ZOO GANG: MYSTERY ANIMAL TOYS

Another mystery I dug up when I first started car booting 25 years ago was a brace of vintage hard plastic animals: a pinkish purple snail, a blue elephant and a yellow lion. I had no idea what they were.

The snail and elephant can be seen here in the pic I found online today:

and the yellow lion here flanked by chums.

For the last quarter of a century I have been flummoxed by the identity of these toys. The cartoonish looks may suggest a zoo set or maybe a circus. The chap in blue who I am seeing for the first time online today backs this up as he could be either a circus ringleader or a zoo keeper. He could even be a circus train driver.

There appear to be possibly more related animals in the set as seen in these pictures I chanced on today, although the lion is a different one.

Have you any idea who made these plastic animals or any other info readers?

SPACEX ART

My latest Paint doodle,

the SpaceX P3 helicopter

BARAVELLI BOX ART

This is the box art for the Italian firm Baravelli's Serie Minizero Spaziali Pattuglia Orbitale. The image courtesy of the HäT website. 

I have covered all these model figure sets before on MC but the box art is just so good I'm giving it another whirl.

As most of Baravelli's non-space box art was by Italian artist Gino Palotti so I assume he did the space ones too. Does anyone know for sure?

Baravelli included LP style knockoff astronauts in their space sets. You can clearly see the posed figure pointing at the spaceship. Its LP [rear] and Spacex/ Golden Astronaut [front] 'pointing' equivalents can be seen here in this excellent graphic courtesy of Paul Vreede from his special MC blog post way back in 2009.

The spaceships in the sets tended to be clones of Japanese sci-fi vessels from Ultraman and also the UK's Thunderbirds TV series. The vessel shown on this particular box is based on the Ultra Hawk 3 from the Ultraman/ Ultraseven TV series.

These sets are very collectable and often discussed on model figures fora such as here on Airfix Collecting.

Amongst other things, Baravelli also distributed the Action Jackson 12-inch action doll line in Italy on behalf of toy giants Mego.

Have you any Baravelli figure sets or toys readers?

MYSTERY PLASTIC CATERPILLAR: AN OLD FLAME

About 25 years ago I used to visit the local Wakefield Car Boot Sale here in West Yorkshire. It was the first real place I started to look for vintage toys.

As it was the beginning of me catching the toy bug I was excited as hell. I used to buy all sorts of old toys in those days. It all helped me learn. One such oddment was a hard plastic caterpillar wearing a hat. It would have been around 1991 when I found him in a box of He-Man figures.

I never found out anything more about this caterpillar until I saw the very same one last week mint and carded in Toys R Us! That's a quarter of a century later! 

Turns out it's a birthday candle holder and not really a toy after all. Sometimes cake decorations seem to straddle between the two genres and the best example is of course our chums the LP astronauts, both cake toppers and vintage toy spacemen in one.

So here is the caterpillar I saw this month in a German branch of Toys R Us:

It now joins the a long list of mystery toys I've found which are no longer mysteries. 

Have you got a mystery toy readers?

A HUGE THANK YOU TO SCOOP AND BILL

After a couple of months absence from the blog I would just like to say a heartfelt and massive thank you to Scoop for holding the fort whilst I've been occupied with other things. 

If it wasn't for Scoop's titanic output, all of which has been of the highest quality as per usual, the blog would have withered away.

I would also like to thank Bill for supporting Scoop's watch with his own unique posts.

My full return to the blog may take some time as Summer means summer holidays but I plan to post the odd thing again to add to the fabulous mix being produced by Scoop and aided by Bill.

BOATERIFIC 'KING OF THE SEA'

I've had a bit of a run on Ideal's Boaterific boats lately, and here is my latest purchase, the 'King of the Sea' Cabin Cruiser.

It's another colourful and detailed toy, and in pretty good condition too.

Everything works on it, and apart from a broken stern flag, which appears to have happened in transit it's all minty.

I love the detail inside of the cabin. There's a chair, the ship's wheel and a door to the lower decks. There's even an open one going down to the 'engine' room.

The painted ocean backdrop.

Not bad for a toy that first appeared in 1967.

JERRY DOYLE R.I.P.

Sad to report that the actor and radio show host Jerry Doyle has died aged 60.

He was best known to sci -fi fans as Security Chief Michael Garibaldi in the TV series, Babylon 5.

I was lucky enough to meet the man at a Babylon 5 convention in Blackpool some years ago, and found him a charming and affable person.

Our sincere condolences to his family.

TAKARA SPV

A few photos of my Takara SPV which I've been meaning to post for ages.

It appeared in 2001, and is  a fairly simple, lightweight toy.

It's a slightly smaller toy than the Dinky, Corgi or Vivid versions, but larger than the Konami. 

There are no real features apart from fold-down tracks at the back, but its still a nice little display model as there's plenty of detailing.