who dropped a mars bar in the pool?

Its weird what we thought we knew about chocolate as kids.

All sorts of myths and legends abounded, legends like kids getting drunk from eating three bars of Old Jamaica or that the milk left over from a bowl of coco pops actually tasted better than Nesquik!

To kick off what I can actually recall I'll start with Flake, the crumbliest chocolate in the world. It was almost impossible to eat it all as being so crumbly it mostly fell onto your hand or arm and melted instantly.

The myth in the boys' playground was that only gorgeous girls ate flakes and that if you bought one for your 'bird' she would be made instantly 'fit' using the parlance of the day.

Rumours abounded about the exotic location used in the TV ads for Bounty bars. It was Blackpool. It was Heysham Head. It was definitely Carnforth Sands. It was actually a beach called Vai on the beautiful Greek Island of Crete, a fun fact I only found out as an adult when I visited and Vai continues to be bountiful as here on TV in 2011:

Revels were another chocolate morsel oft the nub of boyish pranks as they were more often than not referred to as rabbit droppings. The original chocolate covered peanut, Treets, never suffered such indignities as they were so damn good.

Yorkie is another bar misunderstood by most. A vigorous TV campaign depicting the chunky chocolate being scoffed by a truck driver has forever linked the brand to wagons and lumberjack shirts. It is true that a large mouth with strong chompers is needed to sever one of the huge pieces off the block but Yorkie isn't only the preserve of hungry truckers. A hammer and chisel will do the job just as well for anyone!

Probably the most myths surround that War God in a wrapper, the King that is the Mars Bar. Its well-known by every kid that a Mars a day helped you work, rest and play so it was Doctors' Orders really!

For some reason the Mars Bar made people do things with it. It must have been its relative plainness that induced a pioneering spirit in Mars users. It was in effect abused.

In Scotland most famously the humble Mars Bar was often deep fried in batter, although I have never experienced this northern treat. Have you?

In the comedy movie Caddyshack a Mars type-bar was seen 'floating' in a Golf Club swimming pool, much to the disgust of the swimmers. Upon being found in the drained basin and eaten wet by caretaker Bill Murray the Golf Club Chairwoman promptly feints in one the funniest scenes I've ever seen on film. 

I have to admit though that the bar in question may not have been an actual Mars as they may not be found in the US. It may have been something like Oh Henry, Butterfinger or maybe something nutty! 

It is in fact a Babe Ruth having watched the clip again!

Easily the most controversial of all Mars abuses, stretching the 'play' bit to a whole new level, was that portrayed in the steamy Last Tango in Paris, where Marlon Brando redefined eating chocolate but I will leave it at that as this is a family blog.

I shall end with the undisputed bad sheep of bars, the goblin king of half-eaten blocks that can only be Cooking Chocolate. With no well-known brands springing to mind, cooking chocolate ignored branding being the very epitome of yukky non-chocolateness. 

Cooking chocolate was fine in cakes and cookies but if you were starving for the sweet stuff in January when all the selection boxes were empty and nothing else was in the cupboard it was no joke. Cooking chocolate may have sated your hunger at first but after a second row it became clear that this wasn't Dairy Milk in a cheap wrapper. It was all those crumbs of Flake you dropped on the floor, scooped up in a dustpan, mixed with  baby talc and re-melted to form second hand slabs of milk dust! Yuk!

What do you recall about chocolate? Which brands abound in your country? Are there any myths?

sandals stole my dignity

Sandals get a bum deal I reckon.

Even as a kid in the Sixties they had a bad rep.

When I say sandals I mean those shoes where the front end was heavily pierced with air holes topped with a large gap and a strap usually buckled.

Born from a need for less sweaty feet in Summer sandals became the unfortunate trademarks of 1. Nerds 2. Mummy's boys 3. Alter boys 4. little boys and 5. Dads. It was a peculiarly male phenomenon.

In that grooviest of decades I was both a little boy, a Mummy's boy and somewhat nerdy I think. Sandals were nailed on!

Even worse were the long knee socks we had to wear with them creating a look so ridiculed that it persists today as the 'socks and sandals' combo popular with older Dads and mocked by fashionistas everywhere. Only string vests generate more cultural vitriol.

There was one style of sandal that managed to evade all this mocking though, the plastic Jelly. I myself enjoyed the sharp clack of Jellies on our lino floors and appreciated their ability to easily go from one terrain to another such as kitchen to garden. They were the ATV'of sandals and could even withstand 1. the paddling pool 2. the swimming pool 3. the sea and 4. the bath [we didn't have a shower in the Sixties]. 

When I got older and interested in film I was always astounded that the oft-maligned sandal even had its own sub-genre of action film, sword and sandals. However these particular shoes were more usually the basic straps and lashings associated with the bronzed warriors of Ancient Greece, a far cry from the blue, brushed suede baskets from Clerks we had to endure as kids!

Here's an old piccy from my Butlins family album showing a whole assortment of sandalry worn by my Sixties clan. From left to right: Mum - stylish sandals 2. Big Brother - socks and plimsolls 3. Uncle Gordon - socks and sandals 4. Uncle Gordon's son - socks and sandals 5. Me [ showing off the Tudor Rose boat] - socks and jellies and 6. Auntie Terry - stylish sandals.

What are your sandal experiences readers?

scouts, hawks and angels: toy jets everywhere!

I've always loved the Century 21 Toys Project SWORD Scout 2.

It was a form favourite as a kid especially as it had swing wings and spring-loaded missile.

It always went well with that other swing wing the SpaceX Hawk shown here in orange with the larger Tarheel version in green.

I like Scout 2 so much that anything that looks remotely like it gets a second look as I've blogged many times before.

Here's a few more Scout-and-Hawk-alikes I've seen in cyberspace.

Bandai

Sanchis

Lesney

Some morph into designs more like the Century 21 Angel Aircraft

Guisval

Sanchis

and occasionally I'll see a doppelganger for the Spectrum Passenger jet too!

Bandai

Glico

Front right.

Have you seen any toy planes that would go well here?

nimble: real bread but lighter

Talking about white bread made me remember the bread my late Mum used to eat in the Sixties and Seventies.

It was called Nimble and it was as light as Action Man's undies.

It didn't really feel like bread on account of it not really having any dough in it. It was mostly chalk and talc I think and then mixed with cobwebs!

Bringing butter anywhere near a slice of Nimble was enough to make the bread disintegrate on the spot. It was as if it was programmed to self-destruct near fat of any kind, the ultimate diet slice. A better name would have been Crumble!

My Mum swore by it and it was a classic diet food. It even came in an unusual bag or wrapper but for the life of me I can't picture it.

I do remember the TV ad for Nimble though. It involved a young slip of a girl in a stripey skirt floating nimbly in a hot air balloon high above fluffy white clouds, presumably Cumulo Nimbles.

The floating was accompanied by a theme song along the lines of She Flies Like a Bird in the Sky- y-y-y, Now I Know I can't Let Maggie go!

Too late, Maggie's gone! She's dieted that much on Nimble she's floated away!

Amazingly through the time machine that is You Tube we can still enjoy the low-fat content of Nimble's classic ad:

Do you remember Nimble or another diet bread in your neck of the woods?

afternoon after-school snacking

When I wuz a nipper I drank a glass of cold milk when I got home from school. 

This was accompanied by a jam butty: thick white bread, butter and lashings of Hartleys strawberry jam lovingly prepared by my old Mum.

Throwing my school tie onto a coat hook I then, complete with milk tash and jammy nose, climbed the staircase to my bedroom full of all my fave stuff.

Nowadays I seem to need coffee in some form when I get home, usually a ready-made sachet of frothy cappucino from Aldi.

What I have with it varies though.

Today I scoffed a Hanuta, a small square wafer sandwich of hard nutella and hazelnuts, which are truly delicious.

Tomorrow I have already promised myself a piece of toast [sadly brown bread], buttered and smeared with peanut butter and topped with jam. Its an after-school pizza!

I must admit though a traditional white-bread jam butty would still do the trick if I could smuggle some pale sliced Warburtons into Moonbase!

What snack do you like in an afternoon and what did you scoff as a kid after Skool?

more batman stuff from rob t

Primark seems pretty good for the odd DC comic bits believe it or not, they have some batman superman Lucky bags in at the Moment, with some nice Vintage Art..

The Candy sticks box i picked up from a local Newsagents, i asked the lady to save it for me, and the Crispy Chocks box i got from Wilko, i just emptied one, put the set of 4 in another and took it to the counter, i love anything with Vintage art on the Box...i got the Bat signal Projector too like yours.

All The Best!

Rob

in praise of home-made chip pan chips

I loved chips when I was a kid.

I don't mean chip shop chips, which I loved quite a lot. I mean home-made chips, which I absolutely adored.

Home-made chips in the Sixties weren't any of your anemic, flaccid oven fries that come frozen in a bag nowadays.

Nope, these were proper chipped potatoes cut chunky or crinkled and deep-fried in a vat of golden boiling fat known as a chip pan.

The chip pan fat often contained the scraps from previous fryings and these scraps added to the overall tan and crunch of the chips' outer coat.

The perfect chip was a light russet tone and crispy on the outside and white and fluffy on the inside, A serving made a satisfying grating noise as it slid onto the plate from the pan sieve.

Chips could be seasoned according to taste and tradition. My favourite was lots of salt and vinegar. My Dad loved white pepper and salt and some folk liked Ketchup or Daddy's Sauce. Missus Moonbase ate mayonnaise with her chips, although these were fries bought at a vendor and not home-made.

Having not had a home-made chip since the Seventies my taste buds have succumbed to the lesser experience of the roasted oven chip, which is a poor sad substitute. I would probably have an out of body episode if I tasted real chips again!

Did you have home-made chips as a kid? If not chips at home, what potato food did you like? 

moonbase attic mess up

The Moonbase attic used to be the nerve centre of an international vintage toy mail order operation.

Look at it now!

A vintage mess of classic proportions!

Have you got a toy mess?

me toos; chocolate knockoffs or genuine treats?

Do you like me toos in the food world?

These are copies of brands. I suppose they're knockoffs really. They're everywhere now as all the UK stores, probably worldwide, try to replicate the success of known brands with cheaper versions as as happened in the world of toys we know so well.

I eat a lot of me toos.

Just had a chocolate bar called Caramel and Biscuit by Mister Choc from Aldi. OK it won't win any prizes for snappy titles but its a fabulous attempt at a Twix. In fact I would say its even better tasting than a Twix!

Another classic Aldi doppolganger is Titan. Its a Mars Bar lookalike and the black wrapper with huge red lettering says it all. It even tastes like a Mars and once again I think its better.

What do you think of me toos readers?

american toys at frankfurt toy fair 1963

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/american-toys-on-show-at-frankfurt/query/toy+rocket

courtesy of British Pathe.

front nacelles: is it rocket science?

These old Showa omake caught my eye.

On Yahoo Japan a while back they were probably released by Morinaga or similar.

What struck me where the pairs of forward nacelles on each small model.

These remind of the similar ones on the Project SWORD Probe Force 2.

Does anyone know the history or the science of these front nacelles in rocket design?

batman made me do it

Adam West began my love of Batman as a kid in the Sixties.

I got my bat toys from my kind parents back then.

I don't have any of them anymore worst luck.

Michael Keaton began my new love of Batman as an adult in 1989.

I bought my own bat toys then.

What I got in those bat-tastic first years of collecting in the early 90's you can see above. Its hard to explain how thrilling it was to get these toys as they were the very start of my vintage toy collecting. Everything was new to me and hugely exciting as only the start can be.

Thanks Adam RIP.

Thanks Michael.

Thanks Batman.

Hope you enjoyed Baturday readers.

adam west's classic batman opening animation 1966

rob t's batcave

Hi Woodsy,

I've had a few Batman Bits too.. one of my faves was this Keaton Standee... it looked great, wish i would have kept it now. I still have the Batman Returns stand part you can see in the pics, and a couple of the Games

Rob

Adam West - The Batman of our Generation by tony k

A Tribute from the Haunted Toy Box

The bat signal flickers unanswered over Gotham City... a windy silence echoes through the deserted batcave... even the bats have gone.  All that remains are a few dog-eared comics, some old broken toys... and a few film-reel memories of a camp-as-hell TV series which made us laugh out loud, and cry for more.



 Across the world middle-age kids who perhaps never grew up, now reflect and remember their own era and incarnation of Batman, immortalised by actor, Adam West, who passed away on the 9th of June, this year. 



Filmed in a kooky Pop Art style, with its Dutch angle camera tilts, and characteristically crazy cartoon-punch inserts, the 1966 Batman TV series defined the caped crusader for years to come. Adam West's hipster Batman was equipped with a utility belt of tongue-in-cheek morality quotes, and comical capered cliches. 



He soon became the caped king of cliffhangers and choreographed fist fights.  His Gotham City was an artist's palette of bright colours straight from the pages of a comic book... populated with bumbling cops, hired henchmen, feline femme fatales, rubber shark props, an amazing car, a catchy theme tune, and a loyal sidekick called Robin.  



In 1966 tellyland, Batman's Lichtenstein landscape was consolidated by the hilariously eccentric rogue's gallery of reoccurring supervillains who were just plain old-fashioned crackers.  There was no menace or noir... the show was fun and entertaining.  It went from the ABC network to global syndication...  and is now a pop culture zeitgeist of the groovy and tuned-in television driven 1960's. 



A consumer cause-and-effect followed. The success of the TV series created a feeding frenzy for Batman toys and merchandise.  A lucrative market evolved, spilling over with licensed and unlicensed Bat-products. Some toys were top quality and made to last... others were cheap and cheerful, simply put out there to cash-in before the next mania caught the public's imagination.

  

Many of these Batman bygones are sought after by collectors today.  A worldwide search for Batman toys on eBay will generate thousands of results. The majority are modern toys based on the popular and contemporary Batman and Dark Knight movies, graphic novels, and of course, computer games. 



However, a growing number of modern market leaders, such as NECA and Hot Toys, have released a retro range of outstanding Adam West Batman toys and collectibles for nostalgic Batfans. Eaglemoss is one such company. They produced an incredible Bat-fest of display-cased automobilia, as collected, beautifully photographed, and previously reviewed by Scoop for the blog.

 Often hidden amongst the auction listings for these wonderfully sophisticated and modern Batman toys and games, are a few simpler 1960s Bat-bits-and-pieces... many arguably popularised by Adam West's Batman TV series!  Many of you reading this will have had some of them as kids.  



There were so many treasures out there back then - Batman toy cars, boats, planes, helicopters, action figures, capes, cowls, colouring books, comics, annuals and utility belts, puppets, pencil cases, guns and gum cards, rings, robots, stickers, models, masks and merchandise. Adam West made Batman so popular, so colourful, and so wonderfully cool. 



But perhaps without the influence of Adam West's Batman on yesterdays toy merchandising world, we wouldn't have had the pleasure to play with these things as kids, or the privilege to collect and enjoy them once again as adults.  Adam West was the Batman of our generation...  the Batman who made us laugh out loud... and cry for more!

Tony K

its baturday!

As a lifelong Batman fan its been a poignant year for me and no doubt many other bat fans.

I suppose the new Bat year started for me with the huge movie that was Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice. I loved its epic scale as the two Kings of DC slugged it out like caped titans. It was a real thrill. I know not everyone agreed.

Twelve months later I received a rather crusadingly good Easter gift from little Miss Moonbase, her man and Baby Base: a wonderful Bat Signal Projector pictured here taken out of its nifty box with classic graphics.

My next bat chapter came when just last Sunday little Miss Moonbase gave me this Waynetastic Father's Day card, again with a classic Bats pose showing off his six pack and bulging utility belt.

This obviously followed the very sad news of the original Batman's death, Adam West, beloved by bat fans world-wide.

It is to Adam and all his fans like me that this Baturday is dedicated.

Like the citizens of Gotham City, we shall shine our Moonbase bat-signal for one more day of Kapows, Kerrangs and Caped Crusading.

To

Adam West

Batman

1928 - 2017

mini bat-con on moonbase central tomorrow

Tomorrow is Bat-urday!

Watch out for Caped Crusading 

and 

Dark Knights!

throw down the sword this midsummer: wishbone ash's classic album argus

As the weekend closest to Midsummer approaches and the bustle of fairy folk can be heard in the hedgerows I can do but one thing: celebrate the old world's turning with the soundtrack of the solstice itself, Argus by Wishbone Ash, the lords of Avalon when it came to Seventies rock.

Argus, with its beautiful and mysterious cover depicting an ancient soldier, perhaps Greek, perhaps Arthurian, as he or she stares out at a verdigris sky tumbling over a dark forest. Glorious.

This immortal image heralds what is to be found on the album itself, a veritable banquet of Excaliberesque epics and Warrior ballads. It's as if Ash recorded a festival live in Middle Earth and mixed it at Camelot, it really is.

Wishbone Ash were often labelled a college or uni band, their double flying-V guitars an electric novelty. I think this belittles them as they were so much more. I listened to all their classic albums incessantly in the Seventies and still enjoy them all now: Wishbone Ash, Pilgrimage and Argus to name but three.

For me Ash captured a moment, a zeitgeist utterly unique to that decade when a fascination for Tolkein, Arthurian legend, the Ancients and tapping into the green mythos fused perfectly with a brilliant rock lyricism and towering  harmonic guitarmanship. They were like wizard kings with strings!

Below is one of many You Tube links to the whole album but if you have never heard any of it before or indeed any Wishbone Ash then I implore you to sample just one song to start with, Throw Down The Sword, the quintessence of Ash's genius, which can be found by clicking below:

and the full Argus experience can be found by clicking the album cover below beginning with Time Was [sorry about the ads!].

Let me know what you think and enjoy your estival weekend, your Juhannus, your Midsummer's end.

wrecking a scramble bug: the movie

Here's my latest home movie.

Its me destroying my Scramble Bug!

Part 2 to follow this summer.

Enjoy!

thank god its friday!

There's a cold beer with my name on it in the fridge. I just need to go to work, do my irksome job and come home to drink it in the garden!

Can't wait!

What are you up to today readers?

saucers at dawn: mattel v colourforms

There were two alien toy contempories who enjoyed a flying disk ride.

Back in the late Sixties flying disks were all the rage.

Mattel gave Major Mason a disk launcher but more intriguingly furnished their cute blue alien Or with the mythical yellow Orbitor in their 1970 catalogue.

Over at rivals Colorforms the Outer Space Men range of figures tantalizingly pictured Alpha 7 with a neat space saucer on its superb backing card.

I had wondered if Mel Birnkrant, Outer Space Men creator over at Colorforms might have admired the diminutive Or and its Orbitor despite it never being produced.

However reading an interview with Mr. Birnkrant about his thoughts on Mattel's Callisto I doubt it!

You can read the interview yourself on Mel's own fabulous website. It starts at the top of Page 3 complete with satirical gif!

http://melbirnkrant.com/osminterviews/page2.html#

I do have a little green man on a saucer in the attic. Well actually he's a money box or bank made by Ever Last toys. Wonder if there's any money in it?

What are your favourite flying disk and saucer toys readers?