THE OTHER SWORD ANNUAL: TV21 1969

The weather outside is frightful! Snow everywhere. In '67 I'd have strapped skis onto my Arctic Commando Action Man and sent him zooming down the sloped drive. I can taste the fun I had! I've been reading something Santa Sword brought me, the TV21 1969 Annual pictured below. Having never seen it before I was amazed at the amount of SWORD stuff in there! There's enough in there for this to be easilly considered part of the 'official' Project SWORD world. For readers' interest I have photographed all the SWORD pages and posted them here. I do hope that you can read the text.

COVER

THE LOYAL AND THE DEAD:

BATTLE BREAKDOWN PHASE ONE

(Hover Tank pictured)

BATTLE BREAKDOWN PHASE THREE:

If anyone knows of any other references to PROJECT SWORD in any other annuals please do email the blog (address at base of the blog).

The Loyal and The Dead

Had the pleasure of reading the 1969 Project Sword story 'The Loyal and the Dead' last night. Wonderfully bleak. Chaos on a dying Earth. I can't imagine that it was popular in 1969? I certainly don't remember reading it then. More to follow!

APOLLO MOON EXPLORING - THEY REALLY WORK!

Although I don't have the pleasure of owning any carded sets, only a few loose items, APOLLO MOON EXPLORING is one of my favourite SWORD/SPACEX knockoffs. In fact 'knockoff' is unfair as they stand up as great space toys in there own right. Made by the Imperial Toy Corporation of Los Angekes in 1970, the series comprised of 12 carded sets all appearing on a blister card with beautiful lunar artwork backgrounds. Each one came with a golden astronaut as seen in earlier GOLDEN ASTRONAUT sets by Multiple Toymakers of New York (SPACEX in the UK). Sold as 'Authentic Mechanical Replicas', they were most likely displayed in toy shops on racks. Retailing for 39cents in the US they carried the cute caption ' THEY REALLY WORK'! Some of the sets also contain miniatures of much larger MAJOR MATT MASON toys. These have been detailed by blog contributer Paul Vreede and colleague John Eaton on the excellent 'Where The Wild Toys Are' website. This month 11 of the 12 sets of Apollo Moon Exploring appeared on Ebay and offered those of us, who sadly don't possess these wonderful space toys, a chance to see the card fronts up close and personal (anyone know which set is missing?)

This last carded set containing the unmistakeable MOON PROSPECTOR links the series to the earlier PROJECT SWORD range we know and love!

Have many blog readers got these toys, carded or loose, in there collection?

FLIGHT FANTASTIC?

With Virgin Galactic now open for business space travel for ordinary folks like you and me is a small step closer. On the one hand I'm completely thrilled by the idea of regular flights to our stratosphere, the moon or even further afield but I'm also very apprehensive about the state we'll leave other celestial bodies in and the space in between. We're making a right ball's up of looking after Earth! Am I being unreasonably pessimistic?

WHAT IF THERE WAS A PROJECT SWORD BOARD GAME?

I've often mused whilst devouring a quarter pound bag of bonfire toffee that Century 21 should have at least given us a Project SWORD board game to complete the collection. They made comics, 2 paper models books, 2 and a bit annuals (more on this later!) and of course the wunderbar fleet of toys. But what would such a game have been like? The playing pieces would of been easy - miniatures of the spacecraft. And the playing pieces? LP spacemen of course! But what of the game's 'story'? Greater brains than mine will have to ponder that one (ideas welcomed!). Other games of the time, which might hint at such a SWORD game, can be found in the vast pile that makes up the Gerry Anderson games pile - Supercar, Captain Scarlet, Thunderbirds and so on. My own suggestions as to likely influences awould be the Italian UFO 'Destroy Moon Base' 1974 by Salani below.

But probably top of my list of possible 'futures' for a SWORD game is Parker Brothers UNIVERSE based on Stanley Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey, which features heavilly in the 1969 SWORD annual and was jointly promoted with SWORD toys during its cinema release. For more information about this game visit Board Game Geek. Wonder why they didn't call it 2001 A Space Odyssey?

Any other similar games you can think of readers?

OPERATION SWORD ANYONE?

I have often heard mention of 'Operation Sword' in relation to the Captain Scarlet 1968 episode SHADOW OF FEAR. Even more intriguingly an online video database actually refers to it is as 'Project Sword' in its synopsis of the episode:

Captains Scarlet and Blue travel to the Himalayas to supervise and administrate Spectrum's new phase to monitor signals from a space satellite that has been launched into the orbit surrounding Mars, and to snap-shot high resolution detailed pictures of the planet, which will be relayed and received by the large mountain satellite station that the probe was launched from. The second satellite, with the first acting as a decoy, successfully lands on Mars, and sets to have Spectrum successfully completing the code-named ""Project Sword"" operation, but the whole carefully-planned out arrangement is placed under threat when one of the participating technicians ostensibly falls dead and is brought back to life by the Mysterons, with one instruction: to sabotage the observatory and to interrupt the satellites' transmission, before Earth comes to learn every single detail about the force, and prevent them from continuing the war of nerves and retaliation against the planet.

Which is correct? Operation or Project? Can anyone point to footage of this actually being spoken online? I have searched You Tube but no joy. There is also mention of the episode being merged into the 1981 film 'Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars'. Is Operation/Project Sword mentioned here too? Does anyone actually think there might be a connection to the Project SWORD we know and love?

A BANG, NOT A WHIMPER!

One other good thing about Xmas is the cracker - pulling the cracker over dinner and smelling the whiff of cordite from the snap inside always takes me back to my childhood and having the little plastic rockets and bombs to throw about loaded with paper caps to make a fine bang! Guest blogger Hugh has sent along some rare examples of such fab toys and takes up the story here:

"bomb1 - A selection of cap-firing bombs, most given away at kids parties. The large yellow one is the Triang Railways Bomb-carrier load and does not fire. Bottom right are various bits which may or may not be parts of cap-bombs?

bomb2 - On the right is the Uniplast moon rocket we've looked at already this month, while to the left a slight (and very un-PC) variation; pull the plunger, push hard and take your sisters eye out with the war-head! (Good to see Ed Valigurskys Nova Rocket art being put to use here on the Cohete Lunar card! Wotan)

bomb3 - A selection of metal cap-firers, the one on the left is contemporary, the top row are from left to right; Dinky Stuka bomb, Unknown hammer or anvil for a cap firer and the Britains Howitzer shell. Below them a selection of the commoner designs of my childhood, the ?SUPERB is missing it's fins and the head to the left currently has no body!

bomb4 - Variations on a theme, left we see a PC 'cap-bomb' it sticks to your eye-ball rather than penetrating! On the right is a rocket I'd like to identify further, the cap mechanisem is in the blue base cap, so the detonation seems to have ocured on launch rather than landing...What did the launcher look like? Who made it?

BILLY BLASTOFF LUNAR SCOUT AND HIS TV THUNDERBIRD RAY GUIDED X-2

I love this Billy Blastoff knockoff called LUNAR SCOUT, which I've blogged before. It includes a Thunderbirds EXCAVATOR and it's currently on Ebay. What I hadn't noticed last time is the picture on the little Billy TV screen - its Thunderbird 2! Not only that but the picture is lifted from the box art of the Ray-O-Matic ray Guided X2 Space Ship (below), which we've blogged before courtesy of our man in Finland, Arto.

I can't believe that this LUNAR SCOUT set manufacturer made the plastic Excavator themselves from scratch. Where did they get it from? All the other items are straight lifts/copies of ELDON/SCALECRAFT Billy Blastoff toys. Anyone know?