To many of
us, it was the Science Fiction line (called "Space Vehicles" in the
catalog) which really made a Paramount Hobbies fan. In the U.S. at least,
Paramount Hobbies released an astounding 20 kits of a truly fantastic nature,
the likes of which most American kids had never seen before - let alone knew
existed.
As the Paramount Hobbies line was rarely seen in actual hobby shops,
fans had to hunt down these most beautiful and rare kits at weird places like
smoke shops, convenience stores, department stores, and even greeting card
shops. (This author stumbled on Paramount Sci-Fi kits at the most unusual
places, finding a long-coveted Jet Dill Moon Tank kit at a gas station
convenience shop in New Hampshire!)
The kits
themselves were absolutely fantastic, as anyone familiar with the first wave of
Japanese SF kits knows already. In many ways crude and simplistic, in other
ways too beautiful for words, the spaceships and cars and tanks were hands-down
the coolest things available at the time,
light years ahead of the dreary Aurora Lost in Space models or
the AMT Star Trek models.
Yet with the Science Fiction model kits
especially, there was often a shocking discrepancy between the seductive
depiction of the vehicles in the mesmerizing box art, and the crude, cheap,
toy-like quality of the actual assembly kit. It was sort of like being ripped
off, but the end product was still so cool you gladly accepted it. It became
part of the "Paramount Hobbies Experience," wondering how widely the
two manifestations of an art concept would vary.
And when the actual model
faithfully matched the glorious illustration of it, as with Otaki's Giran
Missile Tank (Paramount's Luna Missile Tank), it was almost too good to be
true. When built, it became an almost magical invocation of something truly
"out of this world," something "impossible" come to life.
There seem
to have been two different lines of kits released in Canada and the U.S., with
very little overlap, and the Canadian branch may have begun distributing their
kits as early as 1967. The bulk of the U.S. kits were released in 1968 and
1969, and the hobby line seems to have closed up shop by the very early 1970s.
(The author even traveled to Pawtucket, Rhode Island in the summer of 1971 to
visit the Paramount Hobbies sales office, and the company had already left the
premises! Paramount had rented a tiny office in the giant Hasbro Toy complex at
that address and had, according to a Hasbro sales rep whom I spoke with
briefly, vacated their space earlier in the year.)
So, the
Paramount Hobbies "experiment" was very short-lived, at least in its
U.S. incarnation. The reasons for this may be many. The market was flooded with
product during the time period, with model kit giants like AMT, Aurora,
Monogram and Lindberg dominating the industry. Paramount Hobbies, possibly
because of their parent company, as noted distributed their hobby line almost
entirely to venues other than hobby shops, including greetings card shops,
stationary stores, toy stores, department stores, even gas station convenience
stores.
In other words, Paramount Hobbies tended to distribute their line to
exactly where they distributed their greeting card lines, which may have been
convenient from a distribution point of view but was likely disastrous in terms
of finding a loyal audience for their product.
Also, being
an early example of importing foreign kits into the domestic market may have
met with some resistance or prejudice on the part of modelers, who were weaned
on U.S. manufacturers and their lines, and were perhaps wary of venturing into
kits from another country.
Another reason may have been that the quality of the
Paramount Hobbies product varied widely. Some kits, such as many of the
automobiles, were impressive and quite detailed, coming from established
manufacturers such as Bandai, Fujimi and Eidai.
Many of the ship models, coming
from the renowned Nichimo concern, were also nicely molded and quite handsome. Other
genres fared less well; the science-fiction vehicles, for example, although
highly collectible today due to their rarity and historical value, were by and
large extremely primitive, poorly designed, lacking detail and according to
some, "little more than unassembled toys," a not-inaccurate
description.
As well, several of the Paramount armor line were crude, toy-like
kits with no detail and little to recommend them. Truthfully, one never quite
knew what one would end up with when he purchased a Paramount kit, and while an
open-minded person might find this uncertainty intriguing, it is likely most
modelers learned to be wary of this exotic line from a foreign clime.
Another
factor which may have inadvertently doomed the Paramount line to early
distinction is a feature which, at first glance, might have seemed a valuable
selling point. Many of the kits, covering virtually all genres, were motorized,
coming with either a wind-up clock-work motor, or else a battery-operated
Mabuchi DC motor and gearbox.
Proudly announced on the product packaging as an
"Action Powered Kit," this "selling point" may have
reinforced the notion that these kits were not serious scale models, but merely
"unassembled toys." Of course, all of these kits were originally produced
in Japan as motorized models, as the distinction between toy and scale model
was far less sharp in Japanese youth culture, but what was likely a huge
selling point in their original country may have been a liability when tested in North America.
But to a
certain weird brand of baby boomer, there was nothing more exciting than to be
walking down a junk store aisle and seeing these immortal words: "A
Paramount Hobbies Exclusive!"
Listed below are all known Paramount Hobbies Science Fiction
Kits:
0982 Space Invader Crawler (Imai)
1001 Tiger Jet (???)
1050 Thunderbird 1 (Imai)
1051 Thunderbird 2 (Imai)
1052 Thunderbird 3 (Imai)
1053 Thunderbird 4 (Imai)
1054 Thunderbird 5 (Imai)
1055 Lunar Sky Ship (Sky Ship One) (Imai)
1059 Moon Explorer (small Zero-X) (Imai)
1060 FAB-1 (Imai)
1070 Mars Explorer (Large Zero-X) (Imai)
1200 Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle (small) (Imai)
1201 Spectrum Patrol Car (Imai)
1202 Spectrum Command Car (Imai)
1210 Maximum Security Vehicle (Imai)
1211 Spectrum Patrol Car (Imai)
1220 Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle (small) (Imai)
1221 Spectrum Secret Carrier (Imai)
1221 Secret Car (Imai)
1270 Spectrum Cloud Base (Imai)
1260 Atomic Powered Carrier (Imai)
1280 Angel Interceptor (Imai)
1271 Spectrum Passenger Jet (Imai)
1272 Spectrum Helicopter (Imai)
1517 Remote Control Thunder Jet (???)
2009 Jet Flash R2 (LS)
2010 Jet Cat 9 (LS)
2011 Fire Bird 009 (LS)
3001 Solar Ship Beetle II (Midori)
3002 Planet Ship Meteor 2 (Midori)
3003 Mercury Space Ship (Midori)
3004 Space Command Tank 5 (Midori)
3005 Astro Car (Midori)
3006 Barracuda Hydro Tank (Nichimo?)
3007 Space Patrol Car XKW (Otaki)
3101 Jet Drill Moon Tank(Otaki)
3102 Luna Missile Tank (Otaki)
3103 Explorer VII Space Truck (Japan Hobby)
3201 Planetoid Echo 7 (Midori)
3202 Orbital Ship Super Arrow (Midori)
3203 Astro Boat Super 7 (Midori)
4101 Stingray (small) (Midori)
4103 Stingray (large) (Midori)
Hope you enjoyed it!
by
Rob C
USA
*
ADDENDUM
2019
Below is Paramount Hobbies (Canada) page 16, with the IMAI Missiles series.
