There's something quintessentially Nineteen Sixties about frogmen and skin divers.
I adored them as a kid.
Deep Sea Divers too.
Any old divers would do as toys and my Action Man frogman was probably the best.
But it was those amazing pictures in encyclopedias and magazines that really fired my imagination.
Like the wonderful Junior World Encyclopedia cover - Lord how I loved those books! Did you!
Divers were popular in the 1950's too. This ace cover appeared on Skin Diver magazine in 1955. Yes, a whole magazine full!
And to cap it all here's some original TV footage of that all-important Action Man Frogman courtesy o f You Tube.
The speargun was the frogman's tool of choice and many toys reflected this. Probably the most famous speargun was James Bond's own in Thunderball.
Was there a diver in your life?
I had one of those yellow plastic ones that you put tablets into his tank and he'd dive and surface again.
ReplyDeleteWas it bicarb they used Kev?
DeleteI think so.
DeleteI agree, as a kid there was something very exciting, dangerous and appealing about the mysterious underwater world of divers or frogmen. As a kid, the Deep Sea Diver was the first outfit I had for my Action Man, Woodsy. Despite slight changes to the outfit and packaging it remained a classic fave with kids from the 60s-early 80s.
ReplyDeleteyep, I adored the Accy Man Deep Sea Diver too Tone. The hefty metal boots, the off-white boiler suit, the plastic dagger, the orange buoy?, the air tanks and of course the amazing helmet with its fantastc opening face hatch. I'm almost back there in my mind opening it up to see Accy Man's wet face after a nice bath back in the Sixties!
DeleteI had a few diver toys as a kid. My action man had the orange suit (like James Bond) instead of the black version. I never had the deep sea diving outfit with the gold helmet, but I did have some small diver and frogmen figure kits with terrain bases - were they Britain's?
ReplyDeleteI never conciously realised before, that that Bond poster is actually a self-parody.His gun pose is so classic that putting an absurdly big gun in his hand still works! And as a kid, you sometimes accepted the oddest things as normal!
I don't know those Britains divers Looey so I'll have to look them up. That orange James Bond rubber suit is iconic. i think I may have had one too. I know I had the black suit with the orange face mask. They were really hard to get on and off old Accy Man!
DeleteI had some Lone Star(?) model frogmen, based on the James Bond ones, also many black suited Hong Kong ones.
ReplyDeleteThose Lone Star frogmen with the gold weapons and tools are just wonderful Andy. there's a seller at summer car boots round here with a large bin full at £1 each. I'm always sorely tempted as they are so iconic. I could buy them all but I have to watch my pennies these days!
DeleteI had those lonestar divers along with a Madel man diver, some Sea-Devils too, I also had an annual of a French tv program known over here as the aviators, the actual title translates from Cavaliers of the sky and had a reprint of a French comic book with two sides opposing oriental frogmen trying to stop the French from nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific, cue lots of clumsy racial stereotypes and the heroes of the show coming out on top
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