ALPHA STAR: LP ASTRONAUTS ON ICE

Last year I saw these on Ebay.

Nice red LP astronaut clones issued as a carded blister set by Langnese Alpha Star.

I looked into Alpha Star.

It was an ice lolly available in Germany around the end of the Seventies and start of the Eighties. The plastic figures were part of the advertising campaign. I assume they were sold in ice cream shops and kiosks but I'm not sure. Anyone know?

The advertising for the lolly also included:

kiosk price lists [Alpha Star bottom right]

Brand posters

even packs of cards!

and a modern Perry Rhodan magazine cover!

Alpha Star landed in Italy too.

Here's the Gelato brand poster.

Have you come across Alpha Star?

SPACE FLOTSAM AND AUCTION JETSAM 17

Its snowing outside and I'm laid up with my 6th cold of the winter. Never had as many!

Browsing my photo archive from last year here are a few images I don't think I've had on MC before. Not sure though.

Its a motley crew of online space flotsam whose only connection is that I liked them when I saw them.

Mostly from Ebay and similar online auctions 2017 I think.

*

LP simple clones. Spain

Blue Box Secret Missiles Base. Lovely!

LP Under Sea War-Car. More lovely!

I love those deep sea diver figures at the back! and the harpoon gun looks cool. There's even a bag of small harpoons!

Mini Space Force by Imperial Toy Corp. 

We know them better for their Apollo Moon Exploring toys.

UFO custom Mego-like dolls.

UFO Base set no.5 by Imai including a gorgeous little Project SWORD Moon Prospector

Agente Espacial dart gun set. The toy gun is a copy of the Lonestar Stingray pistol.

A fine collection of Topo Gigio. I wonder of the Century 21 Toys figure is in there?

Millon Electronico Cosmonauta pinball. Spain.

 I just like the rocket design on the artwork. The astronaut looks almost LP like too.

Journey to the Seventh Planet poster,

The rocket is a deadringer for the Project SWORD  Task Force 2.

and finally Skull Head Butt, a custom toy of our old friend from Night of the Demon.

Toys R Us Have Gone Bust!

Just seen on the News that Toys R Us have gone bust here in the UK.

Pictures of their clearance shelves looked quite sad. I remember checking them many times in the 90's for older boxed toys.

With their demise is there change afoot with toy shops on the high street or is this unique to Toys R Us? Have you got toy shops still readers?

Alas, electrical appliance giants Maplins have gone bust too.

Is this the result of online buying and the reason why the founder of Amazon is the richest person in the world?

OUT WITH THE OLD

Unlike today, which is a complete snow blizzard and white-out [and schools are shut! yay!], last Sunday could almost have been Spring.

Despite being cold the sun was shining and Blue and me actually went in the garden.

One job was to sort out some old stuff brought down from the attic.

I love this 70's hot plate for a coffee pot but it if we are ever to downsize lots of of the stuff we once bought from car boots in the 90's will have to go.

As its missing its coffee pot its sadly destined for the trash.

The future of this Brick Game is uncertain. If it works it may go on the 'We'll do a Car boot Sale in Summer" pile. Did you have a Brick game?

Not so this, our first ever scanner, an old flatbed from the 90's.

and this bit of an old plastic stacker would double up nicely as a UFO style launch pad!

Some stuff is more useful and an Ebay corner has formed in the house. Pino looks worried!

As is always the way, as some stuff goes some new stuff arrives. I just can't resist buying vintage toys in charity shops and I picked up this bag-full of die cast and plastic for a few pence the other day.

I think the white robot-like Police Motorbike is a Gobots Night Ranger and maybe the blue copter next to it is Gobots too. No idea about the green ball hot rod or the beetle with wheels. You?

These three Barbies came home with me too. Ever since my toy fair stall days I've loved identifying Barbie and Sindy dolls, clothes and accessories. Do you?

It really was a nice Sunday and great to be in the garden again after 6 months!

A bit too cold still for old Blue boy though!

P I N O ' S F A R E W E L L

.... continued from yesterday 

*

Pino went downstairs for the first and last time.

He started his Range Rover and left it running ....

... whilst he went to see his doggy friend Blue whom he'd never met.

He had lived his life in the attic.

Pino drove off into the big World leaving his old life behind.

He shed a sparking digital tear.

He had grown up.

Cornets of Legend, Trumpets of Myth

I've always loved a good fanfare.

It rouses the spirit.

Since movies first flickered on screen fanfares have played a part in the scores of fantasy films.

The first one I recall was the coming home melody from The Vikings starring chiseled heart-throb Kirk Douglas in 1958.

Its a suitably uplifting melody blasted out of the Danes' huge Alpenhorn and you can hear it, as with all the horns to come, courtesy of You Tube. The real brass section is at 2.17.

https://youtu.be/Gays7kImkT4

The next cornets of note were those mammoth trumpets of the Tournament Parade in Disney's Robin Hood! A classic elefanfare! ha ha. I'm amazed its as late as 1973 this film. I thought it was from the Sixties!

Next up is perhaps my favourite musical pageant, the majestic and towering notes from the Star Trek episode Who Mourns Adonais but I always think of it simply as the one where the God Apollo grows massively tall!

There is a beautiful and godly six note horn motif that plays when Apollo appears now and then but I can't find a clip of it. You can hear a version of it at the start of this segment. Its what trumpets were made for!

https://youtu.be/oVGK3fuD5Kw?t=1m56s

Incidentally you can even see a modern interview with the buff actor who played Apollo on the Tube! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZvipKq8890

No list of heraldic blowing would be complete without A Fanfare for the Common Man, Emerson Lake and Palmer's grand 1977 opus and a masterclass in rock pageantry, the kind of thing Punk Rockers detested I imagine! Rock excess, yes!

To finish I will end with a modern flourish, the dizzying melody as the Fellowship of the Ring pass the Argonath, the gigantic stone sentinels guarding the sea.

Not so much a fanfare I admit but it is an epic haunting elegy soldiered by roiling kettle drums.

Awe-inspiring.

What fanfares blow your way readers?

L A S T L I G H T

 After sleeping for 15 years in the roof Pino awoke for one final day.

He stared at lights

He read his book

He bathed in neon

But Pino yearned for freedom, for endless days walking the globe

Sadly he turned and walked downstairs to see his friend Blue one last time .....

*

To be continued