I was completely amazed by the real and unique Or and Orbitor toy owned by John Eaton and published on his Major Matt Mason blog [thanks Paul V.]
Regarding John's Or itself, its such a cute and fragile-looking plastic alien creature in two attractive colours. Its a really appealing figure, almost Bruderesque and would 'sit' well among the Colourforms Outrer Space Men too, as well as its stablemates Callisto, Captain Lazer and Scorpio.
Seeing Or made me think of other similar insectoid robots. I couldn't find any contemporaries of Or from the 1960's but there are a few from later decades that have those creepy crawly robot chops.
There's the modern dancing robot.
Kenner's Star Wars droid with Or-like legs.
One of many Japanese candy premiums. I don't know how old these are.
The spinner itself, the Orbitor, recalls in looks my favourite Matt Mason gadget as a kid, the Satellite Launch Pak shown below.
The concept of domed satellite spinners has been around a while. Below is the PLANET PATROL SAUCER ray gun set with domed rotors that fly from the end of the gun and is from the 1950's. Is that an alien inside?
And finally here is the LUNAR ORBITOR by NP of Germany. Although it has no dome, the centre is topped with a neat silver radar. I don't know the date of this. There are many more examples of satellite toys with domes and thingies stuck on top.
There are more space spinners.
These uber-cool Stanzel sets even contain a tiny domed figure.
Closer inspection on Ebay shows its an astronaut and not an alien.
But their spinner went plastic too and became a Ziroid!
To cap this post off here's a neat seated robot piloting the M-50 Space Ship.
Have you any spinning discs with aliens or robots in a dome readers?
The closest similarity to Or is the Mettoy Playcraft Busy Bodies saucer from 1972. I actually bought this off you, back in the day! Bill
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ha ha, In remember selling you that! I got it at an evening toy fair in Elsecar, didn't know what it was I recall. Alas, I disagree, it doesn't look like Or to me.
DeleteOr is crying out for a Woodsy bodge-up! Watch this space!
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