Bring Out the Big Guns

Mattels Major Matt Mason had some of the best space vehicles ever made. Besides the iconic Space Crawler, with its cross shaped 'walking' wheels, Matt had the Firebolt Lazer Cannon to intimidate the aliens with. This is a real bruiser of a vehicle, possibly the biggest in the line. It took two large batteries and used the juice to power across the floor. A multi-position switch at the back activated the drive and also made the turret turn. What really set the toy apart for me though, was the eponymous cannon. Besides looking pretty mean as it was, when the toy was turned on, the rear screen lit up and the radar spun, but the length of the cannon glowed red inside like a real laser. When my Firebolt took a tumble down some concrete stairs back in '73, I found out how this worked. In a neat plastic precursor to fibre-optics, a small bulb in a holder could be moved back and to inside the turret to either illuminate the screen, or to shine down a length of pink transparent plastic, which reflected the light along little facets in the mold, making the cannon glow.

 When Captain Laser was busily charging around the moon on the Firefbolt, Sgt Storm could use the Gamma Ray-Gard, a sort of scaled down version of the cannon, to deflect gamma rays from the space station. This cool tripod mounted 'gun' was another technological novelty, as it fired long spools of gold foil. Each gold 'lance' was a coiled spring of mylar that could be loaded into the cannons chambers, pressing the foil back on itself to make a spring. When the back of the gun was rotated, the foil sprung out of the chamber and shot across the room, looking remarkably like the photo on the card. The gun accepted five individual lances, so volleys of gold could be shot at poor Callisto with quite some force!

 

After blasting the aliens with the Gamma Ray-Gard, Matt and the good Sergeant could take off across the moon surface in style using the Uni-Tred and Space Bubble.

This was pure sci-fi and completely unlike any contemporary space toy of its day. Sporting a bright red body and opting for a single caterpillar tread running underneath the body, the Unit-Tred was a go anywhere vehicle. The body could be detached and the tread section would still work, allowing trains of connected sections to be joined together using the connectors on the body. To add to the excitement, the Uni-Tred could be hitched to the Space Bubble, a self righting seat inside a durable plastic sphere, with a sliding door. the sight of the pair rolling across the carpet was a common sight on Mattel tv commercials in the late sixties. The bubble also came with a special adaptor to fit the Space Crawler too. It has to be said, they really don't make toys as good as this now!