Rocket Base USA: Another Tale from the Haunted Toy Box by Tony K

FLASHBACK - Moonbase Central Swordcast/Celtica Radio, 30 Dec 2016 - A guilt ridden Bill B openly confesses to Advocatus Diaboli, Woodsy, that as a trigger-happy tyke, during the 1960s, he wantonly launched an unprovoked ICBM strike and nuked the family Christmas tree resulting in fused tree lights and one fallen Angel. 

Bill's description indicates that the chosen weapon of attack was none other than, Rocket Base USA, modestly billed on the box as, 'The Most Amazing Toy Ever Made'. 

Rocket Base USA was produced by DE-LUXE TOY CO. LTD. London. One of many brand names, including Topper Toys, used by New Jersey based company, Deluxe Reading. 

Deluxe Reading armed the gung ho 60s kid with everything gigantic, robust, impressive and plastic... including the Johnny Seven OMA, USS Battlewagon, the huge Operation X500, and many more memorable toy lines from that time.

Rocket Base USA is now a collectors piece of classic plastic from the 1960s. It was affordable for parents... appealing to kids... and available in the UK. The versatile playset was manufactured in contrasting red, black and white durable plastic, with chrome detail and authentic decals. 

The toy had a simplistic but imaginative design, and it didn't require batteries! The launch complex consisted of three sections, numerous spring loaded projectiles, and an assortment of white plastic personnel. 

Cost-effective to produce, Rocket Base USA was a winning formula guaranteed to radiate endless hours of hands-on fun... it was pure liquid hydrogen to fuel the imagination of the rocket and space obsessed kids of the time. 

The three sections of the playset, included - The Missile Defence Base, Rocket Launcher, and the Mobile Rocket Transport. The Missile Defence Base was a plastic Command Bunker with chrome control panels. 

It featured three top-mounted, spring loaded launchers and plastic missiles, which appear to have been inspired by the Nike missile defence system. 

When fired, these persuasive rubber tipped rockets could deliver a powerful knock-out punch to advancing hordes of gun-slinging Timpo cowboys, jousting Swoppet knights, and a motley assortment of plastic spacemen and invading jelly-like Jigglers.

The Mobile Rocket Transport was a simple plastic truck and driver, with an articulated trailer, small tracking radar, and chrome detail-. It would ferry three large ICBMs from silo to launch pad. 

These days, the Rocket Transporter can function as a practical display platform for the three big colourful rockets. Ideal, if you don't have space to display the whole playset. 

The Rocket Launcher was a tall, ladder accessed gantry, topped with two chrome radar dishes. The launch pad was the inner core of the complex and the place where the real action was. 

Its selling point was a powerful spring loaded firing mechanism. This would blast the large hollow plastic Titan, Jupiter, Atlas or Thor rockets, into orbit around the living room. 

Bright orange flat pack lampshades and delicate decorative eyesores, such as period plastic gondolas, were fair game, and often targeted and downed by mutinous young Missileers who had their itchy trigger fingers on the button. 

Wonder if Rocket Base USA, would soar above the radar of today's health and safety regulations... or perhaps get shot down by some modern day toy industry politics, which outlaws the deployment of spring-launched, rubber tipped, ICBMs? 

I wonder if there would even be a market for such an energetic toy today? I guess it's a toy from the past, and maybe that's where it belongs... remembered as a part of our past. A fun toy... which gave us fun times!

Tony K