SOAK 1999

I had to look twice at this! That yellow handle says Space 1999 to me!

and here's a proper 99 knockoff, the Force!

Logan's Done: A Custom Kmart Princess Logan's Run Doll

 Keeping the toy workshop rolling, here's our custom version of Kmart's rare 'Logans Run' Princess Doll completely finished.

See what you think.

As usual Bill supplied the fabulous card art and I finagled the card and blister and dressed the doll.

Something a little different, here's our mock-off on the left and it's inspiration on the right, the original carded doll as featured in the brilliant Megomuseum site.

LOGAN'S DONE! MY CUSTOM LOGAN 5 CLOTHED PRINCESS DOLL

 A while back after finishing Zython I was flicking once more through my new and fabulous Knockoffs christmas gift book and found a another rare cheapo toy I just had to make.

The original and elusive toy appears both in the Plaid Stallions Knockoffs book and the related Mego Museum website.

Here it is, the fabulously cheesy 1970's Kmart Princess with new Long Hair doll in original Mego Logan's Run garb. The maker's clearly wanted to use up male Mego Logan 5 outfits rather than kit her out in the more diaphanous slip Jessica 6 wears in the 1976 movie. 

After all, this is a knockoff and nothing to do with Logan's Run.

[you can read all about Mego's attempt at Logan's Run toys on the brilliant Mego Museum site].

Image: Mego Museum

I looked around for an original Princess Long Hair doll and found a few for sale but they were all too dear for a tight-fisted Yorkshireman!

I also found this modern repro Logan's Run jumper made professionally for 12" dolls on eBay by BlackAshKitBash. Beautiful work but ten pounds would make me cry.

image; BlackAshKitBash

I decided to start from scratch and raided my doll stash for a suitable 12 inch Barbie clone.

A few swags of felt and cloth later and hey presto!

The boots came courtesy of Ebay from a very inexpensive seller. I coloured them black,

All she needs now is a card and blister. I will have to be extra nice to Bill!

What do you think readers?

I'll have to watch the film again now. Do you like Logan's Run? Book, film or series? Any toys?

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A Fawcett Footnote: 

As a footnote, this project reminded me that Farrah Fawcett starred as Holly 13 in Logan's Run too wearing a glittery dress..

 and that I once found a huge doll that I thought was Farrah in yes, a glittery dress [it wasn't Farrah!]

You can read my blog entry at the time about this find here.

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2017/09/dont-fawcett.html

Farah's stint in Logan's Run has inspired others to make custom figures of her. Here's a neat one I saw on Figure Realm by Nightwing1975 with Holly 5 in an equally glittery dress, a project which also includes an Action Man dressed as Logan 5! Now why didn't Palitoy think of that!

What do you think?

Image: Figure Realm

Coming full circle, Farrah even had her own Seventies knockoff too called Tanya/ Sport Girl ripping off Hasbro's Charlies Angels range. Don't fawcett!

There's No Escape Batman!

 Tracking down clones or origins of Sixties TV character toy guns is fun.

Here's another.

Lincoln's cool Batman Escape Gun.

And here are it's clones or maybe origins.

Do you have any of these? 

Larami Space Shooter. Presumably a later clone.

Unbranded Satellite and Rocket Pistol. Could these be older than Lincoln's gun?

Images: courtesy of Ebay

HE-MAN: KIND OF!

 I do love a good knockoff and a mega hit like Masters of the Universe spawned many a tacky He-Man. Here's a few I've seen this year.

Do you have any?

I bet kids loved them at Christmas!

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Slender legs 

[possibly a Galaxy rider]

Barbarella's angel!

I thought that was a Christmas tree in the bag! Its battlecat!

Don't look into his eyes!

Civil War? Dressed like that?

More like Arm and Hammer!

Ed's GIANT Plastics Corp Googly-Eyed Alien Knock-off

Woodsy,

I think we all like seeing or acquiring oddball toys and this is a cool toy I picked up a few months back. It is a knock-off of one of GIANT"s aliens but is a sliver blow-mold vs. a solid piece of plastic. I love his googly eyes! LOL

From Vegas Base

Ed

Toys and Stuff Blog

ACRO MERCHANT

I saw this online. I'm not a Micronauts collector but I assume this is a knockoff.

Its called Mecha Acro Year.

Its not a bad-looking toy. What do you think?

ED'S NEW KNOCKOFF CRICKET

Woodsy and Fellow Moonbaser's,

I managed to score this nice little knock-off of the Spacex Cricket. 

After looking at Paul V.'s SpaceX toys website it appears to be from an unknown manufacturer. My sample is missing the grill, one hubcap, and the gun mechanism has been glued in place but it's still a nice little piece.

 The photo editing gave it a more yellowish hue than it has up close and personal. It's more of a cream color with yellow mixed.

From Vegas Base

Ed

THE ACE TEAM

 At Sunday's boot sale I had great fun rummaging in a box of old stuff  - all 25p each!

Having bagged my booty, as always I've begun to think about what I left behind! The booter's curse!

The box contained a a couple of cheapo helicopters labelled Ace Team and I think Air Team. Clearly A-Team knockoffs, both were small black die-casts.

These were not the toys I was looking for and I left them behind in their dusty casket for someone else.

Looking up these cheapo choppers I could only find Ace Team and only the van, which wasn't at the sale. 

There's one on Ebay and it says the maker is Szetoys, which is new to me. 

Googling further there's even a version of this with Mr. T pictured on the roof.

What I did get from the sale was the real McCoy, a Rough Riders A-Team Enforcer van, which needs a bit of TLC. Here's one I saw on Worthpoint.

Have you got any A-Team toys or knockoffs readers?

Sundae Sundae

Before we cut down on car booting on account of our house bursting at the seems, we visited the local Leeds sale one last time this month. We plan to limit our car boot visits to just one a month from now on. That's the plan anyway!

Today's old and inexpensive toy haul was an interesting bag.

See what you think.

At the back, a Clangers 1969 jigsaw

Left to Right, Action Man go kart, Popy Kaiju monster [ID needed], cheap Action Man KO [ID needed], Action Man detonator, Italian plastic car, A Team Enforcer van, Action Man German helmet, four Hot Wheels and a Terrahawks tank.

FAKEAWAY?

 I'm always amazed by the number of Space 1999 knock-offs and bootlegs there are.

It's a brave second-hand world of plastic and resin.

Here's one I stumbled across online, a cheapo looking hand-weapon.

If it wasn't for the aging torn header card I'd say it looks 3D printed but I think its actually quite old.

Anyone recognise it?

Tong in Cheek

 I picked up this 80's TONG Barbie clone yesterday in a German charity shop.

TONG is a new one on me and the make is clearly marked on the doll's neck rear.

Maybe the clothes she's got on is original too. I'm not sure.

The body may well be another brand as I think TONG bodies were articulated.

Anyways, for 50 cents I'll turn the other cheek.

Anyone any TONG experience readers?

Turning Japanese

 I saw this knock-off Zeroid recently in a random search. It looks like a solid block of rubbery plastic in the way the Imperial Toys knockoffs were. This one's Japanese. No idea how big or small it is.

There's a Kaiju on the header and a name. Can anyone translate it? 

SUB STANDARD

I had to chuckle when I saw this old carded frogman. I mean, the firm have just brazenly ripped off one of my favourite Action Man box illustrations! It was clearly the Wild West back then in Hong Kong when anything went!

The toy itself appears to not live up to the famous illustration, a super cheapo frogman and a one-man sub that looks like a soda siphon canister.

Still, back in the day I would have accepted this toy with open arms. I would today! ha ha

Did you have a one-man sub?

THE COMBAT MAN TRAIN DOWN SHERWOOD FOREST

 We're just back from a weekend away in the pleasant River Trent countryside around Newark in Nottinghamshire down the road from Sherwood Forest.

Newark has a large castle ruin, a big river with very fine slow cruises [we enjoyed it a lot] and many good shops, including, yes .... charity shops!

Despite the number of charities, I was only tempted to buy a bundle of seven old Conan the Barbarian comics for seven quid.

The car boot sale down the road at Sherwood Forest [Robin Hood jokes welcomed!] was better and I came away with a few die-casts for Junior and me, two Sontarans and a neat boxed Combat Man Military Train set, which was my fave purchase.

I know the Combat Man brand from my interest in knockoff Action Man figures. Its a Mego/Lion Rock line from the late 70's/early 80's and was essentially a 7-inch articulated male figure, like the earlier Little Big Man, with loads of carded WWII uniforms. There were also small plastic soldier sets and my Military Train Set [with Chug Chug Sound!] is one of these, although it wasn't released with small plastic soldiers. There is no Mego or Lion Rock branding on it all.

The UK Combat Man brand mark is like a soldier's dog-tag and often says 'and his adventures in World War II'. Lion Rock also issued it as 'Johnny Action' in the US. It was re-branded in many other countries and the Mego Museum lists them all here https://www.megomuseum.com/lionrock/index.html

It's sister set is a vehicle set, which does contain small plastic soldiers and a missile launcher not unlike the Merehall one many of us have in our own collections.

Trafalgar Toys, as seen on this box from an online auction, were likely the importers.

My Combat Man train set is all complete but doesn't work. I'll need to scrape off the old battery acid from the battery unit contacts in the big loco and give it a rejuvenating dose of WD40.

The previous owner, no doubt a pesky youngster [I ask you! ha ha], had stuck a load of stickers on the rooves of the two main carriages, so I'm currently soaking them in my special perfect-fit carriage soaking bath.

As soon as this train set is ready for combat operations I'll alert Moonbase readers stat!

Oh, and like the Conan comics, it was 7 pounds.

Any good?