I've long pondered how Century 21 Toys/ JR21 Toys made the Thunderbird 5 toy in the Sixties and often perused the web and books for hints as to what the parts were from.
I say parts because its been long conjectured by collectors that the C21/ JR21 TB5 toy was made up of other existing toys. In other words the main brown body and the engine were from existing toys.
Ten years ago I posed this same question and I established a link between the toy's clone by Soma and an obscure ice crusher! Whether this assisted in the search for the origin of the JR21 toy I don't know, but you can read it here https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-saucer-full-of-secrets-soma.html
Have you any idea what the original toy was readers? is it a toy you own? Do you like it?
What is a bit clearer is the way Derek Medding's team made the actual Thunderbird 5 model for the TV show as some research has already been done by long-time Andersonist Marc J .Frattasio back in 1996! Published on the SuperM site, Thunderbird 5's origin can be found at the end of the Thunderbirds vehicles page http://lester.demon.nl/superm/tech/sfx/tbirds/models0.html
Do you like Thunderbird 5 readers? Is it an effective model and design for the show?
T5 is myst be the most difficult of the Thunderbirds to make into a toy. All it does is hang around in space. Why make a toy T5, when theres all those other thunderbirds machines that could have been made into toys - particularly the mole!!
ReplyDeleteOh well grab a bump and go UFO and stick a barn and fence on it with a couple of aerials, put some stickers on and voila a T5 is born.
I dont know if the masudaya X7 was produced in the early 60s, but to me this looks pretty close to the T5 body.
I agree Timmy, a T5 type.
DeleteA bit of reverse engineering reveals that some Thunderbirds toys had an HPM logo on the base, which may be related to the H logo on TB5. This stood for Herts Plastic Moulders, who produced early Dalek toys for Woolies: http://thespacemuseum.net/new-page
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI’m in the strict minority here, in considering Thunderbird 5 one of the coolest of all Supermarionation designs. When I first stumbled upon the Imai model kit of Thunderbird 5 at my local toy shoppe circa 1968, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I was disappointed (but not surprised) to discover many years later that it was considered essential to despise Thunderbird 5 if you were a true “Fanderson,” one of several reasons I never aligned myself with that humorless bunch.
Ha ha - 'humourless' is a perfect description of Fanderson! Even Gerry himself was a miserable so-in-so, decrying the puppets as not real cinema or tv. TB5 is iconic and utterly unlike any other vehicle. Even the new animated TBAG series model is not as cool, its basically a death star in a doughnut!
DeleteI enjoyed my Fanderson membership. They were kind enough to print my question to Gerry himself and publish my3-part look at Project SWORD. A really fun thing was helping them produce a metal SWORD pin badge, which they based on my own Astronaut badge. I went to one convention in 2010 and enjoyed it a lot. I wish I'd have joined in the late 80's in Yorkshire. Their first convention was in Leeds I think. Anyone go to that?
DeleteWotan, nice to hear at least one other person having a less-than-holy opinion of Fanderson, and Anderson himself. I had heard stories about Gerry hating his puppets and considering them just stepping stones to his live-action stuff, which he considered his "real" works. The irony being of course, that it is the Supermarionation programs which have stood the test of time, while U.F.O. and Space: 19999 both look pretty miserable today...
Deletedeath star in a doughnut? Its a whole new way of describing a dog's breakfast!
ReplyDelete