WHEN THE SEAS WERE BRISTLING WITH FROGMEN

I am a great fan of rack toy header art. One particularly rich seam of artistry were frogmen, skin divers and mini-subs. When I was growing up in the Sixties bags of frogmen were everywhere: corners shops, toy shops and beach kiosks [they were the bees knees!]. I suppose the high point was the underwater battle in THUNDERBALL thrilling us in cinemas in 1965 and turning us all into frogmen overnight! It was caught brilliantly in the fim's poster art. 

There are loads of examples of diver artwork, with many jumping on the Thunderball bandwagon [or one man sub!], so here are just a couple:

Recently I visited the South England coast and was thrilled to see that the art of the header card is still alive and kicking. Hanging on racks in a beach shop were lots of bags of cool Ocean Explorers. Modern excellence!

Does anyone else like frogmen toys? Pictures, stories, toys, artwork welcomed.

Could Godzilla Wrestle Thunderbird 2?

Watching CLOVERFIELD again last night and tut-tutting at the shaky camera work spoiling the film, I wondered just how big ol' CLOVERFIELD might be compared to the spaceship, in which it presumably landed in New York's harbour. Having googled for monster and spaceship scales [yes, I admit an odd google even for me!]

 

 

I found two sets of scales in metres we've seen before, monsters [NextRound] and Thunderbirds [Nigel Sadler 2009] which I've combined for easier comparison. It would appear that Thunderbird 1 is on a par with Mr. Stay Puft The Marshmallow Man and Godzilla is about half the height of TB2. Cloverfield, king of the monsters, is a titch compared to Thunderbirds 3 and 5. Can anyone top trump that?

SPACE 2009

It's three years ago to the day when we first launched the blog's new logo, as pictured here, on the 2nd September 2009, which has graced the the top of the blog ever since. This fine graphic was designed by our very own WOTAN, modern alchemist and perveyor of totems.

 

 

For the life of me I can't remember what was there from September 2008 to September 2009. Anyway, never wanting to waste a good segway, the blog will be four years old on the 15th September. Tune in, turn on and come to the party, which will last at least a week.

 

NEWSFLASH!

 

Amazingly reader and superspaceXer Paul Vreede saved a copy of the blog's masthead from 2008. Thanks Paul! Eh voila!

 

REPRO TB1 TAIL FINS

Sunday Googling today I came across a company whom I bought some excellent Outer Space Men reproduction parts from years ago. Well they're still alive and kicking and have now added lots of new items to the inventory including reproduction tail fins for the JR21 Thunderbird 1 in both grey and blue [pictured]. Check them out! Toy Replicas

As Brains would say, "FAB, Mister Tracy!"

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!