BACK FROM THE FUTURE

 Recently, we have been looking at some vintage toy brochures and catalogues, but besides the 1960's and the Space race period, there was a second boom time for space toys in the early 1980's through the 90's. This was the direct result of George Lucas' Star Wars, which hit the big screen in 1977 and its effects are still being felt today. As spaceships and spacemen were suddenly big business again, almost all toy manufacturers extended their line with a space theme. This was manna from heaven for me, as I didn't have to work hard to find new collectibles, as once more they were everywhere. Aside from the direct knock off toys, which preyed upon existing themes and concepts portrayed in Star Wars - dark suited baddies and scantily dressed heroes - there were a lot of pure space exploration themed toys on the market too.

First off, I would like to look at SpaceLink - which was available in the 1980's via the french company Play Jour and an offshoot of the construction series Capsela. Capsela itself was a far older japanese invention, first produced by Mitsubishi Pencil Company in the seventies as a modular engineering toy. Plastic capsules enclosed motors, gear trains, mechanisms and electrical components, which could be joined together to make working models, without the need for complex instructions.

As the mechanisms were enclosed in the plastic globes, a lot of the parts were watertight, so floating models and air powered vehicles could be created. It was popular with schools and educational outlets, as like Lego Technic, could be used for simple robotics experiments.

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2011/07/capsule-wardrobe.html

The addition of the Spacelink theme took the basic sphere and added cockpits and control stations, as well as other decorative and space themed parts, to turn the globular feel of the base units into a more vehicular look. The biggest change was the introduction of figures too - Capsenauts - who could fit inside the capsules and cockpit units.

These little figures were simple and slightly robotic looking and of similar scale to a lot of other toy lines, making cross overs possible,

Later additions to the line added larger space themed body units, such as this Aqua Explorer toy, which is amphibious.

With many different elements to add to the sets, the variety and scale of the models was huge.

The fittings for the globes are a hexagonal section, roughly the same size as our next toy, Robotix. The problem is, the Capsela connectors have the flat sides at North and South, but Robotix opted for North West and South West, so joining the parts together results in a 30* shift in rotation. I did sacrifice a few connectors to make some new adaptors, but the style of the toy was too different to justify taking it further.

MB Games originally brought out Robotix in the mid 80's, but the line was later taken over by Learning Curve. In a similar fashion to Capsela, Robotix uses pre-formed space elements to connect together to build your own models. Battery powered motor units provided movement, but not sound or light.

With enough parts, very extensive and sizeable models could be built and as it was scaled around a common 3.5" figure - like the Star Wars standard -it could fit in very well with other toys and was ideal for making bases.

MB Games original sets were predominately grey, with some really well designed elements and four chunky astronaut figures, which would fit in very well with GI Joe models.

Later Learning Curve toys - such as shown in this brochure, took a simpler, more populist approach, opting for more basic models with less motorisation.

Some of the original dinosaur themed sets were included with names changed from Tyrannix, Bront and Argus to basic designations.

Accessible programmable controls were brought in for larger sets, to capitalise on the robot building market once more.

Finally, a much more purist building toy, Tente. A Lego competitor, at the time, Tente offered way more interesting construction options that the basic Lego System, which was mostly on a par with Tente's introductory sets and essentially plain building blocks. Tente opted for a much more toy oriented feel, with lots of specialised parts and accessories, making it very easy to create a complex model very quickly.

The military and nautical lines were especially detailed, with rockets, figures and small airplanes on the boats.

The Space sets had astronaut figures and lots of neat tanks and capsule attachments, making it possible to build moon buses and space refuelling vehicles, as well as rocket bases etc.

It would be decades before Lego made the leap to adding custom parts to their inventory, so that now the range is virtually indistinguishable from its early sets. Tente also made the decision to be completely incompatible with Lego, unlike other wannabe toys such as Mega Bloks, and used a much harder material and chromed parts. The moulding for elements was vey sharp and precise too.