Is Sci Fi Set To Mushroom?

The Atomic Age and Space Race during the 1950's and 60's fired a whole explosion of Sci-Fi on the small and big screens.

 

 

Kids were treated to B-movies like War of the Colossal Beast and This Island Earth, TV gems like Quatermass, the space antics of Moon Zero Two, Thunderbirds' epic grandeur and the sheer style of UFO. We were immersed in Science Fiction.

 

 

The Eighties were pretty good too if I remember rightly but perhaps not the Nineties or the Naughties?

 

 

Do you think that NASA's new Mars adventure might inspire a whole new generation of Sci Fi films, series and novels?

A SAUCER FULL OF SECRETS: SOMA, THUNDERBIRD 5 AND CRUSHED ICE

Many Century 21 toy collectors believe that the JR21 Thunderbird 5 toy, pictured here, was based on an earlier or existing flying saucer or UFO type toy.

The base of the toy adds to the mystery showing an unusual logo, a H inside a globe and a model number, 507, unlike other JR21 Thunderbirds toys.

Armed with this information I have searched for the flying saucer many times. The SWORD Moon Prospector, below, always comes to mind but the lights aren't similar really

More convincing is the T in a Circle UFO, seen below, which has a similar shape, dome and edge. The lights could be altered for the JR21 toy I suppose.

What is far clearer though is that a company called SOMA copied JR21 when they created their Space Ship X711, pictured here left.

SOMA's saucer is the same but white and I think I have found the same saucer being used in another guise, the TIGER Ice Crusher from Japan no less! Difficult to date but the SOMA and TIGER items could be contemporaries, maybe the 1970's or 80's. See what you think from the following comparisons and make your own mind up!

TV21 SWORD STORY: THE REBEL: ISSUE 170

BLUE CRUISER

 

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FILM4 FREAKY FUTURES NIGHT

UK film fans will be treated to a fistful of Sci Fi flicks this Saturday evening. Starting at 6.45pm with the original Planet of The Apes, FILM4 is running a FREAKY FUTURES night.

 

Click here foe more info.

Speaking of simians, I love vintage Planet of the Apes [POTA] toys, particularly carded rack toys. For a short while a few years back I was the happy owner of this ubercool Target Set by our Golden Astronaut friends Multiple Toy Makers in 1967. I bought it on one of my scouting trips to Memorabilia at the NEC back when I was a vintage toy dealer. Alas, like so many of my purchases they were re-sold on my old Ebay shop. Anyone else collect rack toys or POTA stuff?

CANDY AND ANDY ANNUAL: ANOTHER LOOK

As the blog's fourth birthday on the 15th September approaches [watch this space!] I'm starting to feel nostalgic about how it all started. I wondered what I posted today in 2008? Well, nothing, as it didn't exist then, so here's today's post from the same date back in August 2009. District 9 was on at the cinema and I was still in my forties!

 

 

The Moonbase library has grown a bit this summer with some great Century 21 finds: Topo Gigio, TV21 Summer Special, SiG, Action 21, Anderpup, Monkees and a particular favourite, the CANDY and ANDY Annual 1967. Concerning the lives of two dolls who live with panda teddies who run a toy shop, the Annual is choc-full of surprises!

The first surprise is the number of pictures of 1960's Century 21 and other toys on the shelves of the toy shop. See how many you can spot in the next two pictures! The first full answer emailed here will get a small plastic and modern LP-like astronaut sent in the post!

There is also an advertisement for CANDY comic - below. I've never seen this. Has anyone got any and are there any toy adverts in them?

Probably the biggest surprise are the three wonderful short THUNDERBIRDS strips. Rendered in very attractive pastels and aimed at smaller children, they are quite hypnotic! I love the reversed-L panel at the end of each strip - where else would you see TB2 blasting off over a boy and a deer! Classic!

FRANK MAY'S HUGE SCRATCHBUILT SPACEX MODELS

With Kevin D's breathtaking scratchbuilds continuing to amaze us, I thought I'd re-post some pictures of a similarly talented modeller, Frank May, which appeared about two years ago on the blog. Franks's large scale builds, in particular his Spacex projects, are stunning and will thrill new readers of the blog. You can read how Frank made these models in a previous post from 2010. I really do love Frank's huge Spacex vehicles. Hope you like 'em too!

Pictures the property of Frank May

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Hows your day going? It's wet and miserable here at Moon Base. Autumn is in the air and we haven't had summer yet! What are you up to at the mo?

PROJECT TICK

I've always categorised and compartmentalised throughout my life. It's the anorak in me I think! Whether it was Monsters as a boy, Kung Fu and Bands as a teenager, Birds [feathered] as a young man and toys as an adult [which sounds a bit back to front!] I categorised, listed, ordered and 'collected' them all. At the heart of any categorisation is a a good tick list and here's just such an attempt at one for SWORD toys.

 

 

My rule was simple for this. If a company made at least 2 SWORD toys they made the cut. Each toy range has a different colour. If I have one it get's an X. I've included any toy which pushes the list further such as Imai's Snow Train/ Beetle [Thunderbird 7]. I've not included masses of Zero X versions as there are too many. The last two toys are Century 21 toys, which the 1960's toy trade press connected to SWORD so they are in too. There are many omissions such as the Japanese Space Birds and the many clones of both Space Gliders and Probe Force 3, which would form bristling checklists in themselves. Finally, I may missed out toys which should be in so please let me know. The challenge of a checklist are the boundaries it has, which, although good at the time but later may seem restrictive.

 

 

I would welcome other readers' checklists of SWORD or any other toy range - either for publication or interest. Anyone else like lists like these?

Curiosity Killed The Chat

It's true, the London Olympics were a huge success and brought the World together wonderfully  this summer. For me, however, the greater triumph was the landing of Curiosity on Mars, a feat equal in significance to the Moonlanding and one which may one day pave the way to a manned landing and who knows, even a Mars Base and dare I say it, a New Earth! NASA's new adventure has got me hooked and the latest images from the martian buggy depicting Mount Sharp, as big as our own Moon's tallest peak and towering in the distance, are simply stunning.

 

 

I find it almost mind-bending that a man-made vehicle is driving around Mars and I'm so grateful that I'm around to experience it. I'd love to sample the excitement down in Times Square where NASA streams it's feed on a huge screen. I only hope Neil Armstrong was able to see some of the footage of Curiosity before his own epic lunar chapter closed.

 

 

After the disappointment of a faded Shuttle program and chatter of NASA's redundancy, it feels like the '69 Moonlanding allover again as Curiosity takes us all on a drive up Mount Sharp's slopes and the inclines of our yearning minds.

Above: Mount Sharp or Aeolis Mons on Mars as seen by Curiosity.

 

 

Below: graphic of Mount Sharp's location at the centre of Gale Crater, 96 miles across, in which Curiosity is roving.

images: Wikipedia/ NASA



Like Peas In A Pod

Reader Chris recently pointed out the resemblance between Star Trek's Shuttle Pod NX-01 [picture from the brilliant Fantastic Plastic] and Imperial's Apollo Moon Exploring space pod below.

Reading Fantastic Plastic's description of the Star Trek NX-01 kit  remarks on the passing resemblance to the hovercraft in Logan's Run, so I've included a picture of it here too to see what you think.

ioffer

 

 

Any more similar space vehicles to these three?

LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF PROBE FORCE 1

Far on the outer rim of SWORD collectables lies the exotic gem that is Randy Rayder In Outer Space, an LP combined with a comic book from 1969 by See Hear. The central vehicle of the soundtrack's story is ATHENA 1 aka SWORD PROBE FORCE 1 to you and me as pictured above in an extract from the comic book. The entire comic features elsewhere on the blog but you may not have heard the LP before. For a taste of the wild side click here and click play on the audio player. Enjoy the craziness of Randy Rayder In Outer Space!

INTERCEPTED

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The Japanese often linked SWORD with UFO in their Imai Kits. I don't think there is actually any link at all between them [?] but it's a neat idea. So neat in fact that slapping a SWORD badge on this Dinky UFO Interceptor makes it a Probe Force Interceptor!

I recently saw a black missile for this toy. How many different coloured missiles were there?

One of our Parachutes is Missing

The Project SWORD Apollo Saturn toy rocket is the only SWORD toy with a parachute. This chute, attached to a small hard transparent capsule, is made of a thin carrier-bag type plastic and coloured white with red check squares. You can see it tucked into my box above. I imagine that the parachute and capsule were often the first parts of this toy to vanish into the void!

So the recent appearance on Ebay of a loose parachute, amongst some Saturn spares, was unusual. I know a couple of Swordies who needed one. The scarcity of loose parachutes led me to wonder if there were acceptable alternatives for the collector. Could other contemporary toys have included one?

The similar Sears and Tomy Apollo rockets presumably both had the same parachute as the Century 21 SWORD version. These two pictures, above and below, of a loose Sears parachute I saw a few years ago on Ebay certainly suggest at least the Sears one is the same perhaps, but as I own neither toy its hard to say. Can anyone confirm this?

Looking further into 'space', we find plastic parachutes on many toys from the 1960's, but all appear to have red stripes rather than red check and include:

.....the Askews model capsule pictured above [may not be red stripes!]

....and above, the space paratroop [the header card shows a red striped chute at least]

 .....and above and below two versions of Marx's Project Apollo with 'manned recovery capsules'

Despite there being countless cheap party favour paratroopers in the shops, a thorough surf was unable to locate any toys - old or new - sporting a red check parachute like the Century 21 Apollo Saturn. I did however find a red plastic carrier bag with the required red pattern being stocked on Ebay as pictured below [contact me for the link directly lest we cause a sudden rise in 'spare' SWORD chutes appearing on said site!]. The dimensions would have to be checked but, by George, it might just do! Obviously you would need to cut to shape, attach the strings and have the C21 space capsule, finding an alternative to which, will prove an even more herculean task I fear!

Ad Mission

Just back from my hols and catching up with all the great posts whilst I've been away. I love the new advert from 1967 that Andy B has unearthed in Wote's Ad Astra above bottom [re-shown for convenience of comparison]. As Wote says, it appears to be a variation of this half-page ad, which appeared in TV21 issue 145 [28th October 1967] as seen above top.

 

 

The Nuclear Ferry cab interior illustration could even be a photograph? What do you think?

Booster Fleet

 Well I never need much of an excuse to look at the Booster Rocket, so heres the whole currently available fleet. The C21 version, Hover orange version, Spacex and R & L cereal premium. The C21 and Hover are both the same size, same as the boxes below, the disparity is a just the camera angle.

Scouting for Ads

The search is on - Mike B prepares to launch the Scout fleet to find the missing Buster ad. Scout Force is ready for take off from one of the auxilary strips at Glenn Field.

Per Ardua

Further to my earlier post with Andy B's new SWORD advert, here is the extant SWORD half page advert from Buster comic, 1968 07 - December. Might take a little work to find a copy of the comic, but we would be more than grateful to see a full size, clear scan of the piece! Can anyone help ?

Ultra Impressive

 Feast your eyes on this scratchbuilt beauty, which Kevin Davies has just created, recycling the 'beak' of his first model of a 22 inch Eagle Transporter! It is the Command Module from the vast Ultraprobe from the two part episode, Dragons Domain.