THAT'S ALL FOLKS!

 That's the lot readers, all the Predators are packed up and ready for off. 

Hope you enjoyed this toothy week's special.

Back to normal tomorrow!

Hansons Auctioneers

LONE STAR TARZAN: BLING OF THE JUNGLE

 Years ago I blogged the elusive Lone Star Tarzan set, a small carded blog legend.

First seen on the cover of a 1995 Plastic Warrior magazine decades ago the scarce rack toy has fascinated me ever since.

Well recently I found this colour picture of the set, the very first time I've seen it in colour. Alas I failed to note down where I saw it but here goes. I assume it was an old auction.

Feast your eyes!

Googling further for Lone Star Tarzans I came up with this holster and pistol set on the very same card, which is a little strange. Anyone know this holster set?

There's also a Lone Star badge with the same letter Tarzan lettering.

Can anyone shed any light on Lone Star's Tarzan output?

PrEDators: Playmates - #66008 Creatures of Skull Island: Nasty Critters!

Woodsy,

This last set from Playmates was exclusively nasty critters along with a few hapless victims - no King Kong figure in this one.

From Skull Island Vegas Bureau

Ed

GIANT PAWPRINTS IN THE PAINT

 I was a dinosaur nut as a kid. I wanted to be a paleontologist.

I'm not one but I am a bit of a fossil now!

My tender years were filled with dinosaur books depicting the fiercest predators that ever lived. I loved them all and read them voraciously and often dreamt about a T. Rex stomping up the street and peering at me through my bedroom window.

Here are a good few of the books I had as a kid.

Besides books I also loved these Polska stamps. Such iconic illustrations! My personal faves were the two giants Brontosaurus and Brachiosaurus stood in water.

I'll sign off this Jurassic jaunt with an auction listing I saw that made me smile. It's as if the dinos know they're being photographed! Ones even walking over the list of names. I love it! Ha ha. What where your favourite dino books and species?

LICENCE TO SPILL

 This Otley scrapper James Bond 007 Moon Buggy seemed a good Easter treat for Junior.

Half way through the restoration I'd patched the hole in the yellow ball with a silver stud and made a DIY radar. Some groundwork for the white paint too. I spilled a bit.

The finished article. Everything re-painted, a driver in the cockpit, a cockpit grip, wheels cleaned with lighter fluid and an F on the body, Junior's initial.

On the advice of Wotan I added some lego arms to complete the look. Its been fun James.

Hope you like it. Hope Junior likes it!

THE LION'S SHARE: ARTORAMA'S AFRICAN ANIMALS

Model building is a hobby that has always appealed more to boys than girls. But that has not stopped model companies trying to expand their market by producing lines they hoped would attract girls - most of which quickly sank.

Most of these lines were aimed at the craft market, and the kits themselves tended to be fairly simple - often snap-together - and came with various other elements, such as paints. Everything needed to complete the model came in the box.

The Monogram Artorama sets are an example of this. They were three-dimensional pictures, that came with paints, brushes, picture frame, and even a pre-painted background.

The box tops showed the whole family working on one of the sets. Monogram Hobby Kits - For Family Fun said the advertising.

The range was launched in 1961 , but only ever ran to three kits, in two sizes. They were priced at $2.98 and $4.98, making them a lot more expensive than a typical model aeroplane or car kit.

All the sets depicted groups of African animals in natural settings. The home decorator angle was heavily promoted - they were clearly aimed at a different market to most hobby kits.

CR101-298 The Zebras

CR102-298 The Lions

CR103-498 The Giraffes

The sets included plastic parts for a family group of animals, moulded in cream coloured plastic. There were usually accessories, such as a tree or other animals.

A deep shadow-box frame in black plastic, with contrasting white strips. Moulded, vac-formed 3-D plastic background, that was already painted.

A jar of the usual Adhesive/paint Solvent; a plastic pallet of six paint colours suitable for the subject; two paint brushes. There were no clear parts or decals.

According to Monogram Models by Thomas Graham, the three sets were sculpted by Hans Jernstrom. An Elephant scene was planned, but was dropped due to poor sales of the initial three sets.

No scale was mentioned. The sizes are difficult to read, but I think they are as follows:

The two smaller sets were 9 7/8 inches by 7 3/4 inches, and 2 3/8 inches deep; while the Giraffes were 15 1/2 inches by 12 1/2 inches, and 3 1/4 inches deep.

These sets were very short-lived, and have never been re-issued.

Ten photographs from Worthpoint.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

BIG GAME AND TOY CARS

 Big game have always been popular with toy car makers.

I remember many Safari-style die-casts when I was a kid.

The Corgi Toys 256 Volkswagen 1200 East African Safari set was one I recall, I'm just not sure I had one.

C&T Auctioneers

In the Seventies young kids were treated to larger plastic toys like this Adventure People Safari Set released by Fisher Price. I came across a loose set recently in a Charity shop, minus figures and animals. Neat though.

Flickr Pixelpiper

Not so much Safari as Circus, the lustrous and big Chipperfields die-cast set, housed in a tight and squeaky polystyrene tray, introduced many of us to plastic wild animals in a way only equalled by Britains back in the Sixties. What a set! Did you have any?

Lacy Scott and Knight

But perhaps the most famous and popular wildlife die-cast was the Daktari set. I had one and adored the whole thing especially Clarence the cross-eyed lion. TV-related die-casts had a captive audience, the toys being a natural spin-off from seeing Daktari on the telly each week. Did you have this set?

Traffictoys, Australia, Ebay

Do you recall any wildlife toys, games or annuals readers?

GRIZZLED!

Have you seen Grizzly, the wilderness 'horror' film from the 1970's?

As you can imagine its about a Grizzly bear running amok in an American National Park and eating the campers. There are some tense moments amongst the ranger chatter, especially as the beast approaches its prey and virtually no-one goes home without a bear hug.

It was panned at the time of its release as a brazen JAWS clone and to be fair there are many elements that the director has nicked from Speilberg: the der-der music during stalking, the flying severed arm and most starkly, the ending, which I've leave at that in case you watch it!

But I enjoyed GRIZZLY. I always wanted to be a National Park ranger in the UK. I studied nature conservation for 3 years including national park management but alas in the 80's all the jobs were in Cities and I ended up part of the urban conservation 'industry' and got based in a Leeds environmental charity, where I stayed for 20 years! I am a creature of habit if nothing else! I certainly never came across any Grizzly bears. 

I also like GRIZZLY because it captures something I imagine has gone in the US, the atmospheric olde-worlde mountain restaurant where the walls are made of redwood logs and the big wood fire is always burning, casting a soft light onto healthy-looking hikers sipping brandy from huge bowled glasses. Aah.

It also reminds me of two other films I enjoyed; Prophecy about a mutated bear monster and the very similar Snowbeast repleat with chisel-jawed mountain men too. Grizzly was very successful financially and I bet it beat these two into a cocked hat.

GRIZZLY had one 'official' bit of merchandise as far as I can tell and its quite sought after by the looks of it: the GRIZZLY rubber bear by Imperial Toys [yes, they who brought us Apollo Moon Exploring!]. 

The Imperial bear seems to have been an example of the 'hey, quick, slap a header card on that old toy and get it in the shops and we'll make a few bucks!" school of marketing!

They already had a growling polar bear in stock and when GRIZZLY came out they painted it and shipped it out. I imagine the header card was the first thing to go and few will have survived unlike the tough rubber bear. 

Having said that I found this pic online of three Imperial Grizzlies all with their 'official' card labels present and correct! Looking at it again I see that the word Grizzly, in its correct film font, is TM'd on the card. Could Imperial have actually got a licence for this toy?

Did you or do you have a Grizzly?

      Image: Mego Talk

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Addendum!

Here's Brian F's Grizzly toy in front of a MC post!!

Grrrrr!

ON THE MOONBASE BENCH: WHIPPED AND FLIPPED!

 On the bench at the mo are a few projects.

I'm patching up the chroming on these old plastic Light Sabre handles. The Missus is making little Miss Moonbase a Doll's House Suitcase.

Something I finished last week for Wotan, the redline Hairy Hauler. It got a new DIY window and a new metallic green coat. Next to it is my redline Whip Creamer with new DIY window and mock spinner. These windows were both cut from Super Glue package blisters.

Work continues on the two larger die-casts for Junior for Easter, the Lunar Bug and the 007 Moon Buggy. I'm just waiting for some red paint for the Bug roof and a simple DIY attachment for the Buggy 'arms'.

Wotan told me that the Whip Creamer has been re-issued in modern styling but still retaining a plastic roof and spinner. Its called the Whip Creamer II.

In a lightbulb moment I bought this cheap one on Ebay for a few pounds.

I really don't like the modern style at all.

The original redline is SO much slicker!

So it wasn't too painful for me to remove, with some difficulty I might add, the roof and spinner from the new one. I then sawed off the curved ends of the roof.

eh voila! whipped and flipped!

Not too bad I must say! Worth the investment in the new Whip II for parts, Do you agree?

Right up to date are these cheap Corgi and Matchbox die-cast scrappers, which have just arrived in the docking bay at Moonbase. They include the purple Freeman x 2, which I adored as a kid. You too?

There's quite a lot of paint loss on this ensemble.

I started with the pick-up sans its front grille.

I had a spare from something else, which did the job.

I'll keep you posted on further work in progress on all these projects.