Dinky Incerceptor? Could it Take Out Toy Soldiers?

I watched this You Tube clip to remind me just how powerful the missile was on the Dinky UFO Interceptor.

I remember it taking out loads of Airfix soldiers stood on our carpet.

How many could it flatten?

Could it overturn one of those prone sharp shooters? I can't remember!

Anyone got any footage of plastic soldiers being blasted by the Interceptor?

Toy Train Ride Through The City

I'm not a big toy train fan like some of you but I do see the appeal.

However, I was mesmerised by this fantastic toy train ride through a toy city on You Tube!

Its three minutes of a train-held camera hurtling along the plastic miles.

Do you like it?

Did You Like Sports at School?

Did you like doing sport at school? I know I didn't. I'd much rather have been home playing at the Apollo Moon Landing with my SWORD and Major Matt Mason!

I disliked all sports with equal vigour and was derided for being useless at them on a weekly basis. Picked last in the ritual humiliation of team selection, football was a particular bete noire of mine and I joined a special team of misfits called the Duffers.

Worst of all the active horrors though was cross-country running. To this day I cringe at the thought of having to run in the countryside, prefering to walk at all costs!

Cross-country running must have been invented by a maniac. Who in their right mind would sprint through mud and gunge in the pouring rain wearing only plimsolls, elasticated shorts and a school PE shirt? 

I wouldn't mind but the land we ran across at school was a lame excuse for countryside since it was basically the rough scrub, marsh and woodland at the far ends of the playing fields. I hated every minute of it and only the thought of a hot cup of bovril and a mess with my Space toys when I arrived home got me through the winter ordeals.

Did you like sports at school?

Dark Shadows Werewolf Meets Glow Gorgo!

Hi Woodsy.

Things are beginning to thaw out here and I'm returning to the everyday grind,but I enjoyed the downtime by finishing these models.

The Werewolf and Gorgo have glow in the dark parts and I did little or no painting on them. I also finished painting these 3 dinosaurs from an earlier post.

Brian

NJ.

Ideal Astro Base 1960 : How Brilliant is that!

This is a decent video demonstration of the functions of the 1960 Astro Base by Ideal. Its a You Tubed sales pitch from 2010 by a chap called Dezertdude but ignore the sales talk and focus on the amazing movements and actions of this early and complex space toy.

Why am I particularly interested? Well, its because the astronaut and scout car cockpit are the earliest examples I know of toy parts that eventually became incorporated into the Century 21 Project SWORD  line 7 years later in 1967, specifically in the Moon Ranger.

Having watched the clip I am now wondering of there is any evidence of the 'ring' on the back of the Project SWORD Moon Ranger astronaut? The same goes for the American Moon Ranger by Tarheel or indeed the earlier Japanese Moon Ranger by Nichimo?

Anyone want to look and let us know?

Mystery Painted Stingray Model

Further to the mystery Portuguese Stingray I posted earlier this month [still unidentified] here's another mystery Stingray model toy I found on You Tube.

The short clip from a collectables outfit is over two years old so presumably the owner has worked it out but what do you think readers? 

What make of Stingray is it do you think?

Did You Play Post Office?

Did you play Post Office as a kid?

I loved playing it and lets face it, stationary was made for kids to mess around with.

It was easy to whip up a post office counter. There was always a stack of envelopes and paper in the house. I liked to use those thin blue Air Mail envelopes and pads of paper by Basildon Bond [Jame's brother!].

Another essential tool was a stamp of some kind as any decent sub-postmaster loves to stamp every bit of paper in sight.

Cash could also change hands over the counter and I found Monopoly money ideal for this as well as a bag of plastic shillings.

The counter was usually a dining chair with me stood behind and my customers - mates, family, action man - queuing in front.

Obviously toy companies cottoned onto the appeal of the play post office and some toy sets were released during my childhood.

I had one particular set, pictured below from Ebay, and I must say seeing it again it is a thing of beauty. Everything was there including loads of different bits of paper. Heaven! I so recall that red anti-drip ink well made of red plastic! The make may have been Berwick or Merit. Not sure.

Years later  in the late Eighties when my own daughter played Post Office she roped in an assistant, her pet guinea pig Jonny!

Jonny Pig, bless him, would always give a little snip to any paper you help near his mouth! Like a hairy hole punch!

Did you play Post Office?

more bubbles in the bath: recycling mattel's sea devils

I got loads of Matt Mason at Christmas in the Sixties.

My rubber friends were never far away.

But sadly I never got any Sea Devils.

Maybe they were harder to find in the shops? I dunno.

But you got a second wind with the Devils though. Some of their bits re-surfaced in Mattel's vast ocean of toys and its briny haul of clones.

OK. Remember the Aqualander? It was the Devil's amphibious jet car shown here on the left as seen on Ebay.

Well, a similar miniaturised version of it floated up in the SpaceLink line shown below, which Bill first introduced us too. SpaceLink was a sc-fi based wing of the bigger Capsela brand.

Next comes what I think is a clone of the figures themselves, although I'm unsure. 

Recently seen on Ebay this bubble carded toy below, surrounded by real Devils, looks a lot like a Sea Devil and is branded as such but the makers mark - a sort of red and blue triangle in a white circle seen on the left of the card - is not Mattel. I've no idea what the make is. You?

Interestingly, the three small faces shown in these two pictures were described as pre-production pieces from Mattel itself! There are a number of pre-production Sea Devils on the net so they can exist.

We now come to the Devils' bellows.

These, a purple concertina of thin plastic, attached to a slender pipe to create bubbling in the bath [they shouldn't have bothered, we could all create them!]

Here's Chuck Carter with his bellows attached to his air tanks.

But the pumping doesn't stop there. Those purple bellows popped up with Mattel's Callisto too. In fact he may have had them first for blowing his string through his shoulder gun.

Scorpio got the pump next. He used it for blurting polystyrene balls from his chest canon

Who knows where the bellows went after that!

Big Jim?

Do you know of any more Sea Devilment? Did you have any of the range?