MANTA BANTER

 As a kid I adored Manta Rays. It was part of that whole 007 skin diver frogman craze I think, mixed in with some Jacques Cousteau! Oh, how I loved his TV show!

Anyways, here's some footage of a Manta. Not by me! By New Atlantis WILD. Do you like Rays?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfgJx-ShRGI

CRAB1

This amazing BBC Earth footage totally reminded me of Marine Boy and that giant crab and Manta Ray.

This clip shows a high-tech 'spy' crab being shielded from the predating Manta by a multitude of loyal guards!

There's nothing quite like the natural world.

MANTA BANTER

 I adored Manta Rays as a kid.

For some reason I always associate them with frogmen and skin divers. 

It must have been the influence of Jacques Cousteau back in the Sixties and wonderful book covers and illustrations like these:

Of course Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and other underwater shows and films will have popularised the Ray too. The Flying Sub itself looks like one!

They are still popular sea creatures. Modern shorts include this New Atlantis Wild film

Did you like Manta Rays? Did you have a favourite illustration or even a toy or game?

MANTA FORCE AND THE MOON BUGGY

I've been enjoying reading this French blog about old toys, Toys Against the Machine, especially the Manta Force section:

https://toysagainstthemachine.wordpress.com/jouets-oublies/manta-force/m-a-n-t-a-force/

I'm much too old to have enjoyed the range first time round but I've had the pleasure of picking up a few bits over the years. I still have two large boxed vehicles in the attic!

I'm impressed with the Starblaster rocket on the blog. It has a look of Fireball XL5 would you say? Well designed too.

There's also a small blue land crawler that reminds me of the SpaceX Moon Buggy, the Turbo Drill. What do you think? Could it be remodelled into a form of Buggy?

DID YOU LIKE MANTA RAYS AS A KID?

I was obsessed with manta rays as a kid back on the Sixties. There was something just wonderful about them.

Huge, graceful and mysterious, they filled my daydreams already populated by frogmen and skin divers. 

Its hard to say where this came from; maybe James Bond's Thunderball, maybe even Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

I do recall that there were loads of pictures of rays in books and educational comics at the time. They were part of popular culture back then just like frogmen.

I don't think I had a toy ray unless one came with an Action Man set. Maybe I had a rubber ray. I know I had a rubber octopus.

Here's the sort of amazing manta illustration I mean [by Mort Kunstler]:

Did you like rays as a kid readers?