KADOYNG - THE UFO CONNECTION

I've been watching ‘Kadoyng’, a 1972 sci-fi offering from the Children’ Film Foundation.

While I always enjoy nostalgic memories of going to the local ABC or Odeon cinemas for the Saturday morning minors club and watching films showing kids having all kinds of adventures, this particular cost- effective (low budget) CFF film has a special interest for Gerry Anderson fans as it features…wait for it… an appearance of the Alien costume from UFO! 

The Alien in question is from the planet Stoikal, and gets his name from the sound his antenna makes when he removes his space helmet – Kadoyng!

Other props from UFO can be seen aboard Kadoyng’s Easter egg - like spaceship, which, incidentally can talk and is called Babble. I know we've covered the numerous appearances of the props on the blog but I'm pretty sure Kadoyng wasn't mentioned.

http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/century-21-prop-pop-up.html

These banks of controls appeared in Moonbase, as did the box of disco lights supporting Babble’s control stick.

And the circular control was part of the Shado Control room. (you can just see it  under the TV monitor in between Alec Freeman and Ed Straker)

This control panel  was originally used in the UFO episode 'Close Up' .

The story was written by Leo Maguire, who also played the title character. The action takes place in the fictional village of Byway which is under threat from a motorway being built right through it.

After befriending some local kids who witness his landing, he embarks, with a little otherworldly jiggery-pokery to help save the village from the developers.

The whole thing comes across as a bit of lightweight environmental propaganda, with Kadoyng using his powers like some hippie space wizard.

A couple of other things I felt worth noting is that the music is provided by Edwin Astley, who wrote theme music to many of the cult sixties ITC series like The Saint and The Baron;

There’s also an appearance by the actor Stephen Thorne who played PC Palfrey. Doctor Who fans will know him as the powerful alien, Azal from the Jon Pertwee story, The Daemons.  

I WANTED TO BE A PALEONTOLOGIST

I saw a kid buy a fossil tooth in a shop recently. Talk about excited, she could hardly contain herself! It came in a small plastic box with a white snap-on base just like the ones I got back in the Triassic!

It reminded me just how much I loved Dinosaurs and fossils as a junior Paleontologist. I told everyone I wanted to be one back in the Sixties. I didn't though. Become one that is. 

[anyone out there one readers?]

With the passion only a child geek can give, I adored those thunder lizards and got hold of anything I could, short of an Anklyosaurus living at home.

I had fossils in cases, ancient shark teeth, ammonites, Pyro and Revel models and posters. But above all I had books. Books and dinosaurs went together like sherbert and liquorice. I loved 'em!

I had loads of book on Dinosaurs, some fossil tomes and a brace of Early Man volumes. I shall have to dig them out.

I also had a fossil hunting set, which I got one Christmas. It came in  a box with a T. Rex skeleton on the cover. Inside was a small hammer, a magnifying glass and a black and white booklet on collecting fossils and recognising dinosaurs. For the life of me I can't remember what the set was called, who it was by and have never seen it again.

Were you a dinosaur nut readers?

JAPANESE MOLAB

Check out this tiny red MOLAB - next to the green tanks - I saw online in Japan. Its probably made by Glico.

Looking at the ruler at the bottom its about 2cm long. 

Is it smaller than the R and L breakfast cereal model readers?

AOSHIMA UFO MOONBASE: PROJECT SWORD SCRAMBLE BUG

The final model that makes up the trio of Project Sword vehicles that managed to find their way onto the UFO Moonbase – The Scramble Bug!

The Scramble Bug, Sword’s one man lunar exploration tractor doesn't look too far out of place emerging from one of the Moonbase spheres, and in my opinion the best of Imai’s miniature model set.

When Imai first included the Bug as part of their UFO Space Science series, like the Moon Crawler and the Prospector, the box art was directly inspired by illustrations in the Sword Annual, rather than the Century 21 toys.

This part cut-away of the Bug from the Annual shows a pair of grab arms housed at the rear of the vehicle.

The Imai Space Science box art also shows those same grab arms. (However, these don’t feature on the actual model)

In the world of Project Sword, the Scramble Bug was designed to steer over the crater ridden surface of the Moon, however following the cataclysmic meteor impact resulting in a dying Earth, the Bug becomes one of Sword’s Earth-based vehicles, able to effortlessly traverse the World’s ruined landscapes.

Here is the small Imai/Aoshima Scramble Bug compared to its larger Century 21 cousin.    

And  here is the miniature in comparison to the slightly larger Imai die-cast Scramble Bug. 

RONIN HAS BROKEN

Two years ago I wrote about the Samurai miniatures I had as a kid. I loved those small metal models and still have them, although some parts have broken off over time.

There was another metal model Samurai that I always wanted back then but it was just too expensive. It was made by Taisho and appeared on the cover of Military modelling magazine in 1973.

Further Samurai and Ninja action was to be had in the magazine's first annual in 1974.

It contained a mesmerising article about creating a Ninja attack on a clan Lord's house from scratch. There are Ronin, swords and even a decapitation! My modelling skills were never any good so I didn't have a go but I do still flick through the annual every now and then remembering how much I wanted to.

As soon as I dig it out of the attic I'll post pics of the article.

Did you have any Samurai models readers?

SQUIRM AND THE SNOW DEVILS

Whilst rummaging in the attic I found this neat MONSTERS colouring book.

Published by World, it dates from 1985 and is gruesomely stuffed with a rally of beasts and creatures for kids to colour, some of which rang a distinct bell.

The picture I recognised immediately was this handsome chap sinking into the ground and his arms stretched skywards.

Its obviously based on this shot of the unfortunate Roger played by R.A.Dow in the 1976 worm schlocker Squirm.

This hairy fellow...

... may be based on Micheal Landon in I was A Teenage Werewolf 1957.

This toothy vamp...

.... appears to be based on this still of Lalla Ward in Vampire Circus 1972 [there's a similar and fascinating discussion about this image and Horror Top Trumps by Jim Moon on his blog The Moon Lens]

Googling for more monster colouring books I came across this amazing feature, Monster Gallery, on the uber-awesome Plaid Stallions site about the Monster Gallery colouring book from the early 1970's. The feature establishes that many of the illustrations by Mark Savee became the artwork used on Tomland's 1970's line of Famous Monsters of Legend action figures. These include this Snow Man [picture Plaid Stallions]:

Looking at the actual strange blue haired action figure, which is completely different to the artwork, brings to mind a recent comment made by reader Todd. He suggested that its origin may lie an obscure Italian sci-fi flick called the Snow Devils from 1967.

It concerns an alien race of hairy blue-bodied giants called the Aytia from Callisto hell-bent on icing over the Earth.

It was the fourth film of what is known as the Gamma One Quadrilogy.

and here we have a Snow Devil

compared to the Tomland Snow Man toy

Snow Devil from the side

compared to the Tomland Snow Man side on

and this card illustration of the toy

So what do you think. Is Todd on to something? I think so. The Tomland Snow Man toy has been described as a figure not linked to a film, unlike say, their Fly. Maybe it should have been called a Snow Devil since maybe it might be one!

Oddly enough I couldn't help noticing the similarly blue-skinned bearded appearance of the chap top right on this Dan Dare comic strip, Reign of the Robots from January 1958. The figure is a self-portrait of SWORDmaster Eric Eden no less, of TV21 fame, posing as an Atlantine! Maybe he was really a Snow Devil!