WHEN DID STAR WARS REBOOT?

I caught a little of Ridley Scott's Prometheus last night on TV.

I've seen it many times and consider it to be an important sci-fi film and the clear reboot of the ALIEN franchise.

However when I think of Star Wars its less clear to me which film rebooted the movie series. Was it Phantom Menace or was it the first Disney effort, The Force Awakens?

What do you think readers?

JELLYNAUT

I often see these jelly LP astronauts on Yahoo Japan.

Were they strictly Japanese or did they turn up elsewhere readers?

THUNDERBIRD 3 TOY MYSTERY

I love this old Birthday Card I bought offa Ebay.

Besides the vintage ted's admiring his rocket there's a genuine yellow and red Thunderbird 3 toy too!

Anyone any idea which toy TB3 it is?

DISRUPTION IN REPLYING

Missus Moonbase has suffered a viral infection and I have had to step up and nurse her and look after the base and its resident Mutt, together with going to work.

This is all after the wider family visiting and staying over last weekend.

As a result my replies and responses to comments and emails are delayed sorry.

Please bear with me. I will respond.

GC STARFORCE FIGHTER 1: X-WING TO YOU AND ME!

As old Star Wars knockoffs go this looks pretty good.

Somewhere for sale online far far away in Italy I thought it wasn't too bad.

Made by GC, its the Star Force Fighter 1.

Is it a straight X-Wing rip-off or is there something else in there too?

Did George Lucas try to stop knockoffs do you know?

OVERCHARGED

It gets all too much for Pino.

HARRY POTTER ON TATOOINE

I've been discussing Harry Potter recently with someone who knows all 7 films well.

Its a convoluted tale of good and evil and mushroomed into a monster since the days when I saw the first 2 films starring an adolescent Danny Radcliffe.

Valdemort, Dumbledor, Slitherin, Gryffendor, Hagrin, Hermione, Weezley and the Potters all waltz around each other in a delirious dance of spells and sorcery.

It reminds of the extended Star Wars story-arc with all its rebellious twists and turns over the many galactic films.

Valdemort as the Emporer, Harry as Luke, Hermione as Leia and Dumbledore as Obi Wan!

I've never brought any Potter merchandise home I don't think. Not even a single wand. I can imagine though that Potter stuff will be collectables of the future.

Have you come across any Potter collectables? 

GENERAL FOAM: THE MODERN TARHEEL PLASTICS FOLDS 2017

Any readers work there in Tarboro?

Anyone remember working there in the 1960's when it was Tarheel Plastics?

Here's a You Tube clip about modern Tarboro.

UFO INTERCEPTORS DEMOLISHED MY HOUSE!

Scoop's amazing photos of his SHADO2's the other day really reminded of how much I loved Anderson die-casts as a kid.

I think the UFO interceptor was one of my faves. I regularly blasted my Airfix armies with it. The missile trigger was quite a big mechanism underneath I recall.

In fact I can't think of a bigger missile on any other toy I had. UFO's didn't stand a chance!

Was the UFO Interceptor the biggest toy missile around readers?

CENTURY 21 TV ADVERTS

Vintage Gerry Anderson TV commercials for ice-cream and more!

Courtesy of Mr.Jim on You Tube.

Do you remember them?

GRAND BATMOBILE 2

My final unmasking of Moonbase Grandson's ERTL Batmobile.

GRAND BATMOBILE 1

Moonbase Grandson has an Ertl Batmobile.

I took a few snaps and added some bat zazzle.

Here's the first flutter.

ITS AN ADVENTURE PLAYGROUND!

We took the Moonbase Grandson to an adventure playground this morning. You know, zip slide, wobbly logs, rope ladders, wooden forts, revolving cupolas and swinging bridges.

He's too small really and was quite happy running up and down the slopes of the forest park it was set in.

I don't recall adventure playgrounds when I was a kid. I'm pretty sure there wasn't one in Preston in the Sixties. Certainly not one near me, I would have remembered the zip slide or death slide, although I did send my Action Man down the washing line!

Later in the early eighties I noticed more of them springing up and when I went to the Continent they had paid staff to help kids and parents make the most of the big playgrounds.

Did you go to an adventure playground readers?

SUPER ROCKET PLANE ON ALPHADROME

Joe K's great post about the AHI Super Rocket Plane aka the Century 21 Moonship

http://danefield.com/alpha/forums/topic/19374-1969-super-rocket-plane-by-ahi/

DINKY MOBILES & THE SOUND OF SILENCE

Before I break up the temporary diorama I did for my previous post and photos on my Product Enterprise Mobiles, I thought I do a few shots of two of my Dinky S.H.A.D.O. Mobiles which have been given a bit of a make –over.

After watching the UFO episode, Sound of Silence which uses Black Park, situated next to Pinewood Studios for some of its locations, I thought I’d have a little fun trying to recreate some of the model scenes which featured the Mobiles. 

In the episode a UFO lands in a lake within a thickly wooded area. Mobiles are sent to investigate, and it soon becomes clear that the UFO is hidden beneath the murky depths. As dusk falls the Mobiles close in… 

Col. Paul Foster oversees the hunt for the UFO and uses SHADO Control as the mobile base of operations. Unlike the other three Mobiles, SHADO Control has a roof mounted radar scanner.  I scratch –built one for the Dinky using some plastic card, plastic square shaped rod, some bits of old kit parts, and for the radar dish, a section of a clear curved  plastic from the side of a washing up bottle. Finally, it’s bolted to the roof so I can rotate it by hand.

As I only build these things for my photos they don’t have to be ultra-accurate, just look something like.

For S.H.A.D.O. 1, which I built a while ago, the only scratch-built parts are the bits on the cabin roof. I used spray paint Ford Cuirass Metallic for the body, although for my SHADO Control I opted for Ford Glacier Blue, which is slightly lighter in shade.

I suppose I’ll probably get round to doing a Dinky S.H.A.D.O.2 & 3 eventually, once I find a couple of cheap donor models, suitably battered and  ready for a new lease of life.

CRIVENS! ITS THE FANTASTIC FOUR

On the way back from Bangor earlier in the week me and the Missus had a lovely time drinking a bottle of pop [like the song!] and listening to ...... the Fantastic Four!

How did we do this?

By listening to a CD that reader and fellow blogger Kid had kindly sent me in the post!

What was the CD?

A beautifully made miniature copy of the story The way it Began released by Power Records complete with facsimile label.

Thanks Kid!

It's an excellent tale of how the four became fantastic but don't take my word for it. Reed [get it, reed!] Kid's own ace post about it on his blog Crivens!

As Ben Grimm might have said, its bloggerin' time!

https://kidr77.blogspot.com/2014/04/power-records-presents-fantastic-four.html

SIR ROGER MOORE READS ALADDIN: LANTERN RECORDS 1966

Relatively little from my early childhood has survived.

My first five or six years.

There's a First Communion Badge [no idea when that was but I assume I was very young] and an Aladdin record released by Lantern and read by a young and as yet unknighted Roger Moore no less. I was 5 years old when I got it. Fifty four years ago!

I have my original record somewhere in the attic together with an empty sleeve I found at a car boot sale. I know its my original record because I signed it as a kid. Alas, part of the record has snapped off, as if bitten!

I have a vague memory of listening to talking books like this. You know, where you follow the story with your finger in a separate printed booklet that came with it.

This was the same with Lantern's Aladdin.

You can experience this once more - or perhaps for the first time - courtesy of You Tube, as amazingly, the record, story and booklet are all there!

So, sit back and enjoy. It's 1966 again.

I'm not sure if these old talking records are collectable nowadays but obviously this particular copy is of great personal importance to me.

Did you listen to records like this readers?

SPACE RAID CAR: A CHI CHI TOY

What on Kryton is this?

The Space Raid car no less. By Chi Chi from 1985. Saw it online this year.

As Winston Wolf would say, it has character!

What are its influences readers?

What do you think?

Ugly or diamond?

BANDAI'S THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO AT THE LONDON TOY FAIR

The ever intrepid H, the Small Scale World toy website press correspondent, kindly sent MC these snaps he took at the London Toy Show of the upcoming Thunderbirds Are Go toys from Bandai. Thanks H!

As Scoop reported here in January, Bandai were named UK distributor for the toys in the trade press back in late January:

http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2019/01/new-thunderbirds-are-go-toyline-from.html

Its reported that the product range will be produced by Hengxin Shambala Kids Cultural Industry Development, Bandai's master toy partner in China. Distribution will be managed by Bandai UK.

According to the trade journal Toynews, "The new toy line consists of collectables, action figures and vehicles which encourage imaginative rescue roleplay and interaction between the characters and their craft".

There is also a short unrelated video by Blast Process on You Tube showing these toys at the Fair too

What do you think readers?

I RUBBED MY BEARD WITH GRIPPING HANDS

Its a face thing.

I always wanted a beard like my Action Man when I was a kid and  - maybe - even his honorable cheek scar.

It took many years of puberty to get the first sproutings on my tender chin. This was universally known as bumfluff.

Pleasingly this initial foliage quickly bloomed into a proper bush in my late teens, but by this point my real hair Action Man had gone to the barbers in the Palitoy sky and I couldn't show it off to him.

My beard was never the neat trimmed suede of Action Man, which always seemed to have had bits of cotton and dust stuck to it like a record cleaner. Mine was a large scraggy pillow of hair, which I frequently rubbed. I also had a mass of dark thicket on my head and the overall effect will have been like a walking fur-ball. Imagine Chewbacca with cords on and wearing specs!

I kept my full beard for a good couple of Prog Rock years in the late Seventies and early Eighties. It was a warm hippy friend and Palitoy would have been on a winner if they'd had not just put real hair on their fighting man but real 'growing' hair like mine! Even old soldiers go to seed!

Beards are on my mind - and on my chin - as I have grown a new one this half term break. No longer the fine Lion's mane I once sported alas but a beard nonetheless. In fact its much more like a Palitoy record cleaner this time round as I am follicly challenged in my late Fifties! Its also the colour of aluminium! If I was issued by Palitoy I'd be the Silver Fox [with slipping hands]! I never did get that scar though.

So Action Man, wherever you are in the retirement home for plastic vets, here's to you and your perfect Palitoy beard. I hope you're keeping it trimmed and fluff free! I salute you.

Was your fighting twelve inch man bearded?

MYSTERY SOLVED: ITS MACKIE 3

An anonymous reader solved the MAC vehicle mystery [above] the other day.

Its the MACKIE 3 from Ultraman.

The toy set above I saw today on Yahoo Japan could well be the toy I posted recently, except its blue rather than being white.

The model version of the vehicle is very distinctive as you can see over at Mandarake.

I know next to nothing about Ultraman or how Mackie 3 slotted into the story but there's an Andersonesque element to this spaceship I'm sure.

R IS FOR ROCKET AND TWO TOY ASTRONAUTS

Always on the lookout for vintage toys on book covers, here's one.

Two spacemen on the front of Ray Bradbury's R is for Rocket.

Are they toy figures readers?

Anyone read the book? I saw this on an auction site.

HONG KONG TOYS CATALOGUE 1986: LP AND TAI HING TOYS

Via Bill B: the complete 1986 Hong Kong Toys Catalogue available now via Google Drive [GD] as a PDF for download. It cannot be viewed online, and has to be downloaded and saved locally. Its BIG!

GD will give you warnings about file size, and GDs inability to scan it for viruses, but it's just a massive PDF of over 600 pages of toys. Feel free to save, and share again via GD.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HBN_YNr7EvnmEC06qADNj0sTgh3wDM_K

Three pages of interest to readers of Moonbase especially are the LP page and the 2 Tai Hing [T in a Circle] pages. I have copied and saved them as screengrabs.

Here's the LP page with the red devil logo very clear. The full name of the company is too: Lik Be Plastics and Metal Factory Ltd.

Its interesting to see how LP had developed by 1986 where they offer musical boxes and giftware.

Of equal interest is this, the first Tai Hing page. Many toy collectors will know them better as T in a Circle on account of their logo but here that is not used. The full Tai Hing brand is shown. All of the toys we've seen before except the flying disk copter and the soldiers, which are new to the blog.

Have you got any of these toys?

Fascinatingly, Tai Hing pop up again in the same catalogue but this time with a completely new range of toys and a new logo based on a seal balancing a ball on its nose!

Does anyone have any of these toys?

IMAI KAGAKU MYSTERY TOY

I caught this on Yahoo Japan and thought, hmm, those wings look familiar.

Angel Interceptor from Captain Scarlet?

But the rest?

What is this old lump of grubby plastic readers?

Its says Imai Kagaku underneath.

MILTON BRADLEY SUPERCAR TO THE RESCUE BOARD GAME

Hi Woodsy,

In your surveys of board games, you seem to have missed the Supercar game. I wonder if it was just an American release?

regards,

Andy B.

TEMPTING TOYS TUGGED MY WALLET

 Continuing my look behind the dusty curtains of dead stock here are two snaps of a store in Llandudno, which was closed when we visited the seaside spa town, a jewel on the North Wales coast.

The reflection of the window is awful sorry but you may make out a very nice boxed Fisher Price toy garage, which might have drawn me through the door.

There's also a Marvel Legends Spidey figure boxed, a Run DMC carded figure and a Spidey pickup truck.

Everything appeared to be £20 each.

Anything of interest?

I also saw two 12 or maybe 18 inch articulated Star Wars figures in a Charity shop. A Stormtrooper and a Darth Vader. They were marked Disney so were modern. In fabulous shape and working order I was tempted but the £10 each price tag put me off. Similarly, £5 for a large die-cast Polistil vintage blue roadster loose was too much.

Would you have passed?

Concluding this journey into holiday toying I was chuffed to hold a modern version of Twin Mill in our local Lidl on the way home.

Twin Mill was one of my fave Hot Wheels as a kid and its great to see the redline classics getting a whole new generation excited. When my Grandson is old enough to appreciate the names of redlines I'll get him the re-issues down at Lidl or Aldi!

Do you collect Hot Wheels re-issues?

DEAD STOCK COMBAT SOLDIER: CHEAPO THRILLS IN BORTH

After posting about old dead stock shops yesterday I realised that I may not have ever posted my fave bit of dead stock.

Its this Combat Soldier.

A cheapo Action Man knockoff in a bag. I loved this guy when I saw him and his two buddies. They were awaiting orders on a dusty shelf in the seaside resort of Borth in North Wales way back in the summer of 2014.

It took me right back to buying toys like this as a kid in Zodiac Toys around 1967.

The old shop was called Hubbards Gift Shop. Their price tag is on the back.

I adored the header card artwork. It was like a small painting!

The rack toys were unpunched too!

Old Combat Soldier has quite a friendly face too. 

Since I would never leave a man behind, I bought all three!

Also at the store I bought an old doll as well called Susie, who became a Star Maiden homage in later years and also a set of old plastic baby counting bricks by Codeg bagged with a neat header.

I can't find any pics of the Codeg toy in my archive but Susie I've blogged before and she now lives with Arto.

Alas, Combat Soldier became a victim of my compulsion to sell toys on Ebay back in 2014/15 and joined the lost boys of the everlasting knockoff war.

Have you found any old dead stock shops or dusty old fancy goods stores leftover from a bygone era readers? Maybe you don't want to say! ha ha

JR21 ROCKET LAUNCHER ON ALPHADROME

A neat post about the JR21 and an Eastern European rocket toy by Tinplate6 on the fabulous Alphadrome site.

http://danefield.com/alpha/forums/topic/20364-twin-rockets/

FINDING OLD DEAD STOCK BEHIND THE CASTLE WALLS

Well, we're back on Moon Base and our journey to the mountains and the sea in the land of dragons is sadly over.

North Wales is uniquely beautiful and our spiritual home as we spent a fantastic three years there studying and working in our early twenties. We fell in love with the place.

We've visited North Wales many times since and I always nip into the occasional discount store in case ancient toys linger still as I did in Borth a few years back. I look out for these places wherever I am in the world. These aren't vintage toy shops but rather stores selling ancient fancy goods, hardware and toys for whatever reason.

Well, this trip's find was Bargains Galore in the castled city of Caernarfon. This old budget dead stock shop was stuffed with rack and boxed toys from the late 80's and 90's I would guess. Alas, the Missus was on a mission to explore the world-class castle walls so I didn't get long at all before having to leave. If you are in the area it might be worth rummaging and delving to see what's there among the dust, including a few dark corners and alcoves I noticed.

What I did see were: a boxed Barbie Make-up head, window boxed Action Man type cheapo figures [1990's I would say], very large bagged plastic Knights armour set with header, Superted boxed sets of some sort [Superted is a Welsh cartoon character], rack toy Hong Kong brush and dustpan sets, marble rollercoaster boxed plastic toy, plastic toy guns and rifles and a rack of carded rack toys like a small child's American Policeman and motorbike set on bubble card.

It amazes me that shops full of old dead stock like this still exist but I'm always thrilled to find them. I didn't see anything that took my fancy but as I said I could have done with a lot more time.

Let us know if you go in and find anything!

There were some other vintage toys in the charity shops we went in, which I'll describe later.

With our stay in Gwynedd sadly over we drove home the hundred plus miles being entertained by the Fantastic Four on Power Records courtesy of Kid.

I shall report back on this later too as our dog is arriving now from the dog-sitter! Woof!

MOON RANGERS CLIP

For anyone who missed last weeks Endeavour episode on ITV, here's a clip showing the puppet sequence that's been widely distributed on line by Century 21 films, the people behind the Thunderbirds 1965 project.

https://vimeo.com/317852670?fbclid=IwAR15dsrPQH4DpsK2qw56VkcJgnYWUFTfVK7wYowxZ4FaLssfiVkKcc1gTKM

I know it's only short, but I thought it was a really good homage to the earlier AP Films series'. I imagine quite a few fans would love to see a series of this, I know I would.

TARHEEL TOY FIRE ENGINE

We've seen this before but maybe not the box.

I saved these pics from Ebay ages ago.

Its the Tarheel Fire Engine.

The T with kids logo is on the box end above and on the side of the toy.

The model number is 5710.

Unusually for Tarheel this toy is tinplate.

Tarheel also released a series of Project SWORD toys in the late 60's for the American and Canadian markets.

Here's the blog's checklist of Tarheel toys.

Have you got any Tarheel toys?

PROJECT DYNA SOAR

I like this short film on You Tube by Okrajoe using NASA footage.

It helps bring to life the backstory to my Project SWORD Dyna Soar toy from 1967.

It compliments this other colour short published by Julian Budde on You Tube.

TV CRIME DRAMA TO FEATURE 'SUPERMARIONATION-LIKE' SEGMENT

The latest episode of the TV crime series, Endeavour may be of some interest to Gerry & Sylvia Anderson fans as it features scenes reminiscent of their famous puppet/marionette series.

Endeavour, a spin- off of the Inspector Morse TV series, which was set in contemporary times, and starred the late John Thaw, is set in 1969, and features a younger Detective Sergeant Endeavour Morse, (played by Shaun Evans) earlier in his police career . 

Photo:  ITV/Radio Times

The episode is called ‘Apollo’, and takes place at the time of the first Moon Landing. According to an online Radio Times article by Mark Braxton, Endeavour creator & writer Russell Lewis says that the episode is a love letter to the puppet era of the Andersons, and goes on to say that without Gerry Anderson’s imagination firing his own, Russell doubts he would be doing what he does today.

The talented folk behind the Thunderbirds 1965 project, and the Halifax Bank advert featuring Lady Penelope and Parker were brought in to help film the puppet /marionette scenes, along with original Thunderbirds’ director, David Elliot, and original Thunderbirds puppeteer Mary Turner.

In the episode the drama takes place in a fictional film studio with Supermarionation influences, where a puppet series called Moon Rangers, which features a square-jawed hero called Major Rock Renton is being filmed. 

Photo: ITV/Radio Times

As a minor point of interest, most Anderson fans will be aware that in 1969 the last Supermarionation puppet series, The Secret Service had completed filming in January at the Anderson’s  Stirling Road Century 21 studio in Slough. 

Endeavour ‘Apollo’ first airs on ITV at 8.00 pm on Sunday, 17^th February 2019

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-02-17/endeavour-apollo-moon-rangers-studio-gerry-anderson-thunderbirds-stingray-supermarionation/

Quick update: Well, I watched it, but of course I wouldn't dream of giving the plot away.  The puppet scenes are uncannily reminiscent of the earlier A.P. Films series, and there's one or two in- jokes for the Anderson aficionado. The location chosen for the fictional film studio do bear a passing resemblance to the buildings used at Stirling Road in Slough, and a couple of genuine vintage toys can be seen in the studio office sets. Well worth a watch if you like a quality feature-length period crime drama with a little extra added.