THE MAITLANDS OF HORROR

The surname Maitland is a popular device in Horror films. Here are just a few examples with trailers via You Tube:

The Skull, 1965, Peter Cushing as Dr. Chrisropher Maitland

Tales from the Crypt, Reflection of Death, Ian Hendry as Carl Maitland 1972

Vault of Horror, Bargain in Death, Michael Craig - Maitland 1973

Barbara and Adam Maitland, Beetlejuice 1988

There are many more Maitlands in Horror films and books. Do you know of any readers?

Another Time, Another Place

Although not derelict, sculptor Anthony Gormley has installed this series of 100 full size figures along the one mile stretch of Crosby Beach. Since their installation some years ago, they've been colonised by sea creatures and added to by the general public! A beautiful, eerie display, especially as the tide recedes and heads pop out of the waves! Well worth visiting at both ends of the day, as the sun casts long shadows.

DECAYING SPACE BOATS

Abandoned Soviet space-age river boats.

TONY K: PHOTOGRAPHS OF DERELICTION

Hi Woodsy

            Hope you're keeping well. I just read your article, Dreamland Dereliction. 

I'm sorry I don't have pix of abandoned amusement parks. Sadly there are none around here. 

 However, I do have snaps of urban dereliction and decay. I've always been captivated by old derelict buildings, often seeing an odd beauty amongst the rust and rubble. 

I've included some pix of my own. You're welcome to use any of them to illustrate your article if you wish. 

All the best, Tony K

NARA DREAM LAND DERELICTION

Another haunting shot of the derelict Nara Dream land theme park in Japan. This time its an abandoned Ultraman car and the Screw Coaster.

Have you got any derelict theme parks, piers or rides near you readers?

original by Matterhorn

PROJECT SWORD ON THE TV

I was thinking about the old Reuters ITN film clip we showed this year in which Project SWORD toys were displayed in London in 1967.

I realised that Project SWORD had also been on 'film' in 2014 as well. On TV to be exact, which I reported at the time. What I didn't do was point out the SWORD toys which appeared, so in the name of completeness, here goes.

As part of the build-up to the release of the documentary FILMED IN SUPERMARIONATION in UK cinemas, BBC's The One Show celebrated all things Anderson and featured the same Century 21 staff photograph sent here to the blog a few years ago by Century 21 modelmaker Alan Shubrook. 

This is how the SWORD photograph would have appeared on our TV, at the end of this video I made using the You Tube clip.

This is the actual still image in close up. The BBC have cut off the SWORD toys at the bottom!

Here's what Alan sent me for the blog's first Birthday in 2009.

This is it in clean.

This is it with all the toys identified by 2009 readers Jon and Amy. Compare with the above.

Jon and Amy's toy Key:

1. Zero X Lifting Body 2

2. Zero X Lifting Body 1

3. Project Sword Moon Bus

4. Captain Scarlet ball puzzle - S.P.V.

5. Captain Scarlet ball puzzle - Colonel White

6. Captain Scarlet ball puzzle - S.P.C. or M.S.V. (by elimination)

7. Captain Scarlet ball puzzle - Angel Aircraft

8. Captain Scarlet ball puzzle - Captain Scarlet

9. The Angels Beauty Set

10. The Angels Sling Bag and mirror from Beauty Set

11. Captain Scarlet Dart Gun and Target Set

12. Captain Scarlet cap gun and Holster

13. Angel aircraft toy

14. Angel Aircraft box

15. Captain Scarlet Dart Gun and Target Set

16. Project sword Dyna-soar Glider

17. Captain Scarlet Water Pistol (or possibly Dart Gun or Cap Gun)

18. Captain scarlet official wallet

19. Project Sword Moon Prospector

20. Thunderbird 2 toy

21. Project Sword Probe Force 3 Box

22. Project Sword Scramble Bug

23. Projoct Sword Apollo Saturn Rocket

24. Thunderbird 5 toy

25. Angel aircraft toy box proof sheet

26. Captain Scarlet proof sheet (S.P.V. or S.P.C. toy box )

27. Project Sword Moon Prospector

28. Tunderbird 1 toy

29. Captain Scarlet S.P.C. toy

30. Captain Scarlet S.P.C. toy

Notes -

1 to 24 are 99.9% certain

25 seems to be more than a folded out box hence proof sheet

26 is a best guess but probably a proof sheet similar to 25

27 is incredibly annoying ! Looks like a Sword Moon Prospector with the dish missing and something flat stuck on instead !

28, 29 and 30 are possibly optical illusions of normal parts of the picture especially as none would be JR21 toys - if the red nose of 28 is TB1 the body is the wrong colour, if 29 is an S.P.C. the colour would seem to make it the Dinky version, if so 30 could be a Dinky S.P.V.

We've tried to use the standard terms (e.g. "Ball puzzle") given in the Dennis Nicholson Memorabilia guide, and we didn't count the costumes of the "Spectrum" pop group as they weren't commercially available!

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So, albeit fleetingly, quite a few SWORD toys appeared on UK TV in 2014! 

Which is the easiest to spot?

Any further thoughts readers - on any of the numbered toys?

PARALLEL LINES AT THE EDGE OF TIME

I was often caught staring into space as a schoolkid, much to my teachers' annoyance. Sometimes I was literally pondering the vastness of time itself and sometimes I was just bored rigid in another lesson about Henry the 8th.

Sometimes I would think about some conundrum I'd heard, some cosmic puzzle or scientific fact that just blew me away. They were like mind-worms, which I just couldn't shake off.

Well, I heard another one the other day. I'd probably heard it before but this time it struck home, a mathematical fact so ongoing that I just cannot get it out of my rather literal head!

When two straight lines are parallel and carry on, they will carry on into infinity....and beyond! [Buzz Lightyear added the last two words!]

So, two parallel lines will travel side by side forever and never stop, presumably until the end of time! How mind-boggling is that!

I have spent many a dormant moment since hearing it chewing the fabric of time and space itself. Despite being tasteless, I have enjoyed visions of parallel time travel, parallel drives and Tron-like grids of extending light.

On top of these grandiose daydreams a single boyish thought has, however, emerged: 

Are there any circumstances in the universe in which the two parallel lines carrying on forever could actually come together and meet?

In the name of tedium-busting everywhere I leave it with you readers. Send your thoughts in parallel!

TONY E'S NEW TV TOYS

Reader Tony E's recent acquisitions.

BLACK BELT MAG NOVEMBER 1968

A late slice of Kung Fu'ness, this was the very first martial arts 'collectable' I got as a youngster, Black Belt magazine, the November issue from 1968. I still have it and it means a lot to me.

I picked up my copy from a superb second hand magazine and comic stall I often went to on Preston fish market, where I got Creepy and Eerie magazines too. It would have been around 1972. Kung Fu the TV series had started that year. I was 11.

You can read the whole mag courtesy of Google Books!

HAVE YOU GOT TRASHY TV CHANNELS?

Have cheapo channels taken over your TV schedules? Their are dozens and dozens of channels available free of charge through Freeview in the UK but they are mostly rubbish in my opinion.

We still have the old gang of the BBC and ITV, who offer decent telly and regular readers will know I love the new Horror Channel - most of the time - but these are the exceptions.

So are you plagued by zillions of trash channels readers?

TV21 171 APRIL 27th 2068: THE CLUE

Project SWORD text and images owned by Century 21 Toys

GREEN HORNET PART 6: POLAR LIGHTS BLACK BEAUTY MODEL KIT

Another popular Green Hornet collectable was the 1/32 scale plastic kit of the Black Beauty produced by Aurora Plastics in 1966.  Polar Lights, using the same tooling re-released the same kit in 1998.

Aurora had a direct involvement in the TV series, as the company built the smaller scale models of Britt Reid’s everyday Chrysler 300 convertible and The Black Beauty for the sequence showing Reid’s garage floor revolving revealing the Green Hornet’s sedan underneath.  This work was done in exchange for the licencing rights for the kit of The Black Beauty.

The model is a fairly simple build. I started by lightly sanding the body with a very fine sandpaper prior to priming. The edge of the rubber tyres also needed a sanding too. As the kit is 99% black, I sprayed everything on the sprues for ease, and brushed a dark wash on the chrome parts to tone them down.

I added some detail to the dashboard, and the rear compartment, but to be honest you can’t really see much inside once everything is put together.  It would have been nice if Aurora (or Polar Lights) had included figures, but considering the scale is 1/32 I don’t suppose it would be too hard  to make up a couple of custom ones.

The front lights are a bane of contention as the kit uses the standard white single lenses on each side ( as seen on some publicity photos), rather than the twin infra-green type each side which are generally seen on screen. Although, as the lights are supposed to revolve depending on which type are needed it’s not technically wrong, it’s just that the infra-green type look better.

The chrome wheel hubs are something else which loses out in the accuracy stakes. Using the dark wash helps to highlight some of the detail, but it’s still a long way from the hubs seen on screen.

The model features protruding radiator grill gas gun, extended rear laser, and banks of missiles front and back, which are all permanent fixtures.

Overall, despite the model’s shortcomings I'm happy with it as a display model, although I think a scale of 1/25 would have been a better size. 

There's very little difference between the Aurora and Polar Lights boxes.

A sixties ad for the Aurora kit.

The previous 5 posts on The Green Hornet:

http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-green-hornet-part-1.html
http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-green-hornet-part-2-tv-series.html
http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-green-hornet-part-3-rise-of-bruce.html
http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-green-hornet-part-4-tv-tornado.html
http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-green-hornet-part-5-corgi-black.html

KEV'S COSFORD MODEL LIGHTNING

Hi,

This may not be of interest, but I went to the RAF museum at Cosford last week, never been before, it is excellent. I treated myself to this kit of the English Electric Lightning (bought virtually next to a real one!). 

I have always thought it must've been partly the inspiration for Thunderbird 1. It had incredible speed and an almost vertical climb! Anyway, I'm pleased with how my model turned out.

Take care,

Kevin

PROJECT SWORD SCOUT BOX VARIATIONS: RESEARCH BY ARTO

SCOUT 2 BOXES

There are some box front differences on these Scout 2 boxes. 

The top one above (which I believe is the later issue) has also a somewhat thinner cardboard, and oddly enough a sharper printing quality to the box illustration - qualities which first made me ponder whether it was a very good repro box. 

You can notice the difference in the picture quality for instance on the "A706" code on the side of Scout 2; on the (earlier in my opinion) box version with the more blurred image is looks almost like "A705".

But then there's that "Made in Hong Kong" which has travelled from the long side .......

.....onto one end of the box, below left. Additionally, on the left box below, the Century 21 logo does not touch the horizontal blue bar with SCOUT 2 on it, as it does on the other (presumed earlier) version.

Actually the one missing "Made in Hong Kong" on the side, above left, has a longer text "Made in Hong Kong for Century 21 Toys Limited" on one end of the box. I wonder if this pertains to all three Scouts?

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END FLAPS OF ALL SCOUT BOXES

Here are pictures of all box variants across all three Scouts that I found on the Blog or in my own collection. A short explanation:

V1 = 1-line text CENTURY 21 TOYS LIMITED on end flap

V2 = 2-line text MADE IN HONG KONG for CENTURY 21 TOYS LIMITED

V3 = 2-line text MADE IN HONG KONG FOR CENTURY 21 TOYS LIMITED (all in bold, different colour scheme)

We are missing (at least) Scout 3 box version 1.

[Scout 3 box above is a cleaned-up photocopy of an original. No known examples of an original box known to Moonbase Central]

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I wonder if other blog readers might have more remarks or Scout box variations to add?

Arto