tanks for the memories

Sometimes my mind is invaded by Tanks.

I can feel them cresting the salient of my lobes.

Its largely due to the number of toy tanks I've had in my hands over the years.

As a kid I had a cool plastic wind-up tank by Mettoy I think. It had a flip-up hatch, which revealed a pilot. In fact the pilot may have emerged from the hatch. I know I loved that thing. never seen one since the Sixties.

Another tank-like vehicle I adored was the Airfix Alvis Stalwart. It was a complete toy and not a model, which will have attracted me to it a lot. A fabulous green plastic vehicle it could ferry Airfix infantry anywhere on the carpet, the eternal batte of Axminster! Its probably the one toy I wish I still had now!

Returning to tanks proper I recall finding a huge boxed set at a car boot sale in the 90's. It was called Tank Command. The box was at least a million feet long like a Crossfire carton. I remember getting it home, sliding it out and thinking Oh My! There must have been a thousand parts and dozens of strings threading the underside. It was also broken!

Somehow I fixed it up well enough to sell on later but I've no idea how! I remember the instructions being a looooooong sheet of paper. Did you have Tank Command?

Another toy I procured from a charity shop I think was called Turn the Terrible Tank. It was actually a game really comprising of a really futuristic plastic tank sat on a plastic rail. 

The tank brandished a huge silver drill bit instead of a barrel. It looked very Gerry Anderson! I remember that the terrible tank turned when it reached one end of the rail and the impressive drill whirled round. No idea how the game worked though, I sold it before I could find out!

My final turreted friend was a largish plastic tank I got in a job lot of Lanard army toys years ago. It may have been the Corps, not sure. the tank was battery operated and had a remarkable pneumatic barrel. This had an illuminated crimson tip and made an immensely loud ack-ack sound.

I used it as a prop in a short Project SWORD film I made four years ago for the blog's 5th birthday if anyone recognises it. The tank I mean!

What's your favourite toy tank?

project sword badge research: you tube examples

As I begin the final three days of my recuperative stay at home before I re-enter my 'old' working life I plan to do something this weekend I've meant to do for a while: to check whether all my Project SWORD toys have the correct badges.

By way of limbering up with my trusty coffee cup and faithful Moonbase hound by my side I thought I'd watch a few short films about Project SWORD toys and see how other people handle unboxing them and the badges.

Here's my absolute favourite SWORD unboxing - of a Scramble Bug. Its 'performed' by prolific toy You Tuber Tanaka Jun of Japan. I say performed as it does feel like a short Kabuki play or similar. I am entranced when I watch this guy's white-gloved hands! They are so methodical and reverential!

You'll notice that it looks like an almost mint boxed toy complete with all its inner card and tissue packaging, which is great to see for a SWORDie like me. I believe the bag in which the paper Manual is seen has been added for protection though and oddly enough I couldn't see a badge!

Here's another You Tuber, C J Campbell, unboxing his Project SWORD Space Glider five years ago. It s a much longer and noisier film as Mr. Campbell actually speaks and he is not as reverential with his toy, but to be fair its not a mint boxed specimen like Tanaka Jun's. Once again there's no badge. 

It can't be embedded so click on the link [I think the repackaged Fireball XL5 toy he mentions towards the end could either be the JR21 Stingray Submarine Aircraft Carrier the Hover Space Bird, which looked a little like Fireball XL5. Neither of them are connected to Project SWORD]

https://youtu.be/xY9z1P2FjFM

My final bit of You Tube research before I unbox my own toys is this informative film about the Century 21 Zero-X by Modmart, who's films I've been enjoying for as long as I've been blogging. Modmart is passionate about his Gerry Anderson toys and a very knowledgable collector. As he points out his own Zero-X contains the incorrect blue plastic Astronaut badge. It should be the Supremo badge in white.

PS. let me know what you think of these films.

jr21 dart pistol .... spotted again after all these years

I've not seen many unusual JR21 toys online of late. 

Here's one though, the carded JR21 Dart Pistol among this fine collection of spy toys seen on Vectis Auctions last year. 

The dart pistol has a special place on the blog as it was a prize in the very early days of Moonbase Central back in 2009!

Anyone got one?

in a bit of a lather

Did vintage toys fare well in the baths of our youth?

What about Action Man? Did his joints loosen after lengthy dunkings?

What about a toy made for bathtime like the Billy Blastoff frogman? Did Billy stay intact or was it a bad idea by Eldon?

I never had any Sea Devils but they look like they could spear a rubber duck no problem. But were their aquatic credentials all Mattel marketing spin? Did they live for the water?

What's your experience of bath toys readers?

star wars blue milk anyone?

Remember Luke's blue milk in Star Wars?

He drinks some for breakfast down on the moisture farm.

What would be the easiest way of making drinkable blue milk like this?

A L I E N C O V E N A N T T R A I L E R

Moonbase is preparing for more of Ridley's wriggly things and icky critters this month.

Check out the trailer to A L I E N Covenent aka Prometheus 2.

What do you think?

no fivers at moonbase

I've just been alerted by BRASSA the space ATM that old five pound notes will be invalid after midnight tonight here in the UK.

Yep, old fivers will be worthless in the morning.

Having checked the Moonbase coffers I'm pleased to report that we are already fiverless. 

Get spending those old fivers UK readers!

i recognised your foul stench when i was brought on board

I've been trying to sniff out of any connections between toys of the Sixties and Star Wars.

Lacking sufficient Force this time of the morning my Thursday brain is struggling to get past the scum and villainy of my dreams.

Short of tearing this moonbase apart to find the plans, the only thing I can think of is an old link I found in the first months of the blog in 2008 to a website called Secret Fun Spot.

The site had a fun section about Star Wars knockoffs.

Alas the site appears now to be defunct but I did archive a particular image:

Along with obvious C3PO clones made of metal there is a neat set of our friends the Blue Box space vehicles.

Interestingly the Space Car at the bottom of the picture is white. Back in 2008 I'd never seen a white one before and now in 2017 I'm not sure I have yet.

Have you readers?

Why they are Star Wars knockoffs I'm not sure unless the website was only interested in the C3PO bit. Yep, that could be it.

What's your fave Star Wars toy or collectable?