie yellowish green light, particles drifted past the camera in the 'head' of the ROV and the lidar and sonar on board, pinged back its position. For several hours, Tom piloted the ROV at Ingas' direction, following a shallow slope, deeper into the mare. For the most part, the view was unremarkable, particulate matter and floes of ice drifted by, but little else. As the ROV got deeper, the sonar note changed and indicated a large impact crater, deep below the sea, directly ahead. "this could be interesting.." mused Inga and directed Tom to follow the lip of the crater down into the basin. The colour of the ice and rock had begun to change, the dirty ice that they had seen earlier, was now streaked with colour, bright yellows and reds and metallic coppers. As the ROV neared the bottom, Inga suddenly told Tom to wait. "there - just at the edge of the light, go left a few degrees.." she breathed. Tom gently turned the ROV and Inga panned the camera around. A solid object bobbed in the current from the ROVs jetwash, larger than the drifting ice crystals and much different in colour. "look at that..." she cried and pulled in the focus to reveal the object on the screen. Floating in the dark fluid ahead was a strange, hexagon shaped lozenge of translucent material, darker than the surrounding ice, greenish gold in colour with a network of fine tendrils extending from its outer edges.

As the ROV moved closer, a central dark spot or nucleus could be seen and the veined, corrugated body of the lozenge showed that it was indeed organic. "looks like we found the natives!" said Tom, smiling broadly. "see if you can bring it in" said Inga, barely able to control her excitement. A sample arm extended from the ROV, with a transparent vessel on the end, designed to collect material from the sea. The edge of the container came close to the object, but as it neared one of the outstretched tendrils, there was a sharp 'click' over the intercom and a brief flurry on screen. The object had disappeared and the lights on the ROV abruptly faded. "what? ive lost power to the ROV!" exclaimed Tom as he frantically flipped switches and wrestled with the waldo controls for the vehicle. Then, as quickly as they had gone, the lights and power came back to the ROV and the picture onscreen, bobbed as the motors cut in and it righted itself. "wow..." breathed Inga. "its got an electrical defense mechanism!" Panning around again with the camera showed empty expanses of coloured ice. The Titanese creature had disappeared as mysteriously as it had come. Inga slumped in her chair with a mixture of disbelief and wonder. Mans first encounter with extraterrestial life had been brief, but very memorable!

Serial Chillers

For me the X-Files' debut series was the biggest single TV event in years. Probably not since my childhood and teenage had I been so excited. It did not disappoint either: monsters, werewolves, bile-gobbling creatures and best of all, gargoyles!

Alas, as with all iconic shows the format's X-factor wore off and inevitabley faded. I waited patiently for the next big thing in Sci Fi series, but it didn't happen, for me at least. I tried, amongst others, Dark Skies, Roswell, Lexx, Red Dwarf, Star Trek TNG, Deep Space Nine, Torchwood, Primeval and a recent US series about aliens infecting the water [?].

The last really exciting series was Season One of the new Dr. Who, starring Christopher Ecclestone and later, David Tennant. However it was the inclusion of Britbabe Billie Piper, which added that little extra something. The best episode by far was where they found Satan trapped in a huge crevasse in a cave. Wonderful.

I did get into in a short-lived US series called Surface about a huge oceanic monster but just as I was hooked it went off the air.

Of late Grimm has piqued my interest, although I can only watch it at my Daughters, as I don't have Sky. Grimm is about the last of the Brothers Grimm, who every week in the guise of a modern US detective, is pitted against monsters and creatures from Fairy Tales. The last one I saw the Ogre!

What do you think about Sci Fi on TV?

LEGAL ALIENS?

Should Species be classed as part of the ALIEN film canon? HR Giger did design the Sil creature, which is distinctly xenomorphic like our acid-blooded friend. Logically if Species were to be considered part of the canon does it follow that Species' three sequels, II, II and Awakening must also be?


The same question must be asked about Predator, but in reverse. A sort of prequel, Alien Vs. Predator or AVP [2004] brought the two creatures head to head, but we first saw a crossover in Predator 2, where, according to Wiki, we see an ALIEN skull on the Predator spaceship [anyone got a still of that?]. AVP spawned a sequel, AVP Requiem. The Predator franchise also includes Predator, Predator 2 and Predators.


The ALIEN movie canon proper is simple: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection. Obviously this will soon be added to by the eagerly awaited prequel PROMETHEUS, the film event of the year.


What do you think of the ALIEN movie mythos. Are Species and Predator in? Did any of the toy lines cross over?

The Silver Toolbox Mystery

 During the recent Apollo Moon Exploring extravaganza we've been enjoying, a few mysteries were flagged up (excuse the pun there..). Most notable was the 'silver toolbox' item that often appeared in the large boxed collection and sometimes on the carded sets. As this fragile little piece invariably turns up damaged, it wasn't immediately obvious as to what it was. When I got my LP window boxed set back in the day, around 1971, I was immediately familiar with it, from photos of the lunar excursions and from somewhere much nearer home. The Airfix kit of the Lunar module, released in 1970 includes a small piece of equipment (shown here on the lower right of the instruction sheet) with folded out solar panels. It doesn't have the tv aerial though, presumably this was intended to power the small portable TV that came with the LP set !

 Paul Vreede is lucky enough to own a more complete version of the 'silver toolbox' and sent me some shots of it along with a photo of the 'Passive Seismic Experiment Package carried by Apollo 11' (photo courtesy NASA) upon which it is clearly based.

 A second puzzler was the inclusion of a small dome in most sets, mine had a yellow one, but Paul V received three white ones in his boxed set, two of which were larger and as he suggests, may form a kind of wheel for another contraption, yet to be revealed.

The domes also found use on the small red/green bubble car, with some slight re-tooling. By far the most tantalising item to appear in a 'moon exploring' set was the Space Station, which I got in the window boxed set along with the silver LEM, Apollo, Mercury Capsule and usual assortment of rocks. Unfortunately, the remains of this are now somewhere on the continental U.S, but the original photograph which formed the first point of contact between me, Mr Woods and Mr Vreede, from over ten years ago, still exists. The photo shows the remains of my moon exploring collection, supplemented by a few repros and cake decorations, such as the blue LEM and white apollo. The LP moon tractors are ranged at the right hand side. The station itself sits at the rear right of the pic, having lost its flimsy legs and had Spacex Moonbase legs superglued on. The two white disks are the same as the central console disk on the small bubble car, even down to the raised section with the three dials. Clearly designed to reflect the Matt Mason Space Station, i've never seen this piece ever, since then. Still looking though..

Pink and Yellow and Green ... and the other ones

Nothing to do with SWORD or SpaceX, and arguably antithetical to them in some ways ... but as Google has reminded me, today is the 30th anniversary of Clive Sinclair's ZX Spectrum computer.

What more needs to be said!

You Have Been Erased

Spotted these two different bags of Thunderbirds pencil erasers online. There's something very satisfying about these bags. Whilst looking for more I found some Yamato rubbers on this fabulous fan site: http://www.starblazers.com/html.php?page_id=206

Anyone have any other erasers?

Shelf Life

On a rare trip into Wakefield, our local town, I stumbled upon three potential collectables in the shops. In WH Smith was this new Thundercats comic No.1, £2.99, with a free Sword of Omens! They're back! If you've got kids this is a must. Don't forget to put one away for posterity!

Also nestling in the shelves of WH Smith is this more expensive magazine [more a softback book really], Spaceships of Science Fiction at £7.99 It covers the likes of Destination Moon, Star Trek, UFO and Battlestar Galactica. Volume 2 must be coming out soon. One for the bookshelf?

And finally, in Poundland or Poundworld [I forget sorry] are these cool TRON LEGACY die-cast vehicles, for, yep, a pound each. They come carded but I found this shot onlibe of them all loose. Maybe a future collectable?

Are there any interesting collectables in your shops?

Sinister Dexterity

I love puzzles, especially dexterity ones that you need to take apart and put back together. Im hopeless at Sudoku etc, but great with stull that needs a little laterality. When I was a kid, my sister had a neat rocket keyring puzzle, in see through plastic, each part in a different shade. She let me look at it now and again, but would never letme disassemble it! Ive got quite a few dexterity puzzles such as the classic Merit Metal Puzzles and the infamous plastic cube that you have to fit back into its box in sections. Just recently, I scored ths lovely rocket puzzle in the states. The vendor kindly taped it all up in transit for me as he didn't recommend taking it apart and trying to fit it together without the instructions! Being the brave soul that I am, as soon as I got the tape off, I took it apart.

The whole thing is about 6 inches high when assembled and to my relief, was only comprised of 12 pieces, so making it up again was easy!

For Sale

Just a reminder that two blog readers have vintage toys for sale which may be of interest to other readers.

• Raed in Jordan has a boxed Space Shuttle by T Toys [T in a Circle/ Tai Hing]. Contact Raed here.

• Luke in Germany has a boxed SpaceX Moon Base HQ by Triang. Contact Luke here.

Thundercandy

These Japanese Thunderbird candy holders look so great. I beleive they are by a company called Cobit. I saw these online. Anyone got these or other Anderson candy containers?

Wonderful Weekends

Like everyone I love the weekend. No work. Just do what you want to do. Well, a few chores as well maybe. When I was a wee anklebiter, Saturdays were always the bees knees. Totally exciting and far better than boring old Sundays. Saturday is when I went out with my young pals down the local park on our bikes or, later on, up town to buy comics and drink vimto and ice cream. Sundays meant Eleven O' Clock Mass, family visits and the inevitable early to bed for the dreaded start of another week at school!

Nowadays, all growed up, I love both days equally. Off work for two whole days and as I'm not a great shopper they both feel like one big relaxing time. Now Spring has sprung, the Moonbasers love just pottering around in the house or garden, with the occassional outburst of energy necessary to sustain life such as get food, cook, check on other family members, write, read, mess with toys and blog.

Oddly enough Friday nights have become more and more exciting over the years [maybe they always were, I forget!]. The combination of finishing work with no work in the morning and the prospect of a lie-in is a heady one and somehow different to the rest of the weekend.

But some folk have a weekend at other times of the week due to work rotas and even have days off when the rest of us are labouring. So what's your favourite day?

APOLLO 13 IN MINIATURE BY ED ICE BERG

Woodsy,

This week was the anniversary of the Apollo 13 mishap and tomorrow's blog (that would the 21 Apr blog - it's already 'tomorrow' by you) :-) is devoted to that. Attached are a few pics of the toy I used. It is SMALL. One of the photos shows a SpaceX spaceman next to the Lunar Module for comparison. I also have a connection to one of the Apollo 13 crew member's - but you'll have to read [my] blog to find out what it is - LOL

Enjoy!

Ed

Toys & Stuff Blog

Dalek I Love You

Daleks need no introduction and are always welcome here. Cs has sent over some shots of his mini dalek collection, comprising Product Enterprise Rolykin repros and CB toys Character Building Lego style figures. The combination of a classic design and super small scale is irresistable!

 And just to add to the Dalek army goodness, here is a pic of one of my even smaller Daleks, a Games Workshop mini-kit, Cyberman and white metal Ice Warrior!

The Micro Bus

Messing about with some tiny plastic caps I looked at a yellow one and thought, Hmmm, Moon Bus! So a few bits of plastic later and voila, the Micro Bus! It's so titchy it's positively quantum! I took a few photies of it bussing around Moon Base.....

.....and having a few tiny coloured caps left I whittled together a Micro Booster. I've got that shrinking feeling, ha ha! It's addictive! More miniaturised creations welcomed!

FROG MAN

The pond at Moonbase is looking good this Spring. It's what estate agents would describe as 'frog ready'. I'd like to send a toy Stingray across it and a few 007 skin divers! Anyone else got a pond or water feature?

Scarlet Mystery

This mystery spacecraft was on Yahoo Japan recently. Old Captain Scarlet is piloting. is it based on something from the show?

SMALL V: THE NEWLY DISCOVERED MINI APOLLO SATURN

As you know I'm a bit of a Mini SWORD nut. I recently had the good fortune to, with a lot of help from Terry H, to acquire the above small green Saturn rocket along with the cool yellow and red robo-tank. To my utter amazement, the Saturn rocket turns out to be another in the miniature SWORD series from Japan, which Wotan and Terry first discovered in 2010. Talk about thrilled! I was proper apolloed! Examining the rocket I saw that there was a number on the undercarriage as there is with the others already found. This Saturn rocket is numbered 6 or 9 [hard to say which]. This takes the toys Wote and I know about to six, as follows [name and model number]:

Dyna Soar  - 2

Apollo Saturn - 6 or 9

Task Force 2 - 11

Task Force 3 - 14

Probe Force 3 - No number

Scout 2 - No number

Now I had thought that the model numbering might follow the order of appearance in the SWORD Manual but I can't get these to fit at all. If there are actually another 16 of these miniatures making up the 19 in the SWORD range, then 13 are still missing! The number 14 on the Task Force 3 bodes well as it's suggests there's at least 14 miniatures! If anyone has any idea what the numbering might relate to, if anything, I'd love to hear from you.

In the meantime I've taken some snaps of my new diminutive green machine along with a medley of the Japanese miniatures discussed above [far left, three rockets], Takeuchi SWORD erasers [from red Space Glider to yellow Scout 2, six in all] and a blue Weeto's Saturn V gantry to set the scene.

I started getting excited and took a few snaps pf a Spacex Nuclear Ferry cab and a mini SPV from the 1990's Captain Scarlet Board Game, which I recently found online on a spare parts site.

And by way of a finale, Wotan kindly helped me photoshoperise a full fantasy set of mini SWORD, a heady cocktail of Japanese minis, Takeuchi erasers, Weeto's Saturn and gantry, Mexican Booster [Wote's], Imai Prospector, Aoshima Moon Crawler, Marx Dozer, custom Scout 3 [Imperial Battle Cruiser] and party favour OX and PF1. One day, one day!