EXPLORING SPACE....AND BACK AGAIN!

Arto's solution to the mysterious cracker toy has sent me off looking for more EXPLORING SPACE carded sets. The trouble with the blog is that I forget what we've covered and it would seem that we looked at these sets back in 2010, as my google search brought me back to Moonbase!

 

 

The EXPLORING SPACE sets all appear to have the same backing card and appealing header art, a different coloured fish ship and an astronaut in various positions. There's also a set containing just four of the astronauts. Back in 2010 reader Maverick said that they were MPC copies.

 

 

The question still remains: where is the odd fish-like spaceship design from? and who is sat in the ship?

MYSTERY SPACE TOY

This tiny cracker toy caught my eye on the cool Making Good Use site. I've seen it before at a larger scale along with a few LP spacemen on a backing card but just can'y think where. What on earth is this thing - a space boat?

 

UPDATE!

That's what I was thinking of! Hawk-eyed Arto has spotted the very same toy, albeit bigger, in a Hong Kong Space Exploring set on Ebay, pictured below. But where does the strange design come from? And that isn't an LP spaceman with it or?

Is Sci Fi Set To Mushroom?

The Atomic Age and Space Race during the 1950's and 60's fired a whole explosion of Sci-Fi on the small and big screens.

 

 

Kids were treated to B-movies like War of the Colossal Beast and This Island Earth, TV gems like Quatermass, the space antics of Moon Zero Two, Thunderbirds' epic grandeur and the sheer style of UFO. We were immersed in Science Fiction.

 

 

The Eighties were pretty good too if I remember rightly but perhaps not the Nineties or the Naughties?

 

 

Do you think that NASA's new Mars adventure might inspire a whole new generation of Sci Fi films, series and novels?

A SAUCER FULL OF SECRETS: SOMA, THUNDERBIRD 5 AND CRUSHED ICE

Many Century 21 toy collectors believe that the JR21 Thunderbird 5 toy, pictured here, was based on an earlier or existing flying saucer or UFO type toy.

The base of the toy adds to the mystery showing an unusual logo, a H inside a globe and a model number, 507, unlike other JR21 Thunderbirds toys.

Armed with this information I have searched for the flying saucer many times. The SWORD Moon Prospector, below, always comes to mind but the lights aren't similar really

More convincing is the T in a Circle UFO, seen below, which has a similar shape, dome and edge. The lights could be altered for the JR21 toy I suppose.

What is far clearer though is that a company called SOMA copied JR21 when they created their Space Ship X711, pictured here left.

SOMA's saucer is the same but white and I think I have found the same saucer being used in another guise, the TIGER Ice Crusher from Japan no less! Difficult to date but the SOMA and TIGER items could be contemporaries, maybe the 1970's or 80's. See what you think from the following comparisons and make your own mind up!

TV21 SWORD STORY: THE REBEL: ISSUE 170

BLUE CRUISER

 

ox

art

FILM4 FREAKY FUTURES NIGHT

UK film fans will be treated to a fistful of Sci Fi flicks this Saturday evening. Starting at 6.45pm with the original Planet of The Apes, FILM4 is running a FREAKY FUTURES night.

 

Click here foe more info.

Speaking of simians, I love vintage Planet of the Apes [POTA] toys, particularly carded rack toys. For a short while a few years back I was the happy owner of this ubercool Target Set by our Golden Astronaut friends Multiple Toy Makers in 1967. I bought it on one of my scouting trips to Memorabilia at the NEC back when I was a vintage toy dealer. Alas, like so many of my purchases they were re-sold on my old Ebay shop. Anyone else collect rack toys or POTA stuff?