ME AND MY EXTERMINATING BIG BROTHER!

As by way of comparison between the Product Enterprise 12" and Micro movie Daleks here's a photo of the two 'drones'.

SPACE POP LOLLIES ANYONE?

In my mailbox this week from reader Richard B:

Hi Woodsy

Just saw these: 

http://www.zokuhome.com/collections/polar-pop-molds/products/space-pop

Plastic molds for making ice lollies in the shape of five different  spaceships, plus a little astronaut to go with them. Easy to see why this triggered my nostalgia gland! (Note also the use of a very familiar typeface for the ship numbers.) 

Thought you might like this for the blog, if you haven't run it already. 

Richard

Let's Roll!

Role Playing games have been a popular pastime for many since the 1980's and lately, popularity has boomed. A Thunderbirds rpg is now available, allowing players to take control of their favourite character and save the world. Any fan games will enjoy playing as a favourite fantasy character and now Crooked Dice have made it even easier to do so, with a game system based on Cult TV shows. A simple rule set allows teams to be made up of any set of characters, selected from your favourite series, such as Blakes 7, Dr Who, Life on Mars, Department S any combination of classic tv tropes. To bring a figural dimension to the game, they have produced a series of white metal figurines which 'reflect' the classic series very closely, without actually infringing copyright! The technically accurate figures just need a lick of paint and you can build your own army of Spectrum agents, Space 1999 astronauts or evil genius organisations complete with henchmen.

Check out the fabulous range here and see how many classic characters you recognise!

http://www.crooked-dice.co.uk/wp/product-category/miniatures/page/10/

DALEKS INVASION EARTH 2150 A.D. MICRO MOVIE DALEKS

Although I do have the four large radio control Invasion Earth movie Daleks I really do like these more manageable Product Enterprise Micro Talking Movie Daleks.

Their small size makes it fairly easy to create a quick diorama.

Each has a pull back and go motion, and uses actual dialogue from the film, although it does sound a little distorted in a couple of mine.

The silver Dalek, or drone.

The black Dalek who is in charge of the mining operation in Bedfordshire.

The red Dalek who is in charge of the spaceship, capturing slaves and wiping out the resistance.

The gold Dalek is the overall leader and differs from the other three models in that it has a sucker arm rather than a claw.

The colourful box with some splendid retro artwork.

"Intercept escaping humans in river area!"

THE INTERCHANGEABLE NAMES OF PROJECT SWORD AND SPACEX TOYS

In the world of space toys names interchange like Lego. SWORD and it's variations are no exception. We'll kick off with SWORD's cousin the Century 21 Lunar Climber [below]. The Spanish company PAYA renamed it the X-11000 [box and leaflet below].

Even earlier we have the Japanese Astro Car and Super Beetle [for a full Crawler history go here]

Speaking of Beetles here's another one, the SWORD version. In it's unshielded state, as pictured below [left] by Eric Eden it's called the Snowtrain. With it's heat shields up it becomes the Beetle shown here on the right, a bit like the ship in the film 'The Core'!

....which also got re-named by Imai as Thunderbird 7 for their 1972 model kit!

Another example of name-changing comes with our friend the Moon Prospector. On the old card below it's named as the 'Orbiting Geophysical Observatory'! The card is from the US Space-Pak set dated 1962 [source: Ebay]

...and in the only two non-English titles I can find is the German prospector or 'Shlurfer' seen here in a book on the right and to the left the Argentinian 'Explorador Planetario XV8'.

The Prospector morphs again when miniaturised, which brings us to perhaps the most interchangeable of all the names, 'Explorer'. 

In the US Golden Astronaut series the MEV becomes the Prospector and the Prospector the Explorer! [see SpaceXpert Paul Vreede's comment on this earlier post]. 

Similarly our friend is again the Explorer in the Roxy Moon Traffic range [right].

To shuffle things up a bit the MEV2 becomes the 'Explorer' in the cheapo Futuristic Space Vehicles series [left and right below].

The name 'Explorer' was also associated with the Moon Crawler as here in early toy researcher Bill Earle's description of Imai UFO Base model kits that appeared in the pioneering 1980's magazine S.I.G [example shown below left but not the one referred to by Bill]: 

"Also on the surface are several craft unrelated to SHADO, though seen in the "UFO" series, and there are three vehicles from the Project SWORD story; the Moon Prospector, the Scramble Bug, and the Explorer " 

and "A Lunar Module was lifting off, a Moonbase Interceptor and a SHADAIR Gyro were flying above as a Project SWORD Explorer was driving along in the foreground." 

[You can read Bill's brilliant S.I.G article on Anderson Model kits in full online here]. 

To add to the confusion modern descriptions of the Aoshima 2002 re-release often miss out the vehicle's name entirely as I imagine it's simply not known as in this random example: 

"....and 14 miniature vehicles including the Prospector, Moon Hopper, Radar Tractor, Sky 1, SHADOMobile, Interceptor 1, Interceptor 2 and Interceptor 3!" 

It would be interesting to know what the Japanese characters translate as though in the close-up beneath. Anyone?

The final Dr.Who-like regenesis of the Explorer is an incarnation we already know about, the wonderful Surveyor of the Tri-ang Spacex range [card illustration below - anyone got an image of the whole card front and rear?] and finally we have the SWORD Crawler itself with it's dalek-like arms [just what did the Daleks do with that plunger of theirs?]

There are many more examples of name morphing in SWORD/ SpaceX fleets I'm sure - Moon Bus/ Mobile HQ has just sprung to mind. 

The SpaceX/ Golden Astronaut continuum also gives us the Forklift 7/ Liftloader name change and the  Tractor-T5/ Terrain Tiger.

What can you think of? Contributions welcomed!

MYSTERY SPACE 1999 TOY TRANSPORTER

I recently saw this on a Japanese site. I'm not a big fan of Space 1999 but did wonder what make this toy was. Does anyone recognise it?

VIVID SUPERSIZE THUNDERBIRD 2

Following on my previous post on the Vivid Thunderbirds Are Go Superset, here is their Supersize Thunderbird 2 toy.

 

I've got to say I really like the size and look of this toy. Forget any misgivings you might have about the new CGI series, just enjoy the fun value of this supersize Thunderbird.

Like a lot of larger toys these days you're expected to apply most of the decals.

Give your self a good hour to apply them, and if you've got fingers like E.T. that will help as its pretty fiddly to apply them, especially in Thunderbird 2's cockpit.

But, believe me it's worth it as they really do enhance the look of the toy.

The legs flick down by lifting the wings which have to stay in an upright position. The pod is released by a concealed button on top, which triggers a voice switch telling you the pod is disengaged.

This pod is geared to carry Thunderbird 4, but I'd like to see other pod vehicles.

The supersize Thunderbird 4 is a good size, with detachable deep water rescue capsules at each side and  opening rear hatch.

The cockpit opens up to reveal Gordon Tracy.

Thunderbirds are definitely go with this toy.

SCHOOL YARD CLOBBER

When I was in the Fifth year of secondary school in 1976, that glorious last dash from adolescence to adulthood, we could wear what we wanted. A fabulous reward from the Head, out went the hated uniform and in came the tribal dress of the day, which was dependent on your particular musical tastes.

In my case it was full-on hippy. I was nuts about rock music and my long hair and clobber let everyone know: velvet jacket, cheesecloth shirt, buckle belt, flared cords, desert or monkey boots, looking roughly like this:

Other Fifth year tribal attire at school included Mods, who listened to Soul; Skinheads, who listened to Oi and Poppy kids, who listened to the charts. The scary new kids on the block were the Punks, who after a tectonic struggle for power, eventually ruled the common room, strutting round like zipped Mohicans and booted us hippies out good and proper, along with progressive rock!

What did you wear in your final year of school readers? Was yours a uniform school?