gotham city toy shop

In the wake of Adam West's sad passing I have been reminiscing with Andy B a little.

We thought it might be the right time to talk about the importance of Batman and bat toys for our generation and probably every generation since - and maybe the one before us Baby Boomers.

Like Superman Batman has been around as long as sliced bread.

Adam West's Batman, the definative caped crusader, spawned hundreds of toys, games, puzzles, books, comics and records to name but a few parts of the bats merchandise machine in the Sixties.

There are also thousands of devoted Batman fans and collectors today and the scores of blogs and websites on the net reflect this. With each new film and comic new fans join the bat-talion every year.

After the excitement of watching Batman on TV first time round in the Sixties and enjoying the dark knight's superb die-cast Batmobiles I once again returned to the warmth of the bat-cave as an adult along with several million others who gawped at Michael Keaton's new Batman in 1989.

Keaton was so significant for me.

His turn as Bats in Tim Burton's gothic homage re-ignited the Gotham mythos and without doubt sparked my own interest in vintage toys. The slew of action figures and vehicles filling the shops in 89/90 was the first time I had noticed the awesome pulling-power of film-related merchandising since I was a kid.

I wuz hooked.

I filled the Nineties with anything batty I could get in the UK.

The first thing I ever bought on Ebay was bat related. It was the year 2000, Ebay had just landed in the UK and I was as excited as hell to see so many amazing vintage toys allover the world like candy in an international sweet shop!

Being fascinated by early action figues back then and having read about one particular Bat toy called the JLA set of figures by Ideal I sought it out, found a set and made a bid.

I won and eh voila!

Pictured is what I got in the post from America, which was a revelation in itself. Ebay worked and worked across the world!

I got everything above except the bat-plane and I adored my first ever Ebay purchase more than anything else I owned.

I went on to add the bat-plane later and had plans to locate everything else in the set but realised that only Bruce Wayne himself could afford it all so I hung up my bat-gloves and enjoyed what I had.

I went on over the next decade to find Mego batmobiles, Remco Energised Batmans, the battery-operated Bat Console, the Animated Series Batmobile and countless more collectables from Gotham City.

So, thanks Adam West for all the bat memories, Thanks so much. 

Rest in peace Dark Dark Knight.

*

Do you have any Batman related toys and collectables?

Did you watch the TV series?

bubble licious

We've bought a mega bubbles toy for the Grandson to watch this weekend.

It'll be warm so hopefully we'll be outdoors a lot.

Kids love bubbles and this mage one makes huge bubbles.

I remember making bubble mix out of washing up liquid when I was small. It worked fine. My Missus had a brand called Puste Fix when she was a little 'un.

Did you and do you still make bubbles readers?

Kids in cars

S'funny what we did as kids in cars.

I used to love winding the windows down in summer and fishing my hands through the airstream. Changing to an upturned hand was great fun as it caused drag.

Sticking your whole head out was the best, allowing the rushing air to sweep over your face, eyes and hair. Even dogs like doing this!

Another popular pastime at the back was being co-driver. This was either achieved without props or with one of the cool plastic toy steering wheels which had a huge suction cup so it could stick to the back of the seat in front. I loved that toy. It has a horn in the middle, a ratcheting indicator lever and a couple of switches. I seem to recall it being blue and maybe made by Casdon?

I-spy was a staple as well, which everyone could play, even the adults. I spy with my little eye something beginning with Z. I remember it so well it could be yesterday.

A similar game was spotting certain makes of car and truck, although I'm not sure how we played this now.

In my attic I have an old board game about cars. Its something I picked up at a boot sale 20 years ago. Its by Letts or Lotts I think. It was made specifically for kids in the back seat. I don't recall playing actual board games in the the car like this. Do you?

What did you do in the back seat readers? as kids I mean!

the quiet earth

The current book in my loo library is my old WH Smith Guide to Video.

Its one of a half dozen film guides I have and I like nothing more than reading short descriptions of movies, their dates, actors etc.

My particular taste is for horror and science fiction and one film caught my eye during ablutions this morning.

Its called THE QUIET EARTH and is described as one of the best Sci Fi fims of the 1980's. High praise indeed! Hailing from New Zealand it concerns survivors of a global catastrophe if I've understood it right.

I have never seen The Quiet Earth and it may be a good follow-on for me after finishing Quatermass Ringstone Round next week.

Has anyone seen The Quiet Earth?

lamps of our youth

Lighting was always important as kids.

There were loads of types of lights and lighting in the Sixties and Seventies.

Most lights in normal rooms were a light-bulb on a cable dangling from the ceiling. These were called Big Lights in our house.

'Woodsy, put big light on son' could often be heard from my Parent's favourite settee.

Other lights were a bit posher than the big light. These were wall lights and often decorative to show off to the neighbours. You could have metal scallops or green glass upturned troughs or brass candles or even art deco affairs of tubes and glass.

For some reason these wall lights were often called lamps and in the poshest circles lighting.

Table lamps were important too especially bedside lamps, which you read your comics with at night. These usually had a large push-button switch either on the red-hot neck of the thing itself or a mile down a long cable trailing from the sparking socket on the opposite wall.

Lamp stands were the king of lights in our house. Majestic and vertical, these upstanding pillars of illumination were always topped with the biggest lamp-shades you've ever seen. Huge tapered tubes of floral chaos often ringed with a fringe of gold tassles, all in all looking like a thin Egyptian with a giant fez. 

However is was a more subtle lighting that us kids were after. Lighting to fit the mood, especially for moody young teenagers, who wished for nothing more than to skulk and grouch in semi-darkness.

This crepuscular effect was created by that titan of gadgets, the dimmer switch. Often shortened to simply dimmer, these small turning buttons were the height of cool in the early Seventies. There was nothing quite like dimming the TV room's big light to impress your first girlfriend [usually called Janet] before you offered her a lemonade float.

Yet even the dimmer darkened in the presence of another, yes, the queen of mood-lighting that was the coloured light-bulb.

I adored coloured light-bulbs and experimented with every colour I could find. They were sold in most good hardware shops on the coloured light-bulb shelf and going home with a bag of red and blue Mazdas was the business end of luminescence.

Having tried them all I now think I liked red the best. For some reason a diffuse fog of crimson light in my bedroom seemed to fit my pubescent state perfectly and when added to a dimmer it was like mood fondue. 

I could bask in the scarlet energy reading Sounds, listening to Budgie and squeezing spots to my heart's content without anyone bothering me. The red glow meant I was home and slouching for England. Heaven!

What are your memories of lamps and lights readers?

MJ Variety anyone?

I used to gawp at the vast amount of merchandise available online from an US Ebay shop called MJ Variety.

They sold TV and Film related stuff in bulk and often vintage items. Lord knows where they got it from!

I used to think that some of their vintage lots would look cool on my old toy fair stall but I never got round to buying from them before I wound it up.

It was a while later that I discovered that MJ variety is an actual shop in the real world and located somewhere in the garden state of New Jersey.

Has anyone ever been to their shop?

ROCKETS GALORE!

Another few old photos of the larger Rocket Jeep.

SMALL ROCKET LAUNCHER JEEP

This dime store type Jeep toy tturned up in several different guises, and was usually found on a market stall, newsagent or seaside shop. It was always a favourite with me, even before its design became part of the Spacex range.

A few British army paratrooper toy soldiers just to add to the garden war games.