clifford toy racing team car transporter

RE: your racing car transporter post

My plastic Clifford Racing Team Transporter is a yellow one. The stickers on the side are different, Racing Team this time. I do have a Land Rover, Hong Kong plastic too with exactly the same sticker on its side. 

I guess somehow Clifford and co planned some kind of a set?

Regards, 

Ike

MY MONOGRAM BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

A few photos of my old Monogram Battlestar Galactica kit.

The model was released in 1979, and was a fairly simple kit to put together, with just a couple of decals.

It was one of four kits released, the others being the Colonial Viper, Cylon Raider, and Cylon Base Star.

Battlestar Galactica which came out between 1978 - 79 was, of course intended as Star Wars for television and lasted for just 24 episodes before being cancelled.  It did however return a year later with a cut-price version renamed Galactica 1980, which lasted another 10 episodes before it too, was axed.

The original studio model  of the  Battlestar Galactica was apparently six-foot long and used dozens  of plastic kits, in particular tanks to create the detail. 

A couple of the sounds that I really like

There are countless toy noises and movements I loved as a kid and still like to remember.

I adored the snug fit of the visor on Major Matt Mason's helmet, particularly when it closed. It was a tight fit over his head too. All in all it was great fun.

Action Man's field radio was a similar tactile triumph. First you had to open the little green case, then pull out the headphones jammed in there, then unravel the cables and place the phones on A Man's head. Joy! ( did it involve a morse code unit too?)

I also got a kick from pushing the small plastic coloured pegs into my Lite Brite. If it was a new paper picture beneath the screen then even better! I think the clown was my favourite image.

Another memory is the smell of heated elements inside battery operated motors like inside a robot or beneath a scalextric car. It was an intoxicating whiff of engine oil and iron. Pouring pink meths into a steam engine was a similar nasal peak. It had a chemical odour like unwanted dentistry.

Corgi Rockets provided further satisfaction with the gold key. Placing it in the plastic chassis was a fine feeling only bettered by the turn you made to release the wheels. Sublime!

A similar treasure was the extra force you had to apply to the snakehead handbreak on the old die-cast Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in order to spring the wings, which themselves made a marvellous click   as they opened.

The list is as endless as childhood days. What do you remember readers?

PS. Name the song from which the posts' title is taken!

seen any good sci fi films?

There are so many sci fi films I haven't seen in the last few years:

Pandorum
Arrival
Passengers
The colony
Midnight special
Equals

To name just a few.

Can anyone recommend any of these or others?

RICHARD HATCH R.I.P.

It's been announced that actor Richard Hatch who played Captain Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica series has sadly passed away.

Our sincere condolences to his family.

More to follow. 

now that's leverage: toy car ramps

I adored toy car ramps in the Sixties.

They were everywhere.

Plastic ones. Metal ones.

They always had two wheel boards, an elevation device and a little winding lever.

I know I used to play with one with my Superfast and whizzwheels cars in a garage of some sort, maybe a Matchbox service station. The car ramp was inside the garage bit with a rising double door. There may have also been an elevator in that service station with a string that winched it up and down. oh yes!

I also recall a simple brightly-coloured plastic one by Blue Box, Jimson or Telsada, someone like that. It came with miniature plastic mechanics set in different mechanic positions like tyre changing. It probably came in one of the neat triple window boxes that Blue Box released like the one with the Jaguar.

Not sure if Hot Wheels had their own car ramp. I don't reckon I had one. Same for Corgi Rockets, although they did have their own super cool tower garage, which took cars all the way to the top. Now that was fantastic toy.

So readers, did you like playing toy car ramps?

plastic toy space gliders gallery

Another blast from the past.

These were sent to me 8 years ago by supercollector ZZ Robot.

did you have a penny mix?

When I was a kid during the Sixties there was a shop near my first school  in Ashton on Ribble called the Penny Shop.

I've no idea if that was its real name but that's how I remember it.

It was crammed with glass jars of sweets stacked in lines on shelves. There was a big massive till on the counter too. For the life of me I can't visualise the shop owner at all. That memory has dissolved like kali in the rain.

What I do recall is asking for a penny mix!

A penny mix was a loose paper bag into which went various sweets and toffees you chose from the jars. My favourites were:

1. Fruit Salad in their orangy red wrappers
2. Black Jacks in their black and grey wrappers
3. Coward and Bowser toffee chews, which I think were in a green and white wrapper with a thistle on?
4. White Chocolate Mice
5. Sweet Bananas
6. Chocolate Caramel Sticks
7. Anglo Bubbly
8. Spanish
9. Liquorice wheels
10. Liquorice Pipes

I'm sure there were more but that's a few bags' full there! Whether each full bag was a penny or each individual sweet escapes me but by gum they were damn fine at the end of the school day!

Did you have penny mixes readers?