Wotans Bones IV

Well this could easily beome Wotans Anatomy rather than the bones of the matter. Here is the final part of the series. Here we are in 1969 and im sat at the breakfast table eagerly awaiting my first meal of the day. Unfortunately, real life didn't mirror the Kellogg commercials and what actually happened was I browbeat my mum into buying a box of Sugar Smacks in order for me to get the little plastic toy inside. I probably very grudgingly chewed down a single bowl of the foul tasting cereal, but I will never forget the moments when i surveyed the back of the box in preparation for opening it to find my prize. The series included a number of small models, including Apollo series vehicles and a spaceman, but my eyes rested on the rocket transporter and the rather cool Molab. At the time, I was taken by the resemblance to the front of the cockpit to the famous 'round window' on the BBC's Playschool programme, but I soon forgot all about that as I shook the box and freed up a small sachet holding a green kit. To my surprise and delight, it was just what I wanted - the Molab. It was a very simple kit, but beautifully made and designed. Only about an inch and a half long, it had four wheels with two spares stowed at the back and a small lookout cockpit window, similar to the Fantastic Voyages 'Proteus'.

Again, rather than show the new, complete model which has been seen many times here before, above you can see that original model. Its had most of the wheels replaced, the windscreen is long gone, its been opened up and had a seat inserted to fit a small Spacex figure and then hastily washed with black and yellow enamel paint. I also found a tiny US flag decal from an Airfix kit to adorn the side. Its been repaired more times than Triggers Brush and is grubby, covered in glue and battered to hell. But I still love it.

Kelloggs managed to insinuate their way into my affections twice more around this time, again with the space theme and the delightful Crater Critters.

The following year they put another cool collectible in the cereal in the form of Totem Tribe or Funny Uglies. These were a set of eight totem pole 'heads' which could be worn on a thread as a necklace or stacked up to make an impressive foot high Totem Pole.

My original Totem Tribe are lost to the mists of time now, I only managed to score two as my parents had become wise to my blandishments as to how much I loved certain cereals and refused to buy it, putting me on a strict diet of Weetabix...  yuk.

The totem tribe did however spawn another lasting obsession, that of Northwest Coast Art. The peoples of British Columbia and the surrounding territories decorated their house fronts and built massive totem poles to show social standing or to record myths and the distinctive style of art has fascinated me ever since, to such a degree that I know have an impressive collection of model Totem Poles as well as space toys!

Wotans Bones III

This is the moment when things really took off. 1969, man lands on the moon and Triang Spacex Interspace Miniatures land in my 8 year old hands. Its a moment I recall with almost eidetic clarity, Saturday afternoon, brilliant sunshine of the eternal summer of childhood and im splashing about in a paddling pool - red pvc ring, pale blue base with big paintings of Viking longships all over it - while my mum sat in a wooden deck chair my dad had made, next to me. Probably my sisters were there, doing teenage stuff, but it was an idyllic day and we were all expecting my dad to come home from the works outing in Blackpool. My dad was a joiner and worked hard and played hard. Some of his work is still visible in old Liverpool, he often took me around the town pointing out which pubs he'd shopfitted and which bits of woodwork were his. The bar in the Philharmonic Pub near Hope street is his. Anyway, the door opened and in he walked, looking every inch like a tree brought to life, striding across the yard smelling of woodshavings and pipe tobacco. Making straight for my mum, he casually handed me a small brown paper bag and proceeded to chat to her. Drying myself off as best I could, I fished into the bag and pulled out an amazing sight. Up to this point, i'd saturated myself with SWORD. The toys I had, the manual, the badge permanently pinned to my jumper and the annual, with the main spread of Zero X stuck to my bedroom wall. But here, here was one of those moments when the world stops on its axis, a Matrix bullet-time moment when everything slows and I dropped between the gaps in the moments to study the small orange spaceship tacked to a colourful card and accompanied by a tiny gold spaceman. Totally awed, I snapped out of it and asked my dad where he'd got it. 'Oh its from Woolies on the front, picked it up while I was waiting for the tram.' was his swift reply and then he turned back to my mum and carried on chatting. Clearly tired after his bender with the rest of the Walkers Brewery shopfitting staff, he wasn't really in the mood to talk toys. I popped it out of the pack and was immediately struck by the fact that it had train wheels and was made by Triang. I tried vainly to question him, but he was hungry and had clearly missed being away from my mum for the night.Consequently, it wasn't till some days later than I divined that the toys were sold mainly in Woolworths and there were lots of them! In the next few months, due to the fact that they were literally pocket money toys, I badgered my dad each week and instead of comics, received two of the toys every saturday. They arrived in memorable combinations - Cricket p1 /Tractor T5, Reconaissance 2 / Pleasure Cruiser, Needle Probe /Hawk etc. My favourites were far and away the Moon Prospector because of the Sword connection and the MEV 2 because it was a classic moon exploring vehicle, the like of which graced may of my favourite space books.
The following holidays, Bonfire Night, Xmas and Easter rewarded me with the Spacex Major toys, each in lieu of fireworks or chocolate or riding high on santas list.

The Space Patrol 1 has now lost all its wheels after many crash landings on the concrete yard. Its golden astronaut has become lost in the legions of similar figures which have passed through my hands in the following years, the missile tubes have collapsed after I fed matchstalks into them after I lost the missiles the same weekend that I got it and have been badly repaired in my youth with body putty. But the ship represents a massive influence - the sleek shape, the unique engine nacelles and the bold colours. Its odd to think that had I been a reader of TV21 at the time, I may have come across its origin in the Dalek strip, as Ron Turner drew the Guardian ship as past of the series, art imitating life, so many years before the blog would appear.

Wotans Bones II

The next major milestone in my toy collecting life is something which has appeared many times on the blog, Project Sword Probe Force 1. Rather than show a new, boxed and complete model, this is the original toy, just like my Robbie robot, or rather what remains of it. Another christmas gift from 1967, the peculiar whine from the friction engine still rings in my ears. Probe Force 1 stood out from the normal rockets and spaceships I had seen until this point, most of which would have been NASA designs in books and on tv. Thunderbirds and Stingray and Fireball would be surrounding me and the run up to the moon landing would be saturating the media, but here came a sleek white ship, in a long box, which a cool blue badge and a special paper manual promising further delights and other toys in a whole new world of space toys which i'd been completely unaware of until this point. It would be the following year before I received the Sword Annual and really began my journey into the world of Sword.

Probe Force 1 would soon be followed by Task Force 1, the red dart-shaped ship and between them, they became the basis of an obsession with plastic space toys that would last for the rest of my life. Probe Force has suffered greatly over time, the tyres are lost, wings and tail have been chipped and damaged, the friction drive housing has been pushed in and the nose cone has been lost. Task Force 1 was taken along by me to school on Toy day at the end of term, shortly after i got it and I recall vividly, lying on the wooden floorboards of Parkhill Primary school in Dingle, revving up the engine and driving it around the floor. One of the more well off kids had brought in the large battery operated Thunderbird 4, but I was the only child I ever came across who had Sword. Thunderbirds was passe' - everybody had them - but it was only me with the dart-like red ship zooming around the floor. Due to the size of Probe Force, i'd elected to take the Task Force ship in as it was more pocket sized. As I lay on my chest, powering up the friction drive in preparation to try and reach the otherside of the classroom, an especially enthusiastic push resulted in the back wheel coming off and rolling by itself along the floor. In a spectacularly unlucky and heart rending moment, the wheel found probably the only knothole in the old floorboards and made for it with almost predestined accuracy. Unable to get up of the deck quick enough, I watched in horror as it dropped away, never to be seen again. This was possibly the first in a number of bleak moments in my toy history and something which even now advises caution whn handling precious things!

Wotans Bones I

Theres an amazing tale in Alan Moores comic masterpiece, Watchmen. The pivotal superhuman Dr Manhattan takes refuge on Mars and considers his life and the nature of being. During his reverie, he makes reference to the time it takes for the light from the closest stars to reach Earth and says that the image that we see now is a perception of the state of the star at the time of the dinosaurs, because even at the speed of light, the immense cosmic distance means that "all we see of stars are their old photographs".

When myself and Woodsy were being interviewed on Celtica Radio, some of the questions focussed on our childhood and the influences that brought us to today. This in turn spurred memories of the pivotal moments in my past which brought about my enduring obsession with space toys. Here are a few of those 'old photographs' from my past which still mean so much to me today.

Probably the very first space toys I ever owned is 'Robbie'. Robbie is a tin plate Horikawa Gear Fighting Robot and marks a beginning and a departure for me in toys. Firstly, Robbie was bought for me one christmas around 1967. I recall being at once fascinated and a little scared of his whirring gears and flashing raygun. Nowdays Robbie is a little worse for wear, his head and shoulders have been detached in a vain attempt by me to try and fix him during my teenage years, his battery cover and plastic chest plate are gone and the rayguns electrics have been corroded out of existence by old batterys as he lay in the toy cupboard, neglected as other toys drew my attention. The departure comes as he is the only concession I have and will ever make to tin toys, I am and always will be a plastic man. Although I can appreciate the smartly lithoed graphics and the ingenious use of mechanical parts to bring life to a static hunk of metal, the lure of tin eluded me completely. Robbie now has pride of place in the archive, waiting for the moment that replacement parts will be found and he will walk again amongst his plastic peers.

Space Rocket Express Booster Rocket

You don't often see SWORDy - type designs on tinplate toys. There was the Nuke Ferry cab on the Japanese spinning top a couple of years ago and the Booster Rocket and SpaceX MEV on the Estrela Rifle. Well, here's another little beauty, a Booster Rocket gracing this tinplate Space Rocket Express toy from Japan recently seen on Ebay. Alas, this toy is not that old, being dated 1998 and illustrated by one George Eisner. Who he? Nice nevertheless.

PS. Post-dated Post. 'm not here. I'm on holiday! Hope Wote is behavin' himself now he's a radio star!

More Yorkshire Pudding & Scouse ?

Well Woodstock is on shoreleave, so im left to run the show for a little while. So did you catch our slot on Radio Celticas 'Underground Edition' on Friday ? Hungry for more ? If you enjoyed it and would like to hear more of your virtual hosts talking about all things Moonbase and SWORD related again, then let Radio Celtica know!

Just drop Bill a line at: bill@celticaradio.com and tell him what you thought. If you would like to hear more of us, tell hi and we may grace the airwaves again soon!

FUTUROVA: GM'S FUTURAMA MOON ROVER AND THE TOY CONNECTION

All this rover action on Mars has got me roving through my archive, where I chanced upon these pics. I know we've discussed it many times but the GM Moon Buggy from their Futurama expo at the 1964/65 New Yorks Worlds Fair is such a tremendously cool design. With it's balloon wheels and articulated body, it predates our friend the Project SWORD Scramble Bug by a good two years.

But there are toy stories to be told about the GM Buggy. On closer inspection of the pilots in the cockpit I realised that they are actually a couple of spacemen from the Marx Moon Base Play Set, cut off just below the knees! See what I mean below and whether you agree.

A further discovery came tonight when googling the GM Space Buggy. I came across a reference in the superb Gerry Anderson Complete Comics History site to a very similar, if not the same buggy design in a US Space 1999 Charlton Comics Strip. You can see it below. Further surfing led me to a very nifty blog called Diversions of the Groovy Kind, where it's possible to see the entire Undisturbed Strip! Swell or what! Since it's Space 1999 then I suppose it's Century 21 and that makes this a later distant cousin of the C21 Scramble Bug!

The final toy connection I can see is a Johnny Apollo one, a further Marx link. Comparing Johnny's Space Buggy with the driver's cab of the GM rover, as pictured below, the two do look similar. What do you think?

If that's not enough of the GM rover for you then why not finish off by watching it in action on You Tube here. The rover crawls into view around 1.08 minutes in.

Famous for Fifteen Minutes!

"Is there life on marrssssss!"