RUBBER TOYS

Taking the dog out today I happened to smell my hands after handling his new ball. Rubber! It took me straight back to when I used to love rubber novelty items I bought mail order as a kid. Jokes, novelties and tricks and all from the great Ellisdons in the sixties. God, did I adore it all.

Oddly enough the rubber items were all pretty grisly: a toy severed hand, which was a more or less just a heavy slab of reaking rubber and a soft toy rubber skull, which laughed when squeezed. Both were life-size! Its hard to describe how much fun I had with these two items and I'm pleased to say that I was re-united with a similar skull in the mid- noughties. However, the severed rubber hand has stayed away!

Did you send away to Ellisdons as a kid or did you have any rubber toys?

 

 

DURHAM TARHEEL AMERICAN SPACE TOYS

 

For years I've thought that the two American toy companies Durham and Tarheel worked hand in hand. I'm now beginning to think that they were almost one in the same company. Look at their logos above. The globes and the white semi circles around them look almost identical apart from the minor detail that the globe contour lines are opposites.

 

 

Further evidence are the number of toys brandishing either Durham and Tarheel logo's. Pictured are those with SWORD/ SPACEX/ ANDERSON connections: the Space Glider and two NOVA's.

 

 

 

Readers with brightly coloured space toys like these should double check that they haven't also got a Durham toy on their hands.

QUIZ TIME

New Year Toy, TV and comics quiz. A MAX of two answers per reader in the comments please. Go go go!

1. What is Hasbro short for?
2. What does the comics acronym JLA stand for?
3. Which Doctor from Dr. Who did Denys Fisher make an articulated action doll of [actor?]
4. What is the name of the metal joined to the skeleton of Wolverine?
5. Which old British big monster movie was set in Cornwall?
6. Who are Lili Ledy?
7. What was the date on the cover of the first Fantastic Four comic?
8. Who designed Mouse Trap for IDEAL?
9. Who manufactured Lord of the Rings action figures in the 80's?
10. Name the odd one out and why? Moon Crawler, Moon Prospector, Moon Ranger [2 possibilities]
11. Which TV company brought us Marine Boy?
12. What was the Green Hornet's car known as?
13. Who is the odd one out? Kojak, Magnum PI, Columbo.
14. What does Lee Majors crash in at the start of the Bionic Man series?
15. Which creepy board game would have 'dropped it down the chimney'?
16. In the Official Manual certain C21 Project SWORD do not appear. Which?
17. What did Han Solo say he'd done in less than 12 parsecs in his Millennium Falcon in Star Wars?
18. In the toyworld what is Tomland?
19. Which toy figure did these two companies name the same? Mattell and Tootsietoy
20. Which is the highest ranking badge in the Project SWORD range and what's the colour?

MOON OR MARS BASE?

If you had the choice - and the Earth was in a state of imminent Project SWORD- style collapse - would you prefer to live on a settlement on the Moon or on Mars readers?

What would your'e reasoning be? Serious, humorous, all good!

Whistletown

Iv'e collected the little toys that fall out of crackers since I was a kid and they are one of my delights at Xmas. Modern cracker toys are invariably tape measures or paperclips or the classic Fortune Telling Fish, but back in the day, toys and charms were much more interesting.

As my current cracker haul in December was severely disappointing this year (even though all crackers are now obliged to clearly display their contents - spoiling the fun even more) I decided to take a quick look to see what yesteryear might provide and looked on ebay. Sure enough, there were a number of cracker novelities, but a set of three on a cheap buy it now, were perfect.

Three small sixties toys, all whistles. One is a missile shape, just under 2" long, with tiny fins and nozzle. The white one is the classic dart shaped spaceship, a design used in a similar, larger version whistle and the final is a neat black aeroplane, not dissimilar to the Vampire or Venom aircraft. All made in Hong Kong, as we have come to expect.

Due to problems with children swallowing stuff over the years, whistles like this have fallen out of favour, these three are especially small and vulnerable. Cereal premium kings R & L made a fine set of Whistles in the Hooty Toot series, but again, the two piece cereal inclusions were very small.

Not a whistle, but in a similar vein, Woodsy gave me this fine little japanese Glico rocket. Tiny premiums are much more popular in Japan, which possibly speaks volumes about the country. Its just under 2" again, with a tiny spring inside the rocket body, allowing it to launch. Fabulous!

SPACE BIRD OF JAPAN: THE JAPANESE PROBE FORCE 3 GALLERY

Century 21's Project SWORD Probe Force 3 has many clones and doppelgangers. One of my favourites is the incredibly rare Space Bird by YT of Japan. At first glance it could be conceivable that this is the original PF3 on which Century 21's was based. Alas, I think that the lettering, P3, which appears on the rear winglets, disproves this.

 

 

 I'm aware of at least four YT Space Bird colour variations and a box variation:

1. Green translucent windows and exhaust

 

2. Combination of green and red translucent windows and yellow translucent exhaust

 

3. Red translucent windows and exhaust

4. The much rarer White toy in a completely different YT box with different box art and lettering. I have no other pictures of this toy and therefore would ask any reader in possession of one to please send me photographs of the box top and sides and toy. Thanks!

ZERO-EXPONENTIAL

The first addition to the Wotan archive of 2014 arrived recently in the shape of the Fondly Remembered Series Zero-X. Cast in resin, on a special stand, the model is not strictly accurate in proportion, but captures the essence of the fabulous ship perfectly.

One of a unusual selection of Thunderbirds models, seemingly chosem for unknown reasons as the line up excludes TB1 and five and most of the brothers!

It is also a fine companion to the Bandai Zero-X which I received the same time last year and is just a little smaller than the kit based version too.

So my Zero-X fleet has expanded exponentially once more, thanks to my good friend Terry!

IMPERIAL TOY CORPORATION: EMPORERS OR IMPOSTERS?

In 1970 the US Imperial Toy Corporation gave us Apollo Moon Exploring, which I know form part of many readers' collections. The carded helicopter and space sled are pictured here [on Ebay some years ago]:

What else were Imperial doing in 1970? A quick search revealed nothing else space-related  but a couple of novelty items did pop up, cute but standard rack toy fare. A quaint Air Hostess set  and a Freddy the Frog, which I think Imperial may have trademarked.

 

 

When I first saw the Golden Astronaut legal notice [pictured below from Ebay 2011] warning against piracy of Multiple Toymaker's toy range I had assumed they meant Imperial specifically, but I'm not so sure. Apollo Moon Exploring only knocks-off Multiple's P3 Helicopter and Moon Prospector as far as I can remember. Were they enough to warrant legal threats?

 

 

Or were Imperial's two knockoffs simply the final straw for Multiple, as there were other Golden Astronaut/ SpaceX knockoffs like the Hover, Hippo and Futuristic Vehicles sets, though I'm unsure of the chronology of these. LP must have had the same beef with Imperial as many of the Apollo Moon vehicles appeared in LP sets too. Or?

 

 

 

Imperial Toys did trademark some of their toys from the very off in the Sixties right up into the Eighties You can check yourself here [no Apollo Moon Exploring though!]  http://www.legalforce.com/company-imperial-toy-corporation-595310-page-6-2. So they weren't the knockoff kings I thought they were. They did appear to run into legal hot water a few times, including Topps, though, but maybe that's par for the course for a plastic toy company?

 

 

 

So, what do you think readers? Were Imperial Toy Corporation basically plastic pirates in the 70's? Was the Apollo Moon Exploring toy range a blatant knock-off or does it stand alone on its own merits do you think?