MOONBASE CENTRAL: November 2017

Thursday, 30 November 2017

Cold Weather Action Man with Tony K

Hi Woodsy

In preparation for a possible white-out, I dug out some vintage Action Men Adventurer snaps.

Climate's cold, but the embers of nostalgia glow bright around here.

You're welcome to stoke up the fire with these old pics.

Tony K

he peered through the snow with eagle eyes

There is a strong threat of snow in the late afternoon air here in West Yorkshire. Blue boy is hankering for a run on the frozen hill.

Its freezing enough for snow. It is the first of December tomorrow after all.

I don't specifically recall many toys that were made for snow when I was a kid.

The exception were those ski-based uniforms that Action Man and his chums wore when the weather turned frosty.

I can vividly remember sending my Arctic Patrol Action Man, all dressed in white, skiing down the slope of our snow-covered tarmac drive. He managed a decently long snow plough before veering off into the verge for some apres-ski.

It was a great sight seeing him fly down the powdery incline with his white rifle strapped to his back and the glint of the just-come-on sulpher street light in his green goggles.

Those skis worked really well and the Arctic Patrol kept the wolves from the door over many winters in the Sixties.

Did you have an Arctic Patrol Action Man or indeed any other snow toys?

spare part sought for my ox

This is the best opening line I've had on an email to me for a while!

Hello-

Thank you for writing in.

We're very sorry, but we have not had a parts department since the Great Earthquake of 2011.......

HobbyLink Japan

Seriously though, it must have been very bad for all concerned.

In case your'e wondering what I wrote to HobbyLink about it was to enquire about a spare part for my die-cast Zero-X by Aoshima, the small MEV escape pod pictured stood up here.

rob c's super fantastic japanese paramount imai crawler

Here's a classic and quite beautiful SF model from Japan's Golden Age, the Crawler by Imai issued in either 1967 or 1968.

It was released in Canada as the Space Invader by Paramount Hobbies somewhere around 1969 or 1970 as pictured.

This is the first in an ongoing series of iconic Japanese SF models built, painted and showcased by American reader and modeller Rob C. Rob ran the brilliant but sadly now defunct Japan Super Fantastic Models Website for many years, which I consulted often.

Its spirit lives on though in Rob's cool blog of the same name and you can see and read more about the Paramount Crawler there

https://superfantasticmodel.wordpress.com/

On behalf of Rob over in Connecticut, USA

Enjoy!

Wednesday, 29 November 2017

three million hits reached!

We have just had our three millionth visit to Moonbase Central!

I never expected to get three hundred 10 years ago never mind three million!

I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of fellow writers Scoop, Bill and myself to thank you all for your continued support and encouragement.

It is much appreciated.

Here's to the next million!

kev's k9 john leeson autograph

Hi,

Don't really collect autographs but here is my K9 which was signed by John Leeson (who voices the dog still). It was signed whilst doing a charity event with him.

Take care,

Kevin D

brian's rogue's gallery of classic horror autographs

These are the faces you"'ll see in the hall leading to my bedroom!

Brian in NJ.

biggles autograph

Hello,

Well this autograph isn't SF or Horror unless you're referring to the 'orrible models and special effects from the TV series Biggles about 1961.

Terranova47

Woodsy asks:

are you a Biggles fan readers?

mara corday's AUTOGRAPH.

I do have a few autographs in my collection and most of them are from Sci-Fi and horror films. Here are three of them I got on the bay about ten years ago:

Mara Corday - the beautiful pin-up and actress star of Fifties Sci-Fi greats like Tarantula

Rex Reason - starred as Dr. Cal Meacham in the seminal This Island Earth

and Dr. Tom Morgan in The Creature Walks Among Us

and one final one, which I don't recognise. You?

Reader Richard suggested it might be Welsh thriller writer Craig Thomas.

I personally had assumed it was a sci-fi actor of some kind as the other two in the bundle are.

What do you think?

This random piece of memorabilia also came with the autographs too.

Anyone recognise it?

Do you have any autographs?

Tuesday, 28 November 2017

geek salad with space junk

Well the start of Advent is round the corner so I've started watching my traditional brace of seasonal movies I watch every year.

I've kicked off with a relative newcomer, Christmas Horror Story, which I've seen the last two years. Starring the brilliant William Shatner getting merry on Egg Nog, it depicts sinister events in the American town of Bailey Downs one Christmas.

The main draws for me are the really excellent Krampus character and Bill Shatner's philosophical radio host. I rented it on You Tube for 2.49. Have you seen it?

Regardless of the season mathematics rolls on regardless as does my inability to comprehend basic principles.

The latest brain melter, discussed with my daughter's fiance, is an almost unintelligible number, zero to the power of zero!

Even more lobotomising is that it equals one!

How 0 x 0 can equal 1 is simply beyond me and counter-intuitive surely! If you can explain it simply I would be obliged!

Presumably much mathematical discourse was had during the design and build of the latest NASA/ ESA mission, a space-bound bin lorry refuse truck!

Going on what I saw on today's news it looks like a large box of tricks sent up into orbit to snaffle some of the half million bits of machinery circling the globe. If I understood the schematic on TV the space bin spits out a net -like sheath to grab the floating crud and take it to burn up during re-entry.

It would make an excellent JR21 toy!

With the cold winter nights drawing in here at Moonbase and around the Northern hemisphere its time to get your coats and jackets on.

What better jacket could you have than a S.W.O.R.D brand one!

I saw this rather nifty one on Ebay!

More geekery soon

scratch biult model spacex and ufo compilations

Hi,

Just been playing around with doing little compilation images of some of my models. Came up with these.

Take care,

Kevin

Monday, 27 November 2017

Brian's Christmas party gizmoes

Well, Woodsy it sounds like our parents all had the same tastes when it came to Holiday entertaining.

Cheese rules my Holiday spread, so I have amassed a collection of these decorative cheese spreaders for the soft stuff.

For harder cheeses like Cheddar or Swiss type, I cube it up and use the colorful picks.

So easy to just put out a board and a tray of crackers for company,I just have to try not to eat it all myself!

Brian F, New Jersey

the trouble with gherkins

Its coming up to the Christmas party season.

My parents were big on parties in the Sixties. I was a carpet crawler to start with in the early Sixties eventually becoming a page boy by the first Moon Landing.

There were always some unusual items out which were only found at these get-togethers.

One that 'springs' to mind was a spring-loaded fork. It was like a pogo stick with two tines [I had to look that up, tines!] and designed for piercing, picking up and discharging socially awkward pickled onions and gherkins.

The spring-loaded handle allowed you to push the cornichon off the forked end without any fuss or faff. A very clever design really and I hope the designer got the day off after coming up with that one.

Another party gadget was the vegetable chopper. Shaped like a plastic stick grenade it was basically another spring-loaded device, which cut veg up into small chunks.

It did this by forcing down a handle, which in turn sent a series of sharp blades down a plastic shaft in which a quarter cucumber or clod of mushrooms were trapped. It was a repeating and merciless guillotine for condemned tubers and corms.

Cheese was always a favourite in the holiday season. It was usually something shaped like a dairy's brick and foil wrapped like Cracker Barrel.

This was placed on a ceramic board portraying street urchins from Old Spain, which came with a shaped slot for a curved double-pointed knife straight off the set of Dr.Giggles. Even worse was a length of wire, which was drawn slowly down the cheese to cut off a slice. That cheese wire WAS the stuff of nightmares!

Cheese was also cut into small cubes and arranged on a melamine floral tray alongside their tart chums those silverside onions and radishes. These were picked up from the tray using one of the many cocktail forks that were stood up and fanned neatly around a glass.

These forks were often short, curved, two pronged with a wooden or brightly coloured plastic handle. The only other place you found plastic that colourful in the Sixties were SpaceX toys!

There were countless more party gizmoes but my spring-loaded brain has been cut into bits inside a plastic veg chopper!

Can you think of any more?

toy flying saucer on cover of air and space mag 1987

Anyone know which space toy this is?

Wonder what the article on space toys was like inside?

london museum of childhood

One of many clips I took at the Museum of Childhood in London

a couple of summers ago.

Its crammed with vintage toys and well worth a visit.

Have you been?

Sunday, 26 November 2017

space ace collectors book!

Looks like there's a book for Space Ace collectors after all!

Written By Syd Bolton

a mystery space toy from finland christmas 1985

I saw this Christmas toy advert from 1985 on a neat Finnish website and among the shoes, puppy toys and toiletries I thought, I know that space toy, named here as the Avaruuden Tutkimusalus.

Despite not being able to read the word on its side, I reckoned it was one of these six wheelers Wotan had featured on the blog years ago but its not.