Sinking to new depths

Moray at the Controls

 A while ago I posted the Quest Porpoise sub by Hasbro. Shortly after I got it and I looked into the background to the toy, I transpired that it was actually was re-issue of the GI Joe series toy, the Cobra Mantis Sub. Why on earth they would name an aquatic vehicle after a flying insect is beyond me, but that didn't dissuade me from picking one up on ebay Uk last week. She arrived today and is cosmetically identical to the Porpoise, apart from a much more sober colour scheme of deep blue, albeit with similar OTT decals. This model comes with the Cobra Moray diver figure - one can never have too many frogmen. Like the porpoise it has clockwork propellor, moveable work arms, firing torpedo and winch underneath.Its fitted with wheels too, the fron one slightly offset so that it rolls along the floor with a satisfying nausea-inducing wave motion too..

Porpoise and Mantis

Boy do I miss Photoshop..

Easter Bunny

Whilst I was on holiday new reader Paul Kaiju sent me his picture entitled Ladyhawks. Paul says "Nothing weird intended, I do all sorts of toy works design and restoration! Dolls, monsters, ect name it. LOVE your blog! I love plastic sword type stuff plus much Japanese stuff more. Almost everything, mostly vintage Monsters. I design and get them produced in Japan myself. Just wanted to send you a link, I'm ABSOLUTELY addicted to Bullmark gearlock sets. Every once in awhile I buzz them with my 2 TRIANG Hawks!"

Here's a link to Paul's full flickr set. Nice one Paul!

Good Flyday

Next to Spacex Sword and Matt Mason, one of my favourite toys was always Hot Wheels. The styling and the packaging was much better than any of the competitors and the cars themselves always felt heavier and more substantial than Matchbox or Husky cars. In my limited experience as a kid, I didn't realise that Mattel  had gone beyond just cars and bikes and had designs on the sky too. A full page ad in the back of a US Aquaman comic in the seventies first brought 'Hot Birds' to my attention, but it wasn't till the advent of the internet and ebay that I actually found them.

 The 1971 Wheels and Wings catalogue shows the elaborate sets available for the toys, which were essentially a variation on the awful Airfix Flight Deck - a gun arrangement with a spool of nylon cord and a wire hook to clip to the plane. The rest was down to gravity and a little fiddling by the user. But the awesome part for me was the planes themselves - solid metal jets with folding undercarriage and moving parts. The two I got with the Sky Solo set - 'Sky Scraper' and 'Regal Eagle' respectively have opening airbrakes and moving flaps.

Sky Scraper

Regal Eagle

Back of box of Sky Solo set

The line didn't really take off (groan) and made a limited release. I'm not sure it reached UK at all, but the packaging and the marketing was cool. More to follow on Hot Wheels soon....

Repro Card

The Shores of Titan

After watching Destination Titan on the beeb the other night all about the Huygens probe and Evileds quest to find that wonderful piece of xmas card art featuring Titan, i've been chewing over the idea of a cold alien sea beneath the crust of Titan. Consequently, i've just roughed out this image of a deep research vehicle in Titans seas..

Which then in turn reminded me of Bruce Penningtons beautiful art for the book of that name..

Killer Cereal

Andy B sent me these cool photos of his vintage Kelloggs premium selection. Some need no introduction and are well known, others you may not be familiar with such as the cool hovercraft and vintage cars.

Probably my all time favourite premiums would have been the Space Race, Totem Tribe and Crater Critters. It's a damn shame such miniature wonders no longer fall into the cereal bowls of the world. Although there have been some good premiums from LEGO and Kelloggs recently.

Just for the sake of completion - heres the Kelloggs Molab from the Wotan Archive.

Original battered Molab 1969 on left!

RIP Elisabeth Sladen

Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane so brilliantly in Dr. Who during my early teens in the 1970's, has sadly passed away. She was just 63. Very sad. RIP.

Easy Glider

Another postcard from the ancient county of Northumbria. Here's the rear of the box for the rare Space Glider by Day-f-Ran I recently saw on Ebay whilst holidaying. We've seen the box front and sides and the toy itself before on the blog as I've got one. But mine is missing the box rear. So, this is what it looks like. Another mystery solved! Till later.

Little Blog of Horrors

My 'Wheres Wotan' post recently scared up some info on the background behind the rubber figures I use as my avatar. Woodstock supplied a great link to a site celebrating the work of Norman Saunders, prolific illustrator and book cover artist. Amongst the many works of Norm Saunders was 'Ugly Stickers' for Topps bubblegum. These were a range of seriously ugly and downright scary monsters drawn in gory and livid colour. So successful were the stickers that they were expanded into a range of rubber monsters - 'Funny Uglies' and later 'Teachers Pets'. These were either sold in open counter top boxes - in my case from Woolies - where you could pick your own or in bubblegum machines trapped in a plastic capsule and distributed at random. 

Above is a photo of a smarmy and self satisfied me, aged about 7. surrounded by my teachers pets sat in the yard of my old house in Dingle, Liverpool. The little train must have been that particular days purchase and nothing to do with the monsters.. Ive still got almost all of the creatures today, in various states of disorder. One or two have fallen out of the box over the years and others have lost an appendage here and there, but after seeing the Norm Saunders site, I finally managed to match up the survivors to their original stickers.