Continuing with my Thunderbirds theme, here's another quick look at the Model Space 1:144 scale Thunderbird 2.
Saturday, 30 August 2025
TV TIMES XMAS 1965
I've been leafing through some old TV Times, and these pages from the London 1965 Christmas edition caught my eye.
Tivvy had his own page, featuring Jimmy Handley, and a couple of special guests.
Kevin's Moebius Seaview Build
Hi,
I've recently completed this Moebius kit of Seaview. Great model but stupidly big!
Dive, dive!
Kevin
UK
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Friday, 29 August 2025
AOSHIMA THUNDERBIRD 1 EARLY VERSION
It's been fun revisiting the Seaview and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, but I think it's now time to move on.
Now, what to replace it with?
I've got the Southport Airshow coming up tomorrow, so when it comes to Airshows, Thunderbirds springs to my mind.
I've got a couple of examples of the kit, but for this I chose the earlier orientation of the wheeled landing legs for this version , as I prefer it's look, and model doesn't need balancing weights.
I'll post some photos of the ski landing gear version later.
Looey at the Hurstville Fair
Hello Moonbasers! The Missus and I visited the Hurstville Collectables Fair and caught up with our old mate Glen Ware, who organised the Jonathan Harris "Never fear, Smith is here" Australian tour last century!
As a mixed toy and record Fair, the records seem to be rising in number, the toys were pretty thin by comparison.
The venue was the Marana Auditorium.
A full squad of hand painted Marx knights.
I actually found a Dinky Spitfire in pretty good condition (although possibly repainted) but as put off by the ugly Typhoon style lower cowling (I've just thought it might have been to accommodate the internal electric motor to spin the propellor)
There was a Corgi and Dinky arms race going on!
A brace of Dinky Star Trek ( later issue?) Ships and Geoff Love who was a big feature in my late teens! I had that Tee Vee Tunes 2 disc vinyl set on CD, back in the day...
The auditorium almost inundated with LP's rather than toys! (Who IS that woman on the scooter?
Is she really 69?)
Three strikes and he's out...
A vintage Matt Mason accessory, but nothing is priced -Strike 1!
It's been opened -Strike 2!
So HOW much is it? He can't tell me until he's Googled how much they're going for on Ebay!!!
$190, but he'll knock of a few bucks for the damaged pack...
STRIIIKE 3 -AND HE'S OUT!
I did get a bunch of vintage DVDs for $3, 2 &1 each and the Missus got a 1999 Cinefantastique Stop Motion double issue, with Ray Harryhausen on the cover!!
Oh, and NZ Paul, you know that Barbie Movie Corvette 4 pack?
...they didn't have it!
Happier Hunting in the Old Dart, Woodsy!
Looey
Oz
Thursday, 28 August 2025
VTTBOTS IN LOOK-IN
As I mentioned in my earlier Gold Key post, there was a brief inclusion of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in Look -In comic, here's a quick look at the first instalments of the two heavily abridged black & white Gold Key reprints.
Following a short break, the second story, 'The Overland Trail', unsurprisingly about pulling the Seaview across land, first appeared in Voyage Gold Key issue 6. This began in Loon-In issue 32, and continued until issue 36.
In issue 24, Look-In carried a two-page feature on TV science fiction, which included a brief mention of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Interesting to note that only series that were shown on independent television were mentioned, as Look -In was affiliated to ITV and not the BBC, so no mention of Star Trek and Dr Who.
Ed's US Army GPA Amphibious Jeeps
While I don't have any civilian Aquacar's of the type recently posted, here's a couple of similar ones I do have.
The Ideal GPA in light blue SP has been in my collection for many years now.
The Marx GPA in hard plastic was added to the collection just this past week and has a story to it. I recently learned of the Marx version while perusing back issues of Playset Magazine.
It mentioned that the Marx Amphibious Jeep was quite rare. Then, while randomly searching for things on fleaBay I came across three separate sales that would make a complete GPA! The body was on auction which I won for a whopping 5$.
However, it had issues: there's a chunk missing out of one side and the axle supports had been removed (what the 'you-know-what'! Who would do that?) Then a set of five vintage Marx wheel sets came up (always useful having extra sets on hand) and I snatched those up.
Lastest, but not leastest, was the repo cannon - correct for this vehicle. The repos were made of resin back in the '90s so it too is now a vintage piece.
For the moment - and just to show what a complete vehicle would look like - I took the photos with the wheel sets simply inserted into the bottom of the hull.
From the right angles, it still looks good.
From Camp Las Vegas
Ed
IRWIN'S COLOURING BOOKS
Some photos of my Irwin Allen TV series colouring books.
I do like to collect certain TV related colouring and puzzle books, and find the painted covers really nostalgic.
I've never done a check list of Irwin's colouring books, but I'd imagine there's a few more out there, especially in the U.S.
Anyway, here's my trio of books.
A great example of the kind of covers I like to see. This appeared in 1965, and was published by Whitman. They even advertise their wax crayons on the back cover.
The line drawings inside, provided by Jason Studios are unsurprisingly fairly simple, and just waiting in anticipation to be ruined by some liberal use of some Whitman wax crayons.
The Time Tunnel didn't get that much merchandise, but at least we got a colouring book.
Again, a lovely painted front cover by prolific Ohio born water colourist , Lowell Ellsworth Smith (1924 - 2008) , and probably based on a combination of publicity photos.
This was published in 1966, by Ohio publishing company, Saalfield,
The simple illustrations are pretty good, as are the likenesses of the characters.
I know there were several Land of the Giants colouring books released, but at least I've managed to get my hands on one example.
This was published in 1969, by World Distributers. Like the Time Tunnel book, the illustrations are pretty good, which do concentrate more on the characters. One thing of note is the 'Spindrift' is never named, and simply referred to as the 'spaceship'.
ZERIODS MOVIE
A bit if fun with Windows movie maker and my Zeroids.
I did it back in 2015. Hopefully, I've improved a bit since then.
Tether Racers AKA Spindizzies
And now for something completely different.
Attached is an advert from the back page of the latest Hornby Railway Collectors Association magazine.
It's by a fairly renowned auction house and for once doesn't show any rare trains but rather a quartet of very fetching and abstract looking racing cars in primary colours.
Being bereft of wifi for a week meant I couldn't check them out straightaway but here's what I found.
They're tether racers, powered by the same type of miniature combustion engines as RC model aircraft and such. And they have quite a history too.
They come in all shapes and engine classes. The thin long three-wheelers can reach speeds over 200 mph. And the ones on auction could reach figures over £1000.
Here's a bunch of links:
The selection of cars on (a previous) auction:
A quick grounder:
A bit of history:
A day at the track:
And for those who haven't given up yet: a pair of young Americans reacting like young Americans do but also giving an idea and showing some nice cars:
Best
Paul V.
Wednesday, 27 August 2025
VTTBOTS IN TV TORNADO
A two-page black & white Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea comic strip was published in the first six issues of TV Tornado, before being replaced with text stories until issue 14.
Here's the first complete two-page strip, drawn by Mick Anglo
Voyage appeared sharing the front cover on a few occasions, as well as one on the cover of issue 54 long after the strip had finished in the comic.
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