Wednesday, 24 December 2025
Ed's Christmas Train
It's Christmas Eve!
What are you up to readers?
I wonder what those astronauts on the ISS are doing?
Would you like to be in space?
Tuesday, 23 December 2025
A Birthday Tipple!
A nice glass of Birthday port from Missus Moonbase.
Mmmmm!
Hmmm.
Something's missing. But what?
Christmas is Saved!
The good news is .... My mate Mark has saved Christmas!
The darn plumbers never showed to fix their mistakes but Mark grabbed his tool bag ( and his young son!) and came to the rescue!
A couple of hours later, both leaks fixed!
Yay!
💦💦
With the house warm and dry again I've been relaxing with my new NASA 2001 Space Glider, the unusual blue one. It's a real Austrian beauty!
MERRY XMAS FROM SCOOP
Season's greetings to all my Moonbase pals. Have a toytastic time and my best wishes to you all for the New Year.
CHRIS REA R.I.P.
Sorry to hear that musician Chris Rea passed away yesterday, age 74. I'm not sure whether he is that well known outside the U.K., but at this time of year, many of us in Blighty enjoy listening to his seasonal record, Driving Home for Christmas.
Our sincere condolences to his family, friends and fans.
Tea with the Beatles
Monday, 22 December 2025
Matteline 1967 Christmas Special
Leaks, Lost Videos and Missing Gliders
Well my last day being 64 has been somewhat stressful so far it has to be said.
I'm meant to be going out for a Chinese buffet in a couple of hours but I'm sat waiting for a plumber who is already 4 hours late! The work is to re-fix a radiator leak he repaired already last week and deal with another one his workmate caused, another leak we only discovered on return from holiday to find curtains and carpet wet through!
To add to the frays of the day, a parcel I was expecting last week got sent back to the depot as we were away. First of all Royal Mail said it was returning it to the sender, in Austria! Then they decided the address was legible and said I could have it redelivered. This required downloading their app and lying about their postman's calling card, which was never left. This familiar tale of postal Xmas woe does have a happy ending however. The parcel was redelivered today and I am the proud owner of a rare blue NASA 2001 Space Glider!
Alas, further fraying of my already frazzled brainpan ensued when I thought another parcel was lost. It arrived minutes before we went away last week and I shoved it somewhere. Looking today I realized I had no idea where! (Similar to my missing toy radar tale in 2012!).
To find it I had to eliminate every possible place it could be: attic, recycling bin outside, packaging store, cupboards, shelves and dark corners. I even double checked eBay to see if it had actually been delivered or was I dreaming!
The final place was my wife's big secret bag of my birthday goodies stood on her chest of drawers behind her mirror. And there it was! I'd put it in there for safe keeping! How odd but Phew!
So, I'm reunited with my new Tenebrae VHS video, united with my new NASA Glider but as yet, still no sign of the plumber!
I may have to kiss that buffet goodbye!
Do you lose things? Have things redelivered? Have leaks readers?
Sim's Christmas Carol
Late last night I caught A Christmas Carol, the 1951 black and white version starring Alistair Sim as Scrooge.
For me personally, this is the best film version of the Dickens tale and one which starts Christmas proper.
The film somehow seems to capture the London fog, the poverty, the wealth and the downright eeriness of the mid- 1800's, not bad going in 1951. It feels like a genuinely scary ghost story, say, in the same creepy way MR James' tales were televised. It's British Gothic at its best.
The appearance of Mervyn Johns as Bob Cratchett, a man running out of time for his son, harks back to his role in the equally fabulous and unsettling Dead of Night from 1945, amazingly after a WWII UK ban on horror being made, where he plays an architect lost in a recurring and very very disquieting dream. The finale with the dummy is simply stunning!
Both these black and white movies are just great and would go well as a double-bill.
What do you think readers?
Labyrinth: Lost in the Maze
Me and the Missus saw Labyrinth on DVD last night. I'm pretty sure I've not seen it before, but it's so old, like me, I can't be sure.
A triumph for Jim Henson's puppetry, I'm not certain it was for David Bowie. I haven't checked Google but being a Bowie fan I was underwhelmed by his performance and the songs he'd written. I found it quite boring. But then again it is a kids film so what do I know!
Jennifer Connelly looks very young so I guess she did OK among all the foam rubber mayhem.
For me, Labyrinth hasn't the power of say, Legend, but I'd be interested to see Dark Crystal, another one I missed and see if fares better.
Did you like Labyrinth readers?
From the Blog Xmas 2008
Above - Spacex II Booster Rocket backing card rear
Above - Spacex II MOLAB backing card rear
Above - Spacex II Lunar Orbitor backing card rear
Above - Spacex II Lunar Orbitor and Apollo Tracker backing card rears and Boxed Moon Base Set ( foldable plastic lunar plan not shown)
Above - Spacex II MOLAB backing card front and Lunar Orbiter front (with toy, astronaut and badge)
Above - top left: Elf Toys Tracy Island Prototype with Dinky die- casts: Top right - Elf Toys Tracy Island actual toy with JR21 vehiclesSunday, 21 December 2025
The Noir Knight
Z-Cars, Bottle tops and Höfner
Wandering round Oakham Museum in Rutland I spotted these old games.
Z-Cars was a great TV show. Don't think I had the game but I had the annual.
Did you?
Is Xmas When you got New Toys?
Was it Christmas when you got your new toys as a kid?
It was for me.
OK, there was a slow drip of gifts and impulse buys throughout the year, maybe a surprise at Easter and certainly pick-me-ups when I was ill and off school (yay!).
But it was Christmas Day when my shelves were re-stocked properly, the new must-haves like Haunted House and the Johnny Seven One Man Army appearing under the tree (just how did Father Christmas get that down the chimney?).
My Christmas-located birthday just added to the festive bonanza and basically the two big days brought me up to date in the world of toydom and annuals, not to mention clothes and selection boxes! (They were the best!)
What was it like for you readers?
Paul's Merry Christmas Message
Airships and Saucers
These are unusual toy spaceships. Remote controlled or sound controlled, they appear to have similar designs.
The Red Astronef is described as an airship.
The white Space Ship can be shot at using the sound pistol.
Do you like them?
Saturday, 20 December 2025
The MoonBase Christmas Quiz 🎄
OK Moonbasers, time to grab a glass of advocaat and have a go! It's as easy as mince pie!🕯️
- The name of the building in Die Hard
- When did King Wenceslas look out
- In which carol is Let Nothing Ye Dismay
- When is Nikolaus celebrated
- Who released the Secret Sam attache case
- Name the Three Kings
- What was there none of at the Inn
- Who appears in a Christmas Carol: Santa Clause or Father Christmas
- Which toy is Arnie after in Jingle All the Way
- Does Mistletoe grow in the soil
- Which singer sang Walking in the Air in the Snowman
- Is the North Pole in the Antarctic or the Arctic
- Who brings gifts on her broom on the Italian Epiphany
- What colour is the Spirit of Christmas Present's clothes in A Christmas Carol
- What is it that we won't go until we've got some of it
- Which two male leads appear in the film The Holiday
- Where did the first Christmas tree in London's Trafalgar Square come from
- Small plastic pegs pushed into a paper picture in an illuminated frame. Which toy is this
- Who invented the 12" GI Joe toy figure
- Which song is sung at the end of Elf to boost Santa's sleigh
- Which two glass creatures does Kevin buy in Home Alone 2
- What will Rudolph go down in
- Where is Jack Skellington when he discovers Christmas in the film Nightmare Before Christmas
- Which old British black and white TV sketch do Germans watch every New Year's Eve
- What does Buddy do at his Dad's work at the end of Elf
- Who is Joulupukki?
Fantasy Box Art 20
Matteline 1967 has just done another fantasy box art video - number 20. A pity none of these kits are real, as all would make great models.
Abbott and Costello Go To Mars, Cocoon, Stingray, the Australian TV series Chopper Squad, Salvage 1, Super Car, Secret Service, and James Bond. Lots of fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNeR9FQRWM
Paul Adams from New Zealand
Captain Space Solar Scout Rifle
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Followers
MJ's BATMAN AND SUPERMAN SHORT ANIMATIONS
Paul Vreede's New Spacex Toys Website
CHECKLISTS BY BRAND (FOR COUNTRY BY COUNTRY SEE TOP OF BLOG)
PROJECT SWORD SPACEX TIMELINE
- 1968 SPACEX LT10 CONCEPT
- 1966 SPACE GLIDER REAL THING
- 1969 LUNAR CLIMBER & MOONSHIP
- 1968 PROJECT SWORD ANNUAL
- 1968 TV21 #168 PROJECT SWORD PHASE 2
- 1968 PLEASURE CRUISER CONCEPT
- 1968 CENTURY 21 TOY MANUAL
- 1967 SCOUT 1 CONCEPT
- 1967 NUCLEAR FERRY TOY AD
- 1967 SWORD TOY AD
- 1967 SWORD TOY AD
- 1966 SPACE GLIDER CONCEPT
- 1966 HOVERTANK IN COMIC
- 1966 NUKE PULSE NEEDLEPROBE IN COMIC
- 1966 ZERO X FILM DEBUT
- 1966 MOONBUS IN COMIC
- 1966 SPACE PATROL 1
- 1966 P3 HELICOPTER IN COMIC
- 1966 SAND FLEA AND SNOW TRAIN
- 1966 MOBILE LAUNCH PAD IN COMIC
- 1965 SPACEX MOONBASE CONCEPT
- 1965 APOLLO FIRST UK TOY AD
- 1962 NOVA CONCEPT
- 1962 MOONBUS CONCEPT
- 1961 MOON PROSPECTOR CONCEPT
- 1953 MOLAB CONCEPT















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