EITHER OR'S FUNZIES

 Messing with my Or.

Enjoy!

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?

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?

MORE OR

I love Or.

I've posted about the little alien a few times over the years. He's a bit of a blog legend.

Basically Or was the never-produced mini-alien friend of Major Matt Mason. He was to have his own spinning space disk too.

I first came across Or in the 90's in my toy bible Toys of the Sixties.

I saw it in colour for the first time in Space Toys of the Sixties.

The first time I ever saw what Or and its Orbitor might look like in the flesh was Frank May's custom model showcased on the brilliant Wildtoys site.

So I was thrilled this year to see another custom Or model on the net on a well known auction site. Made by a Canadian modeller in Quebec, Frenchboomer, I like the disc's simplicity, the tubular dome and the classic Or look.

Having seen Or again I realise that he sort of reminds of a toy robot I've been noticing for years on the net, the Dancing Robot! Only sort of!

Have you come across Or or anything like it before readers?

saucers at dawn: mattel v colourforms

There were two alien toy contempories who enjoyed a flying disk ride.

Back in the late Sixties flying disks were all the rage.

Mattel gave Major Mason a disk launcher but more intriguingly furnished their cute blue alien Or with the mythical yellow Orbitor in their 1970 catalogue.

Over at rivals Colorforms the Outer Space Men range of figures tantalizingly pictured Alpha 7 with a neat space saucer on its superb backing card.

I had wondered if Mel Birnkrant, Outer Space Men creator over at Colorforms might have admired the diminutive Or and its Orbitor despite it never being produced.

However reading an interview with Mr. Birnkrant about his thoughts on Mattel's Callisto I doubt it!

You can read the interview yourself on Mel's own fabulous website. It starts at the top of Page 3 complete with satirical gif!

http://melbirnkrant.com/osminterviews/page2.html#

I do have a little green man on a saucer in the attic. Well actually he's a money box or bank made by Ever Last toys. Wonder if there's any money in it?

What are your favourite flying disk and saucer toys readers?