Over the Moon!

Heres another odd example of Tri-ang making a stand alone space toy, Luna-Cy. Probably the best presented and packaged of the missile base sets ive come across so far. Made in 1969/70, the game is designed so that players can blast rockets at a vac-formed plastic moon hemisphere that clips onto a door frame, as can be seen in the article from 'Games and Toys' Trade journal and the two catalogue snippets pictured above.

Its had a lot of thought put into the game, the large door clip has a special card banner that hangs on the outside, warning entrants to the room that rocket firing is in progress - which is a good thing, as the launchers are very powerful! The spring tension can be adjusted to one of three settings, which from experience I would put at wow!, jeezus! and oh god there goes the lampshade! In fact, the only real flaw with the toy is the power of the launchers as the small trigger that propelled the rocket forward eventually snaps off as it hits the gantry.

Besides two large launchers, half a moon and six missiles, the set comes with six themed base cards. In a flash of precognitive brilliance, the designers have used Peking as the centre for a chinese rocket base, predicting the oriental space programme by some decades, but equally they miss the mark slightly by placing a similar facility in London!

Artwork for the box and packaging is lavish and colourful and the top of the box features a pop out section that enables an open box display and the sides have fabulous colour paintings of the toy. Even the inner tray has a star speckled finish.

The moon hemisphere is very reminiscent of the Spacex Moon landscape that was provded in the Supersets a year later. The rubber tipped rockets and the large launchers remind me very strongly of the pilot episode of Joe 90, where the stolen Mig jet bombards a missile base featuring pads very similar to the Luna-Cy set.

Catalogue scans and toys from the Wotan Archive and the Games and Toys excerpt kindly supplied by the Philosophic Toad.

Tri-ang Moonmobile Redux

Ive touched on this baby before in the more general article http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2009/02/crawler-cavalcade-by-wotan.html, but its one of my special favourites and actually the very first item I ever bought on ebay!

Made by Tri-ang for the 'space year 1969' as the small article in the Tri-ang '69 Xmas catalogue puts it, this is a wonderful toy by any stretch of the imagination. Bearing very close similarity to its larger Marx cousin and also having a lot in common with Mattels Space Crawler, this is a much more 'sci-fi' vehicle than the other more realistic crawlers.

The streamlined hull and chromed parts are accentuated by the big twin missile launcher mounted over the cockpit. On this model, the previous owner made up a pair of reproduction missiles but also fitting in slots inside the cabin are four original missiles. Keen eyed Anderson and Dinky collectors will immediately recognise these as belonging to the Dinky SPV and SHADO 2 Mobile. Tri-ang were obviously making good use of their affiliation with the company and borrowed a few parts! Commander Craig also has a definite look of Captain Scarlet on the box artwork, even down to the light up epaulettes on his bright yellow tabard jacket.

Powered by two batteries neatly slung under the cockpit, the Moonmobile races along and has great climbing ability. Attention has also been lavished on the box art and a great deal of painted artwork graces the sides. Even the inner tray for the toy is quite complex and the main box endflaps have special instructions for opening correctly.

Also featured in the Xmas catalogue was another space item from Tri-ang, the Spacenik. This was a version of Tomys 'Grippidee Gravidee' toy and the actual toy itself is still branded Tomy, whereas the box is marketed by Triang Rovex. Conspicuous by their abscence in the 'space year' are Spacex toys! Shame!

Its also interesting to notice the price sticker on the end of the box - 49/11 - thats about £2.50 or so in todays money, but would have been a premium item at the time!

Question of Scale(craft)

Found myself ferreting in the back of the garage today to evict another dead mouse from the Wotan archive. Little bugger had nested in a box of Zoids and succumbed to the poison I laid down recently. While i was cleaning up the mess, I came across my old catalogues and re-discovered the aforementioned Scalecraft catalogue. This is where I first saw the Aerocar kit and also, oddly, shows Billy Blastoff! Its undated, but must be around 1968/69 judging by Billys appearance. I still have some of these kits from later issues, the Saladin, Medway Queen and a Chieftain Tank (not shown). I'd like to get hold of the Amphibian and Sea Cat!

Mega Blogging

While Woodsy is languishing in the bosom of his family in darkest Lancashire, Ive been left holding the virtual blog-baby and taking full advantage of the opportunity to post! The next four articles are directly linked to the earlier LUNIK article, so please bear with me and try and look over all of them!

Air We Go..

The Lunik 2000 post started a real train of thought for me and has resulted in a mega blog fest of related articles. Seeing the latest variation of the vehicle, I was reminded of a couple of toys I have. First one is the red Aerocar - this was a friction driven toy bought around 1970 from a toy shop in Prestatyn, North Wales. I remember this quite distinctly as it was given to me as a much cheaper alternative to the Project Sword Probe Force 2! I had my eye on the sword vehicle, but my dad thought it was way too expensive and I was placated with this little beauty instead.

Originally it had a whirling propellor as it rolled along and opening canopy. Two small soft plastic wings fitted on the rear (one is photoshopped in for effect). Over the years my dad repaired it as best he could and a couple of years ago I came across the original kit on which the toy must have been based - the Scalecraft Aerocar. I have seen this advertised in a catalogue alongside Billy Blastoff toys, so it can be dated to the mid sixties.

This arrived minus the propellor and partially made, albeit suffering from a common problem with scalecraft kits - poor moulding and fit. The prop was originally fitted at the rear for thrust and the colour scheme is reversed, but other than that it is the inspiration for the unbranded Hong kong toy. The kit is also motorised and has a small control stem. The resemblance to the Lunik 2000 is too close to call too, but its difficult to say for sure, which toy predates which.

Knats and Spiders

The Italian toys link on Woodsys early post to show the various space toys reminded me of one of the weirdest looking and yet most innovative toys in my collection. The oddly named Knat 001 bears more than a passing resemblance to the Spider Patrol Tanks from the Joe 90 episode 'The Professional' in which Joe must break into a secure compound to steal gold. The building is patrolled by autonomous tanks called Spiders and this toy has a lot in common with them. It should have originally come with several card stand up targets, each having a reflective strip on the middle. Without these, I substituted a budgie mirror and placed it on the floor against a chair leg.

I put batteries in the Knat - all instructions are in chinese or japanese, so it was all guesswork and let it roll. A searchlight came on and it trundled off towards the chair, turret swivelling. Not entirely sure what to expect, i sat back to watch, assuming the usual bump n go action. As the Knat drew level with the mirror, it stopped, turned the turret fully towards it and blasted it dead on with a dart! Looking closely at the toy, it appears that it has a photocell on the turret and when it detects the reflection of its searchlight, it automatically unleashes a missile.

I moved the bird mirror around the floor and it rolled off, shooting at the mirror each time it spotted it. Fab! Although everything on the box is in chinese script, the logo on the base is clearly visible and is our old friend 'Modern Toys' makers of so many space toys.

Tanks for Everything

The earlier posts on Lunik and other italian toys showed a number of plastic tank toys and introduced the name of Telsalda to the mix. Besides being a keen space fan when I was a boy, i also loved a good tank. Especially those with rockets and missiles! As well as coming across the small Army 'Cricket' (or Hamilton Mosquito Jeep derivative) made by FK, I also had an unbranded MissileLaunching Desert Armoured Car (light brown) with twin missiles. The rods to hold the missiles have long since gone and only one missile remains now, but this and the launcher on the back of the Cricket are very similar to the 'tanks' featured in the earlier post, Also shown and exhibiting the Telsalda brand was the Missile Tank. I was lucky enough to own one of these as a boy, albeit with the slightly smaller missiles. The orange and yellow missiles also appear on the red rocket base in Apollo Moon Exploring sets and the longer red and white 'sidewinder' missiles shown on the earlier pic also crop up in similar space sets. Just to add to the mix ive included a similar Marx clockwork Saladin Armoured car, a Stomper Centurion Tank and a disc firing tank, which is tin and plastic and missing the barrel. This little clockwork beauty, again about 3.5 inches long, blasts out counter sized disks as it rolls about. and leads us neatly into the next article....

Lincoln it all together

Congratulations on making it this far. Its been a little off topic with tanks and bulldozers etc, but finally we're back on the space trail again. These little clockwork toys are made by Lincoln, who also made the large remote control Stingray toy in the sixties. The little anti aircraft tank and the Moon Probe both hail from the SWORD era - although these examples are recent replacements and additions. The top picture shows on the far right the remnants of my original sixties moon probe, again a holiday purchase - around 1970. Each vehicle is about 3.5 inches long and has a clockwork motor with a cigarette lighter flint mounted in a small flange over a grinding wheel, which shoots sparks as it runs. They are pretty fast too, and very able climbers. If anyone recognises this line, i'd welcome any further info on it - especially on the loose Lunar Drill model.