ROB T'S MARVELOUS MARVEL COLLECTION

Hi Woodsy, saw your Blog post Today..so I've attached a couple of pics of my comics and Superhero stuff..its all i collect now (and its enough!).

Loving the Blog, 

Rob T

WHICH VINTAGE TOYS CAN YOU SPOT IN THIS FILM CLIP?

These are some of the toys I've recognised in the ITNSource clip I posted  a week ago:

http://www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist//RTV/1968/05/28/BGY506300558/?s=toys+AND+fair&st=1&pn=1

Century 21 Toys Project SWORD:

White Nuclear Ferry [first ever sighting]

Scout 1

Scout 2

Scout 3 [I think]

Moon Ranger

Moon Bus

Moon Prospector 

Probe Force 1

Task Force 3 

Scramble Bug  

Apollo Saturn  

Dyna Soar

Zero X

Booster Rocket 

Space Glider

more?

Others:

2001 A Space Odyssey background [ship?]

On the wall, JR21 Captain Scarlet carded guns, 

Project SWORD Cape Kennedy Box top

Redbox boxed Space Action Astronaut figure:

T in a Circle Amphibious Car:

Boxed helicopter - make?

What else can you see readers?

I WAS IN LOVE WITH VELMA DINKLEY

It's odd when you fancy a cartoon character. In the Sixties we had quite a few animated ladies to spice up our chicken-pox-infested infant lives.

Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of real girls on the telly - Ayshea, Gay Ellis, Pan's People - but these were the fantasies of older boys and off-limits to the socks and shorts crowd I was in.

Young whipper snappers under the age of 10 got their kicks from cartoons and puppet shows. These aired schooldays from 5pm [or was it 4?] and Saturdays at 9am [or was it 8?] when childrens' TV started on our 3 [definitely 3] channels, which were black and white up to 1966 [or was it 7?]

For many young 'uns, Stingray's Marina will have been the focus of their tea-time attentions. Strangely silent and able to breathe in the bath, she was in effect, a mermaid, which, let's face it, is pretty darn appealing to most boys. Troy Tempest beat us all to it though and despite trying in the bath with the rubber shower head, none of us could sing Aqua Marina quite like her Troy-friend.

Lady Penelope of Thunderbirds brought upper-class lip-synch to the schedules and probably had the most alluring of all the lady puppet voices. I dreamt of owning a Fairylite Lady Penelope Doll as a kid but Parker, her chauffeur, was all I got. I had to endure him driving her round and serving her tea every week, the cockney devil!

Cartoon crushes didn't come from our shores, however, but from America. Penelope Pitstop had the drawl and the curls and Josie and the Pussycats had the songs and the girls. 

Yes, Hanna-Barbera, those Einsteins of animation, created a whole universe of animated girlfriends, who we could be with every week, no strings attached. It didn't matter that they were just flicker-books. We were in love.

But the greatest love of all was reserved for someone else, a bespectacled sleuth foreshadowing my own life with jam-jar glasses a few years later. Her thick turtle-neck jumper just added to her nerdy charm.

I am of course referring to Velma off Scooby Doo, the number one reason for putting up with the annoying perfection of perfectly perfect Fred every week. Thank God he was only interested in Daphne. 

Velma Dinkley was the original cartoon geek. If she had been Lady Penelope it would have read "Glasses, Sweater and Deadly Intellect". Yes, Velma was a nerdy boy's dream date and I often wished that I was the werewolf or the pirate's ghost charging after her. I would have always found her glasses for her or offered her mine before heading off together to discuss the finer points of lycanthropy under a full moon.

Scooby Doo, where are yooooooooooooooooooooooooooooou!

So, readers which TV character, cartoon or otherwise, did you have a crush on?

SAT ON MY FACE LIKE A PLASTIC GARGOYLE

Like a class with two unruly pupils, my eyes began to let me down when I was 13. That's when I started wearing glasses for my short sight.

I've worn them ever since and even now as I type they are sat, like a constant bystander watching the traffic, on the bridge of my nose. They are the original face-hugger.

Of course they aren't the same glasses I had in my young teens. They were prescription specs made of thick black plastic. Very plain. Very simple. I blame Joe 90 and those crew-cut guys at NASA who always wore short sleeve white shirts and black ties and had hairy tanned arms..

I haven't always worn Joe 90 glasses though. Like a barometer of mood, my gigs have reflected my disposition and how I saw the world. They have also deflected every insult that non-bespectacled folk could invent: speccy, Mr. Magoo, swat, bookworm and that most original of all slurs, speccy four eyes.

As a young hippy I wore John Lennon penny rounds. I went through quite a few pairs of these, all different sizes of penny. They were either silver or gold in colour. They were all from opticians and all had springy ear hooks. For a while I was the fifth Beatle. I bet you can't get them now.

I did go through a phase of huge egg-shaped specs too. They were called reactalights and were supposed to darken as the sun came out. They were a huge hit with vampires.

Glasses and girls never really went together. They get in the way of snogging and let's face it, who wants to go out with a 14 year old Professor of Astronomy.

I once bought a pair of CHiPS style metallic mirror-finish glasses from a garage. You know, like the cool kids, for the summer. They did look Hollywood and I did book a few speeding Mustang drivers but without my prescription they were nigh on useless. I would have to wait decades before I had prescription sunglasses, a revelation so astounding that I have named them the single most most important human achievement in history. I did go to Specsavers.

Forty two years and twenty odd pairs of specs later I have come full circle. My thick plain black glasses are more or less what I wore when I first set out on this blurry journey to find the focal point. Now they have invisible split lenses and I have another darker pair for the summer. I still blame Joe 90 and those guys at NASA.

Have you made a spectacle of yourself readers?

NEW ZEROID TOYS

Toyfinity have informed me that a new range of mini Zeroids are coming out soon. Check out this link, New Zeroids.

THE GREAT WHITE NUCLEAR FERRY MYSTERY

The white Nuclear Ferry seen at the start of the ITN film blogged recently is fascinating and its totally taxing the brains of SWORDnuts like Arto and me.

Why white when the handful of toys we know of in private collections are all blue?

A pre-production sample? A prototype?

White does make a lot of sense though! Virtually every Ferry ever illustrated - see below - appear to be white [except the SpaceX miniature]. The original Bob McCall  illustrations in LIFE magazine and Look and Learn Comic are all white!

Most importantly, the original 1963 painting by Bob McCall, Earth to Moon Shuttle, shows a white Nuclear Ferry, where it hangs in the collection of the University of Arizona Museum of Art - look here.

Similarly, the box art and Official Manual released with the 1967 Nuclear Ferry toy by Century 21 Toys both show a white Ferry.

So why the last minute change to a blue toy?

Was it to tie in with the blue Zero-X and the blue Dyna-Soar?

Was there excess blue plastic from the above that needed using?

What do you think?

*

PS. Bill made this uber-cool white Nuclear Ferry model, which we blogged in 2008!

WONDER WOMAN'S TRANSPARENT FUSELAGE

Just watching the bodacious Linda Carter in Wonder Woman on the Horror Channel. Seeing it reminded me of how much I loved Super Heroes on TV and in comics as a kid. One of my prize possessions was the Fantastic Annual 1968 with the Mighty Thor and his hammer on the cover.

Its odd though. I didn't really have many Super Hero toys as a kid in the Sixties. I only really got to see and handle vintage Super Hero toys much later when I was an adult, as a collector and a toy dealer. In the Nineties and Noughties I grew to appreciate the smooth lines of the Secret Wars figure line and the sheer comprehensiveness of the Super Powers and Marvel Super Heroes ranges.

In order to recognise these toys I bought Tomart's Action Figure Digest regularly and bought a whole fist full of books, many of which I still have.

Watching Linda Carter again  also reminded me that there was one toy I never got to handle, although I saw it, which is strange in itself. I'm talking about Wonder Woman's Invisible Jet by Mego as part of their 1976 Comic Action Heroes line. A bit Probe Force 3-like, the jet was an ultra sleek rocket plane made of see-through plastic, the ultimate stealth craft.

Have you been lucky enough to own one readers? Any chance of a photo for the blog? And do you collect Super Hero stuff?

SUPER POSTSCRIPT

Hi Woodsy,
            I'm sorry I don't have any pics of the Mego Wonder Woman Invisible Jet. I have been a life long fan of superheroes though. My childhood fave being the silver age Captain America. 

I've attached two pics which you're welcome to add to the blog if you wish. Pic one - my early attempt to draw Cap and Thor (age 10). They're now framed behind glass - a reminder of wonderful times.  

Pic two - the spirit of Cap still burns bright in our my home. 

I'm blessed with an exceedingly tolerant Mrs. K!

Regards, Tony K

HAMLEY'S BALL BAZOOKA AD

Hi Woodsy 

Only an image I'm afraid, but I know you've been blogging this bazooka while I've been off-line...from Meccano magazine May 1961.


Best

Hugh