THE HOT SEAT: EXITING THE MOON ON A CHAIR

Amidst the myriad blogs and sites about the space race and its countless concepts I occasionally stumble into a new one which holds fresh nuggets of conceptual gold.

One such blog, False Steps, warranted further inspection and out popped a superb illustration that immediately made me shout loudly 'That's got Major Matt Mason Written all over it!"

I give you General Dynamics' 1964 'Study for a Lunar Escape Device', a scary looking space deck-chair with a rather natty rocket engine strapped to space hoppers! 

The False Steps author has a disarming and comical style of writing, especially the titles and captions to his posts. 

He amusingly describes this device as 'literally flying from the seat of your pants!", which really made me chuckle. Have a peek yourselves; there are more graphics of this escape unit plus much much more. 

https://falsesteps.wordpress.com/page/5/ 

[Sadly the False Steps blog is dormant, ending in 2017 and presumably as a result of the author Paul Drye publishing his book of the same name].

As for its Major Matt-ness, the brilliant escape device above calls to mind all those wonderful space flyers, chairs and boards that Mattel magicked up for their wired man in space, such as:

The fabulous Recono-Jet 

[courtesy of Blueflamechevelle]

The Space Station Chair as seen within this TV ad by Our Nostalgic Memories

and the never-produced and glorious Space Rover as seen on the magnificent Wildtoys website. Super modeller Frank May recreated it too, which is showcased on the Wildtoys site.

http://www.wildtoys.com/MMMPage/MMMresources/mmmCustomFranksRover.asp

Do you think the General Dynamics Escape Device would have made a good Major Matt toy?

Can you think of other toys that are majorly Matt Masonable?

HAS THE LESTER DEMON SUPERMARIONATION SITE GONE?

 What has happened to the Lester Demon site?

Its vanished!

You know the one, the amazing encyclopeadia of Supermarionation facts and models and toys by the Dutch archivist.

I've tried every which way to find it and its gone from the net.

It would seem that yet another great and comprehensive Anderson website has been removed.

SCIENCE FICTION MODELLER: DORMANT BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

Another bookmark I'm deleting, sadly this is a blog that has no activity on it since 2016 so I'll post a link here in homage.

Greg Martin's models are amazing. There's tons of  terrific models on this scratch builder's blog.  Many Gerry Anderson designs too and lots of buildings!

Enjoy an old blog http://gmart364.blogspot.com/2016/

Tenth Birthday Treat: The Fairylite Lady Penelope Outfits

Hi Woodsy

Thanks for the obituary on your blog!

One thing l did manage to do and was not able to to share on my site was to complete the full set on the six Fairylite Lady Penelope outfits!

They are all unused and on the card. 

It took me the best part of 15 years to do it!

Here is a photo for MC.

Regards 

 Steve C

Ex-Thunderbirdsvintagetoys website

*Steve helped me enormously during the blog's first birthday in 2009!

AN OLD THUNDERBIRDS TOYS SITE HAS GONE

I just wanted to pay my respects to a website which I adored but which now has gone offline.

Thunderbirdsvintagetoys was a true gem, a site devoted to detailing all aspects of vintage toys from the worlds of Thunderbirds.

All the good stuff was there: Fairylite, Berwick, JR21 and so on. Every toy hailing from a UK-based company was shown and described in great detail. The What's New items were always a revelation although they inevitably dwindled in frequency as new vintage items are hard to find.

One listing I recall vividly was the first time I came across a JR21 Thunderbird 2 filled with sweets. It must be ten years ago when I saw it on the site and I was blown away.  I think Somportex was involved with JR21 for it. What a gem to show online in such detail.

Two What's New items I recall clearly were a rare umbrella that was found as part of the Fairylite Lady Penelope doll's accessories and similarly a pair of rare sunglasses for the same toy figure. These were terrific finds and I really appreciated the effort showing them on the site, the only place to see things like this really.

I contacted Steve the site creator this week and he confirmed that he had taken the site down as in his words it had served its purpose. Steve helped me during the blog's first birthday celebrations in 2009.

His site can still be accessed in part, as I've discovered, on the Wayback Machine but many of the ace pictures have sadly gone.

https://web.archive.org/web/20161013231327/http://thunderbirdsvintagetoys.co.uk/index1.htm

First GACCH and now this. All the great Anderson websites, vast repositories of detailed information and pictures compiled by enthusiasts, gone. Such a damn shame! Future Anderson toy fans will just have to start from scratch I suppose.

Its a poorer place for it readers.