SLEIGH TIME

This mystery sled in my scrap box brought back a flood of memories.

As a kid I had the Action Man Explorer sled along with a pack of Huskies. Watch out the Polar regions, he we come!

Here's the 40th Anniversary release of the set I saw online.

There's some wonderful photographs of the original 1969 set on Action Man HQ.

https://www.actionmanhq.co.uk/action-man-vehicles/sledge-and-dog-team/index.php

Is it a set you had readers?

SNOW WAY

 Its snowing like mad here at Moonbase.

How's the weather at your end?

Man, Its Cold Outside!

 

Lots of the white stuff here this morning around Moonbase. Reminds me of when I'd get my Polar Explorer Action Man out as a kid and have him skiiing down the sloped snow-covered drive!

What's the weather like where you are in the world readers?

Did you enjoy your Action Men or GI Joe outdoors?

Action Man Arctic Polar Dog Sledge Team by Toy With It

 

To celebrate the snow falling outside tonight and my memory of playing with my Action Man Arctic Patrol as a kid here's a staged Action Man snow shot by the brilliant Toy With It on You Tube. I love how they've got snow flakes swirling round. It looks great!

Have you any toys in snow pics and images?

Whilst we're at it here's Toy With It's Action Man Antarctic Polar Explorer set. Look at all that prep before the shot!

THE SNOW CRUISER

I always enjoy watching old reels showing fabulous vehicles. There were more amazing vehicles produced than I ever imagined and sometimes bring the visions of the TV21 artists to life.

I watched this clip on You Tube of the 1939 Snow Cruiser and immediately thought of the Snow Train, which featured prominently in the Project SWORD Annual.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUXq8NWh5vg&feature=emb_logo

I'm sure it will remind you of other fictional vehicles. I wonder what happened to the Snow Cruiser?

Did you have any snow toy vehicles?

SNOW WAY

My 4x4 made it up the crag OK

Then I was trapped in an avalanche!

The Beast from the East had got me!

MY LIFE-SIZE PALITOY ARCTIC PATROL OUTFIT

The Beast from the East is slowly receding from West Yorkshire.

Its still freezing and I've just been out to look at some birds in the fields.

Taking off my parka, peaked cap and black binoculars and seeing them together I suddenly thought ......

Where Eagles Dare!

Yes, its more or less the same as Clint and Richard had on in the 1968 WWII romp.

Come to think of it its more or less the top half of Palitoy's Action Man Mountain and Arctic Outfit too! This one's on Ebay.

I think the binoculars were white in this set though, which would make sense if you are trying to blend in.

That box art has a distinct look of Clint to me!

I've such a vivid memory of sliding my own arctic outfit Action Man down our snow-covered drive in the Sixties. It was sloped so perfect for short runs on his skis! His black and white rifle is imprinted on my brain.

I'd like to think I sent my orange-jacketed Polar Explorer down the slop too but there's no memory there. I can still feel the shiny plastic Husky dog in my hands though.

Did you have an arctic or polar Action Man readers or any other snowy action figures?

SNOW PATROL

Hi,

Couldn't waste the snow! Here is the Spacex Mobile HQ trekking across an icy moon somewhere in the Solar System!

Take care,

Kevin

UK

[vehicle is Kev's own scratchbuild]

G O D Z I L L A ' S W I N T E R

Hey Woodsy.

A bit of a mess here, a foot of snow and still falling. I am shoveling snow every 2 hours to keep from being snowed in. The good news is I spent the time between painting this model and in about an hour it should be assembled.

All hail The King!

Brian F

New Jersey

American Snowplough

Hello, 

Just an action shot to show the snow clearing prior to the missile launcher in the snow. 

Terranova47

USA

New Jersey Tundra

My mini Matterhorn is not quite as majestic as the Piz Gloria, but it's the most snow I've seen around here in almost 10 years.

Thanks to my trusty shovel , I am free to come and go, although I'd rather stay in.

Hope you are enjoying yourselves out there.

Brian, NJ

States of Snow

Just a shout out to our American friends being battered by the latest snow storm.

Hunker down and stay warm!

Get those old Toy Shop and Collectable Toys and Values mags out and stay in bed!

Stay safe and let us know how you are.

Woodsy

American Snowfall: Yard Avengers of New Jersey

Hi Woodsy, for the fourth time in two weeks snow has fallen here at "Monster Base".

Thank you to all at Moonbase for sharing the very best in pop culture and letting me add to the fun.

May the coming year bring joy to you and yours.

Happy New Year.

Brian F,

New Jersey

Snow Joke Mister Tracy

I really did nearly need Thunderbird 2 this snow-filled afternoon!

Just had a winter nightmare of a dog walk with Blue boy!

It started badly and got worse!

1. Missus Moonbase took my house and car keys shopping by mistake

2. Spare house key found but the spare car keys only open the boot on my car so it meant climbing over all the seats

3. The country lane to the fields was covered in slush and black ice

4. It was unusually dark in the countryside but the dog walk was fine

5. Then I reversed to leave the lane only to get stuck behind a iced hump of ground!

6. No amount of revving worked. Rubber was burning.

7. The boot of my car was just three feet from a stream and pushed into brash and bramble

8. I wrestled through the bramble to get to two old large foot-well mats in the boot

9. I placed one tightly under each rear tyre

10. I revved again and thank goodness, the tyres bit and off I sped off into the pitch black leaving the mats behind!

11. I also left the boot door wide open but didn't know. Blue was in the boot!

12. I drove gingerly down the icy lane looking for somewhere else flat to turn around

13. I reversed into a farm entrance and heard a clunk but thought nothing of it [I'd reversed the boot door into a high farm gate]

14. I drove slowly back down the lane direction home

15. I passed two torch-bearing dog-walkers who shouted 'Your boot's open!'

16. I pulled up, looked at a cold Blue and shut the boot remembering not to shut the driver's door or else I'd be stuck outside

17. Got home! Adrenaline still pumping!

18. Had a beer! Blue had tea.

What would you have done?

Kev's Thunderbird 1 arrived just as I'd left!

[pic: Kevin's scratch built Thunderbird 1]

snow base central

Its snowing here at the Yorkshire Moonbase!

My nutcrackers are freezing.

Plans to go off-world to Moonbase Daughters put on hold.

BBC weather warnings ringing in our ears!

We need a Thunderbird 2 pod vehicle!

Can anyone send us a pic of any TB2 pod vehicles in snow?

TO US READERS

The UK News is showing record-breaking amounts of Snow in the Northern USA.

Its snowing here outside my house in West Yorkshire, Northern England .....

... but noting like the snow-dump I've just seen in Pennsylvania on the telly. HUGE amounts of the white stuff!

Stay warm and safe in the Big American Freeze guys!

icicle garden

One of my fave images taken on my phone this winter so far is this ice stalagmite in the Moonbase garden.

Its formed as drops of water from our hose have frozen in a vertical column on the lawn. A lovely feature and one which you would otherwise find in a cave or on an ice planet.

If the big freeze had continued then the icicle would have reached the hose itself and formed an ice column like these beautiful structures seen online from the Tatra mountains, Slovakia [image: Reddit]

Have you any icicles?

terranova47's winter toy projects

POND: Attached is a photo of the community pond in Connecticut that I have my eye on for early spring toy boating. Every time we walked over there this autumn I forgot to take a recent purchase of a battery powered Police Launch with me.

DECK: A picture of the table on our deck Sunday morning. I'll have to shovel the snow away if it's still there to put up our winter bird feeder.

BATS: One of this weekends projects was a painting progress photo of Dan, Digby and Sir Hubert meeting an alien life form. Photography is the best way to see how a paint job is progressing.

St. LOONEY: I finally added a church to Northern Heights. In my head before construction there were always going to be lots of bridges and church spires. Some bridges happened, this is the first church, the name is taken from Monty Python.

GLADIATOR: I don't know if kit building was one of your childhood hobbies but I'm old enough to have been in at the beginning of Woolworths and Airfix. Back in 1956 I think, the Gloster Gladiator was the first biplane kit. 

I remember both my mother and father getting glue every where when collectively we failed to add the upper wings. 

I had the worlds first monoplane Gloster Gladiator with Biggles flying it complaining about the lack of wings, I was recreating the action of Biggles Sees it Through. This had Biggles and chums flying Gladiators in Finland.

Around that time I also read the WW2 propaganda stories of the three Gloster Gladiators on Malta, Faith, Hope and Charity. 

I had planned to one day build all three, but first I build a FROG kit which was an easier model to build. Over the years I had acquired two other old kits and last year I bought the latest Airfix version which was pretty much unchanged from 1956. 

The beauty of the last kit was it came with a decal sheet for all three aircraft, Faith, Hope & Charity. Last week I built them. Given all the kits I've built over the years I should have done a better job with the top wings, still they do have top wings this time!

The picture shows Biggles about to lead Faith, Hope & Charity on a dawn patrol. This project was much less effort than that of the James May show a couple of years ago when he had built a full size Spitfire Airfix Construction Kit.

Regards,

Terranova47

USA

snow report

During the recent snows across the Northern Hemisphere I have received the following weather reports from readers.

Brian

New Jersey, USA

Terranova47

Connecticut, USA

Did any of you get your toys out in the snow?

Cold Weather Action Man with Tony K

Hi Woodsy

In preparation for a possible white-out, I dug out some vintage Action Men Adventurer snaps.

Climate's cold, but the embers of nostalgia glow bright around here.

You're welcome to stoke up the fire with these old pics.

Tony K