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

Monarch Models Moon Suit - Suitable for MMM

Calling all Major Matt Mason fans - Monarch have just issued a kit of the MMM Moon Suit - 15 years after the kit was first announced!

This is an unboxing video by CultTVman.

The review is from February 2024. A 2023 copyright date is visible on the instruction sheet, which is printed in colour.

There is also an information sheet on the real suit. This shows the suit on the Moon, as it appeared on the cover of Life magazine, 27th April 1962.

The kit is 1/8th scale, and is moulded in white, black, grey, and clear plastic. It comes with a diorama base, as is common with Monarch kits.

The decals are not the normal water-slide type, and this is pointed out in the review, and on the kit instruction sheet. Regular decals would have been better.

Monarch is a Canadian company, from London, Ontario, making specialist kits for enthusiasts, in limited numbers. That means they are going to be expensive (over $60 US) and hard to find, but look to be very high quality.

This looks like a great kit. I can think of at least a couple of people who will want one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC2M2hGLivo

Monarch Model Company Facebook page, with photographs of the parts and built-up model.

https://www.facebook.com/MonarchModelCorp/

Paul Adams from New Zealand

MAJOR MAJOR MATT MASON MOON SUIT PAK FULLY RESTORED WITH AIR PUMP

I recently restored the 'rubber' arms on a Mattel Major Matt Mason Moon Suit kindly donated by Wotan Bill and blogged it.

I just had one final thing to add. The air pipe and pump seen here in this carded example on FigureRealm.Com [with perished arms]

The pumped air inflates Matt's hollow rubber moon arms so they can move around and do jobs.

I didn't want mine to work, just look complete for the cabinet with its air pump visible.

Making the arms had cost me nothing except an hour's time, so a little money could go on this unusual device. I started by sourcing a wine pipe on Ebay for 99p including postage.

Alas, it was too wide for the small hole provided in the suit ,so I then bought a gift bag for 10p in a Charity shop with thin and hollow plastic handles. Bingo!

Much harder was the pump itself. I searched for bellows online - wine supplies, aquarium supplies  - and eventually found that painters use almost identical ones to puff powder paint onto paper. Who knew!

Looking so much like Mattel's original I had to go for for these. They come in packs of six. £4 including postage on FB! Most Mattel pumps are yellow but I have seen clear ones like this, so job done!

Here we go, with a total outlay of £5.09 on the pipe and pump, here's the Mattel Moon Suit Pak fully restored and ready for major operations once again [Matt couldn't be found so a stand-in obliged].

Hope you like it.

PS. I've only just realised that the protruding belt at the base pf the suit is for putting Matt's chromed tools in! How cool is that!

*

For Looey.

Eureka! I filled it with yellow paint! 😀