WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABU FRICK?

Well Christmas is now a discarded wrapper and the New Year lumbers into its jittery stride. Despite vows of rude health Moonbase has already succumbed to its first pathogen as the Missus is down with a tummy bug. My own medical travails before Christmas have resulted in a formal meeting at work next week too! Add to that the dog secretly eating a bar of chocolate at a friend's house and we have not had the rosiest of starts to twenty twenty!

I am hopeful though of brighter times round the bend and the prospect of a further Moonbase baby Junior around Eastertime is particularly welcome. Grandparenting is the top job on the base these days!

In the meantime, I've continued the festive habit of film-watching and some recent viewings include London has Fallen, with all-round hard-man Gerard 'I am Sparta' Butler [Angel has Fallen has come out too although I've no idea what Angel means] and the harrowing horror Get Out, a sort of modern version of a body parts shocker like Coma.

I also caught the first half hour of a film that haunted me as a kid, Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice. Part of the Psycho-biddy sub-genre of horror, its about a cackling conniving widow who likes to fleece and bury her housekeepers in her desert garden. The terrifying lead Geraldine Page's demented laugh unnerved me for years to come and always gives me a shiver whenever I hear it on the telly!

Dracula was a tasty morsel for many of us and we've blogged about it already. The buzz it created reminded me of another classic monster adaptation in the Seventies, when Frankenstein got the TV treatment. I remember watching it with my parents and bearing in mind the UK had just three channels it will have been well watched in 1973 or 4. The adaptation cast Dr. Polidori as the 'mad' scientist rather than the usual Baron and the monster was played by handsome Canadian Michael Sarrazin. The stand-out scene which I recall to this day was when the monster bursts into a ballroom and rips Jane Seymour's head off and throws it across the floor. Shocking for a TV programme back then, it has stayed with me ever since.

The icing on the week has to have been Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker at the pictures. Many fine tributes and critiques will pepper the net so I won't go on, suffice to say that I enjoyed it greatly. I enjoy all Star Wars films as they all in some way conjure up the magic I felt when I first saw the original trilogy. From the initial 'In a Galaxy ....' to the opening scene I always get choked up recalling how elated I was seeing the first run years and years ago. I could tell my friend was similarly excited as he always asks 'up or down?' referring to the direction of camera pan at the start of the film. I got it right this time too! The movie overall was a choice galactic romp and old chums like the Falcon, 3PO, Leia and Lando made it special. I also liked the affection shown for different lightsabres and my new fave character is the diminutive droid mechanic Babu Frick the grease pug. Despite my ongoing misgivings about Sith Lord Kylo Ren, the only real thing missing is the vanished 20th Century Fox double spotlights opening now Disney have sadly taken over. I miss that opening so much!

Have you seen any of these and maybe the new Star Wars?

CAMEL TOYS SHOOTING STAR RACE CAR

This caught my eye online.

Shooting Star friction race car by Camel, a company I've not heard of before.

Sadly there were no pics of the toy on Yahoo Japan, just the cool box, although I may have seen this in kit form.

The toy looks very sleek and almost Project SWORD-like.

It's got that Land Speed Record vibe going on.

There's a whiff of other toys here too, Hoover's Space Racer and the X-series X50. Maybe even Project SWORD's Task Force 2 in car-form.

Here's the kit I was talking about, the green one bottom left by Otaki. The brown one next to it is the forerunner of SWORD's probe Force 3.

Anyone got one?

Star Wars: A New Hope Radio Drama

hi Woodsy, Have you seen heard of this? On You Tube.

I found it a while ago and just got round to playing it, I remember recording it from Radio 1 either 1978 or 79, I remember the dialogue like it was yesterday, there's also Empire strikes back and Return of the Jedi. 

I don't recall Radio 1 broadcasting those stories. 

Enjoy! Regards 

MJ Southcoast Base

https://youtu.be/0-29uKdckL4

ROB'S FLYING SAUCER ART

Hi Woodsy,

Hope this year is a good one for you and yours!

Here is an acrylic painting I finished recently, in homage to those little flying saucer toys we grew up with as kids. Feel free to post if you think it's blogworthy!

Rob Craig

USA

Gerry Anderson's Crossroads to Crime

This old black and white crime film directed by one Gerry Anderson is on Talking Pictures TV this Saturday 11th January at 8.50am.

THE THREE TARHEEL-STYLE BOXES OF THE PROJECT SWORD MOON RANGER

These are the three different Tarheel-style Moon Ranger boxes.

The differences are not huge.

All these pictures are from old auctions.

Here's the US box with the small red globe within the black curving capital T. It also says Project SWORD.

 Here's the second type of US box with the less curved T inscribed with the name Tarheel. The T is also held by two illustrated kids. Interestingly any reference to Project SWORD was removed from the box and the red arrowhead decal on the photo of the toy.

The third style of box is this one for the Italian market. |There is no reference to Tarheel and the upper portion of the title panel has been blacked out as is the case along the sides too. Interestingly the word SWORD does appear on red arrowhead decal on the Ranger in the photo, as it does on the toy itself.

An Italian import decal is virtually always stuck onto these boxes as seen here top right. Click on the labels below for more info.

Have you got any of these or anything different?

SINBAD SEQUEL SANK

I saw two Sinbad films again this Christmas, the Seventh Voyage from 1958 and the Golden Voyage from 1973.

Seeing them so close together I realised that of the two the earlier 1958 film was much much better in my opinion. 

The Seventh Voyage was a really excellent movie, entertaining and exciting with a great storyline and fantastic effects. The necromancer villain was very convincing and the Island cyclops and the green dragon really great monsters. I just loved the whole thing. It had that classic zap and zing found later in Jason and the Argonauts.

Fifteen years later the Golden Voyage of Sinbad seemed to have lost so so much. The story was weak, the villain despite being Tom Baker was lukewarm and the monsters and effects somehow half-hearted. I admit that the fencing Shiva was good but the continual use of the miniature flying Ymir creature  throughout the film was just lazy. It just felt to me as if the wind had dropped from Sinbad's sagging sails.

I now need to see Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger from 1977 to see if the rot had set in for good. Is it better than the Golden Voyage would you say?

What do you think readers? Am I being overly harsh?

OLD TOYS I PASSED UP THIS NEW YEAR

During our recent New Year trip away I had to walk by a few nice Charity Shop items that 20 years ago I wouldn't have hesitated snaffling for my old toy stall and Ebay business. I've already too much clutter and we are meant to be downsizing at some point so I have to pass on many temptations.

This was one, the Star Wars Electronic Galactic Battle game. It was nicely boxed but had a Y-Wing missing. £8. I passed for reasons explained.

Similarly this plastic box light with an R2D2 design was neat. £5.

Most expensive of all in one of the Charities was this loose  plastic battery-operated 1994 OCP Interceptor from the Robocop TV series, along with the action figure. £10.

I regret not getting them all but that's the insatiable magpie in me.

Would you have taken a punt on any or all of them readers?

As an aside I recall vividly seeing the Robocop TV series plastic vehicles way back in 1994 when they were brand new in the shops. I was in Karstadt, a German department store and I held the above toy in its box, along with the Tactical Field Ambulance below. I didn't get them because we didn't have enough room in the suitcase and I thought I'd pick them up in a UK toy store. I never did!