I BRUSHED LIGHTER FLUID ALL OVER MY BOX

Remember that tape - covered toy Space Tract box?

Well, I took your advice and after trying all other methods I bought some lighter fluid.

After an hour's soaking and picking and tweezering and soaking it all came off!

I wuz chuffed!

Removing the tape revealed a long thin piece of the box missing from the front and the side. Drat!

What to do?

I made a patch!

You can see the start of it on the right, like a long thin chicken!

The patch was then glued down.

All the areas of speckled paint loss after getting off the tape where touched up with .... felt pens.

I know, sacrilege but it was something I could do.

And so ....

its done!

The front part of the patch and felt penning seems to worked OK.

The side part of the patch is a bit ropier and I struggled with replacing lettering on the left.

but all in all it came out better than I thought.

From this ....

to this.

Just need to staple the ends.

I'm toying with covering it all in sticky back clear plastic to protect it but unsure.

What do you think readers?

Thanks for the advice.

Time for my Pot Noodle!

BIG EXPLORER WITH ASTRONAUT

I was impressed with this on Worthpoint Auctions a while ago:

 "Big Explorer"

You can switch between "hand mode" and "battery mode".

Made by BIG , West Germany, in the 70's by the looks of it.

Production number: 941. Dimensions 40CM x 19CM x 21CM (H).

I love the design!

You ever seen one readers?

Mezco Thomas Edison Frankenstein

Fresh from the catacombs!

Brian F 

NJ

USA

are you looking forward to autumn?

Autumn brings a wind of change. 

It means a return to work for me and the final few weeks enjoying the sunshine in the garden. Oh and lots of apples from the trees.

What does Autumn mean for you and when do you think it begins and ends?

THUNDERBIRDS WATER PISTOL KNOCKOFF

 Another cool Thunderbirds water pistol knockoff .

The Rota-Matic multi-directional water pistol.

I saw this on Ebay earlier this year.

It might even be dead stock re-bagged?

The makers mark is a castle or a fort as you can see bottom left. There's an R in a circle too. the model number is 741.

Anyone know the maker?

Have you got a Thunderbirds toy pistol?

WHATS THAT COMING OVER THE HILL?

I saw three massive monster movies over the summer. As a kid I would have pestered and pestered my parents for any toys that came out with the films, but I didn't this time!

First up, the Meg. I saw this on the big screen at the flicks. Its a movie about a megalodon surfacing in the modern day. If you go back to your dinosaur days as a kid, the megalodon is a giant shark. In the Meg its about 100 feet long and would have given Captain Brody a coronary!

There's not a lot I can say about the Meg except that I loved the shark. The humans were incidental. Watching it you can't help think of Jaws and Jurassic Park. I wonder if they considered the title Jurassic Jaws?

Still, the Meg does answer that basic question we all had as kids. What would it be like if a giant dinosaur shark came back. Forget Sharknado or Sharktopus. The Meg's got the teeth!

Second we have Rampage. I watched this on Pay to view You Tube. Again, its about massive creatures causing havoc and this time the American Kaiju are a gargantuan wolf, a mega-crocodile and a colossal Kong style gorilla. The city demolition scenes are excellent and felt truly satisfied with their wrecking skills. Again the human angle, although more developed than the Meg, was incidental for me, although Dwayne The Rock Johnson is almost a Kaiju himself!

Watching Rampage called to mind the two giant killer dogs that Bruce Banner's twisted Dad Nick Nolte breeds in the early modern slug at the Hulk fifteen years ago. Which begs the question, is the Hulk a kaiju? Anyway, I enjoyed Rampage a lot and would like to see the big three up against say, Cloverfield or dare I say it, Godzilla!

Last but not least but certainly the oldest, I watched Gorgo online. From 1961 it certainly is right back there with the King himself. coming just 5 years after Godzilla first lets rip. Gorgo is the Irish Godzilla, a Celtic Kaiju.

Set in coastal Ireland and ultimately London, its the tale of a giant monster caught at sea and taken to London to see the Queen. Like King Kong before him, Gorgo is chained up for all the world's paparazzi to snap, when one too many flash bulbs causes Gorgo to snap too. 

But little do the profiteers know that Gorgo is just a baby. His colossal mother, Ogra, is on her way and must surely have set the trend for massive moms searching for junior in monster movies. Think of Jurassic Park's T.Rex's and the MUTO's in the modern American Godzilla.

I liked Gorgo immensely. OK, the effects were a bit rubbery but the creature itself is well-conceived and its movements plausible. Clearly inspired by Godzilla, the changes to its physique were enough to make it its own monster: the large ears, the massive clawed feet and the armoured back.

The scene were Gorgo is driven across London on a Dorkin's Circus flatbad lorry [what is that?] is superbly done and passing through Piccadilly Circus makes for iconic cinema. Inevitably, like any good Kaiju in England, it takes lumps out of the biggest thing it can find and changes the time on Big Ben, a trope sort of set earlier that same release year by fellow bad boy Konga.

Gorgo's mum, Ogra, isn't in the film long or else it would have been called Ogra I suppose but at 200 feet tall she must be one of the biggest Kaiju around. Alas, she never turns up on monster scale charts but could give any of them a run for their honey. Along with her son, she did however get to be in Charlton's GORGO comics drawn by the titan of comicdom, Steve Ditko no less!

Have you seen any Kaiju this summer?

Now, where are my toy monsters!

JAPANESE SHOWA TOY AND CANDY ADVERTISEMENTS

Lots and lots of Japanese examples on this Italian blog:

http://imagorecensio.blogspot.com/2014/05/childrens-advertising-in-showa-era.html

SPANISH PATROL: CLIM DESERT JEEP

I loved my Desert Patrol tin toy jeep when I was a nipper in the Sixties.

Made in Japan, it was one of my top 4 tin toys and I even took it to primary school!

Here's the very same pictured by Vectis.

It's crazy motion and rat-at-tat sound effect are so utterly memorable!

Did you have one?

Here's some short footage I found on You Tube to remind you!

The Desert Patrol Jeep was released in other countries.

Here's the Spanish version by Clim called Jeep Ametrallador I saw on an auction.

and here's it advertised with other Clim toys in a Spanish toy catalogue I saw online.