Or Struck

 Ive always been in awe of Or.

He's the little Major Mat Mason alien Mattel only got to prototype. 

Here he is in his spinner, Orbitor.

Major Matt Mason guru John Eaton has one of the few uber-rare examples:

https://share.google/AvjEyfkVLs039Ltj1

And Jon Jon R too

 https://share.google/R0JcDq9cCq4CgMImY

Not wishing to sell my house I made my own Or last year

There are a few other toys with alien pilots a bit like Or.

Here's the Spin Turn M-50 Space Ship minus it's dome.

Here's Parks' Sky Lab with domed pilots.

And a modern version of the foot pedal propulsion system.

A 3 foot wide hovering disc!

And when Or gets bored with his spinner he jumps ship straight into the nearest Robby Robot! 

Have you any spinners, alien pilots or major Matt Mason stuff?

The Moon Suit and Seaview

Hi Woodsy,

I have been reading a book on Irwin Allen Collectibles, by John Buss (Amberley Publishing, 2023). The book covers all four Irwin Allen TV shows from the 1960s – Land of the Giants, Lost in Space, Time Tunnel, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea; and the various books, toys, kits, View-Master reels, etc, produced at the time.

The chapter on Voyage shows the covers of all 16 Gold Key comic books (there were 16 issues based on the TV series, including a couple of re-prints) released between 1964 and 1970. Issue 4, May 1966, carried a story called Robinson Crusoe of the Depths – The Seaview becomes a helpless toy in the hands of an undersea giant !

The cover of this shows divers in some rather odd – but familiar- suits. These look like an upside-down flower pot, and I thought instantly of the Moon Suit that has appeared several times on Moonbase Central.

Three divers are shown on the cover, in red, yellow, and blue suits, as the submarine Seaview does battle with the giant. They have simply been switched from the Moon, to beneath the sea.

These suits were originally a serious design for a Lunar exploration suit, by engineer Allyn B. Hazard. It was soon used as the basis for several toys – including the Major Matt Mason Moon Suit in the 1960s.

More recently, the Monarch Model Company Inc., of Canada, released a 1/10th scale kit of the suit, in 2024. With a new colour scheme, this could be added to a collection of Seaview models.

Four photographs from Ebay and Worthpoint

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Have you a moon suit?

 

Here are the rest of the Hazard Moon Suit photos.  I was surprised to see these turned in to diving suits on the cover of a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea comic. You never know where a design will appear!

 

What's Major Matt Mason Doing?

 

He's sending in his last minute 17th birthday message to Moonbase  Central of course! 

MAJOR MATT MASON AND HIS DAIRY QUEEN JET

 I've never eaten a Dairy Queen. I don't think they appeared in the UK, so the association of Major Matt Mason and Dairy Queen is new to me.

Here's an old advertising poster I saw on auction combining the Dairy Queen Jet and the Major.

Is this news to you?

Do you eat Dairy Queen?

MAJOR SIMILARITIES

 I'm amazed how similar this old life-size kids' space helmet is to Major Matt Mason's miniature one.

Made by Dekker, this fabulous one was on the Australian Museum Powerhouse collection.

Did you have a space helmet?

MAJOR MATT MASON TV AD 1969

 

Those were the days! Did you have a Major Matt Christmas readers back in the late Sixties?

EITHER OR: MY HOME-MADE OR FROM ORION FIGURE

 Totally gobsmacked by John Eaton's original prototype Mattel Or from Orion toy I saw this week I thought I'd have a crack at making the little alien.

Here's John's original and unique Or figure 

on his fabulous Major Matt Mason blog.

Here's my Saturday afternoon, my very own 'Or'. Small and neat, putting it together from scraps - a bead head, micro toothbrush arms and the rest bits of plastic -  was a load of far out fun!

I call my figure Either. 

Either Or.

See what you think.

A WORM IN MY OR

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?

Major Matt Woody

 

There can't be much doubt that this Woody Spaceman has been inspired by Major Matt Mason.

What with the bendy arms and legs and the distinctive limb rings he could be Mattel's Man in Space!

Beyond infinity and into the realm of Colourforms Outer Space Men I could see Space Woody being converted into one of them.

Maybe Xodiac

Or Electron+

or maybe one of the modern incarnations like Metamorpho, designed by Mel Birnkrant back in the Sixties but it took the Four Horsemen to release it around 2010.

                                                                                                        Kastors Korner

Do any of you collect Outer Space Men readers?

Searching for Or

Years ago I bought a book on Space Toys of the Sixties by James Gillam. Inside the Major Matt Mason section was reference to an unproduced toy called the Orbitor. It included a small crustacean-like alien called Or from Orr I think.

I did one post on the Orbitor about 12 years ago and this is my second one. Last time I mentioned coverage of the toy on the Wildtoys website. Alas, this amazing site appears now to have gone from the net entirely.

My old post is one of just a few that actually mention the Orbitor now.

There's a reference to the Orbitor on Wheeljacks Lab, describing it as an 'educational toy', but no other information or pictures.

In fact I couldn't find a single image of this unproduced toy anywhere on the web. I know there is at least one image in existence, because its in my Gillam's Sixties Space Toys book. It shows the Orbitor as a sort of spinner with the creature sat on top under a dome. Its powered by a kind of vertical foot-pump I think.

Have you come across Major Matt Mason's Orbitor or Or from Orr readers?

Major Bat Mason by MJ

https://youtube.com/shorts/f7SfHCaFHbY?si=j1EnMO8jKSgZczX2 

Enjoy!

MJ

Southcoast Base

ED'S MOON SUITS

Woodsy,

I enjoyed your save of the Major Matt Mason Moon Suit - you really do wonders with bits-&-pieces! Have you ever thought of cobbling together a steam-punk style spaceship? 

I don't collect the original MMM - preferring, for the most part, smaller sized figures. Here's some shots of my Marx 54mm astronauts in both the Grumman MK-1 suit and the Republic Aviation suit.

From Vegas Base

Ed