UFO shado 2 with working lights diorama

This looks fascinating. 

It appears to be a SHADO Mobile with working lights and then set in a series of stills like a photo-story. 

I haven't set up access for flickr but hopefully it works anyway.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/28773898@N04/with/12261755266/

What do you think?

heavens to murgatroyd: snagglepuss is on the blog

Every time I go to our local airport I pass Murgatroyds fish and chip restaurant.

Despite the welcoming aroma of cod in batter wafting across the road I haven't yet been in. However, passing I always think of a particular phrase from when I was a kid.

That phrase was Heavens to Murgatroyd and was the catchphrase of Sixties Hanna Barbera cartoon character Snagglepuss, as heard here on You Tube:

I adored Snagglepuss and was want to blurt out Heavens to Murgatroyd whenever I could. So much so that my best friend's Dad Stanley nicknamed me Snagglepuss!

Sometimes there was a small yellow duck on his show too, which I also loved. I thought his voice was just that little bit funnier than Donald Duck's but just cannot remember the tiny quacker's name!

Here he is getting some hilarious tooterin from frustrated thesp Snagglepuss, courtesy of You Tube again:

I also came across this Pinterest image from Minnesota library [EmilyHarris] whilst looking for old kids books and realised that the phrase Heavens to Betsy rang a bell too! 

Googling said phrase I was amazed to find on Wikipedia that Heavens to Betsy was also a catchphrase of the wonderful Snagglepuss! Now that I'd forgotten!

You can hear it at the end of this very amusing clip on You Tube:

This clip also features ol' Snag's other famous line 'Exit Stage Left'! ha ha.

Classics all but as for the two Heavens I have no idea what they mean. You?

Did Hanna Barbera shows like this spawn lots of toys and collectables?

rolls, bentleys and daimlers

I saw a Rolls Royce today driving to Leeds. It brought back a flood of memories I must say.

When I was a kid I loved prestige cars, which you saw now and then in Sixties and early Seventies Britain.

Basically there were three top marque saloons around back then over here: Rolls Royce, Bentley and Daimler. I seem to recall seeing all three far more than I do now. Could that be true?

I'm not including Mercs, Astons and Jags for despite being luxury cars they just weren't flash enough for me to be classed as prestige saloons and the preserve of just the super rich like the top three.

Rollers were easy to spot and still are. The front grille and the Spirit of Ecstasy were dead giveaways. Bentleys were less so and all I can recall is the Capital B with the swept tail. Daimlers I can't remember at all.

I may have had all three in die-cast but I'm just not sure. I certainly had a toy Rolls by Dinky or Corgi. I think I had a plastic friction drive Rolls too by Telsalda or someone like that. Were the other two marques released as toy cars?

What were the differences between the three in terms of prestige? Was there a pecking order? Who drove what in the upper echelons? I honestly don't know.

Have you ever driven one of these cars readers? Whats it like?

hannibal lecter's larousse

This weekend reader Steve P cracked the Professor Roney book mystery with this Larousse Encyclopedia of Prehistoric and Ancient Art.

It made me think of another Larousse in the movies.

In Red Dragon, part of the Silence of the Lambs franchise, Ed Norton is mooching round Hannibal Lecter's study when he spots a large cook book. 

Thumbing through it he finds an asterisked entry for Ris de Veau and discovers Lecter's writing above it, a single but very telling word, Sweetbreads.

Norton's fate is sealed as he realises too late the true identity of his fell advisor, Hannibal Lector.

Lecter's cook book is an early French edition of Larousse Gastronomique.

In a strange twist of Lecter serendipity I ended up with a copy of this book myself when my Nephew was having a clear out! 

Out of morbid curiosity I looked up Ris de Veau!  I needn't have worried, my English edition published by those wizards at Paul Hamlyn in 1961 doesn't include Ris de Veau, just an entry for Sweetbreads and the word Ris after it, together with the recipe.

I think I would have feinted if someone had handwritten sweetbreads above it!

Were Larousse books the go-to tomes for movie makers or what? 

Any more books in movies readers?

Right, time for a nice Chianti and some fava beans.

Around the Blog in 80 Toys

A Jules Verne inspired Kinder Surprise toy, of Fogg's famous hot air balloon. Part of a series of three individual toys, the second one being the Nautilus, which ive flagged up previously.

disney's moon base

Moon base from Disneyland "Flight to the Moon" ride in the 1960's.

Rob Godwin

[2015 email archive]

chevrolet astro 1 model kit anyone?

Here's a pic of the model kit box for the Chevrolet Astro 1 kindly sent in by reader Mark J.

I had the superb die-cast version of this toy in the Sixties but never saw the model.

Did you?

Postscript

Ive got the little Corgi Whizzwheels version, but the kit was probably a japan only release. Lovely car!

In Aldi, no-one can hear you shop

Hot on the heels of Woodsys fabulous prop shot in Quatermass, a recent screening of Alien:Covenant appears to show that old Ridley is shopping down market for his FX. In a scene towards the end, one of the crew deposits a distress beacon on the ground, which I spotted as two car warning lights stuck together with a cylinder on top. I picked one of these up in Aldi a few months back for a couple of quid, not because its magnetic, has several flash sequences and extra bright lighted LEDs which cycle around, but because it was cheap and looked cool! Looks like the Alien crew thought so too!