Took a snap of this little shelf corner 'cos there's a neat gathering of odd toys forming.
From left to right: home made photonic station, Hover LEM wheel, mystery torpedo, Keloggs Mr. Rusty [I think], Trader Joe [thanks Lance] and a 1977 Kenner Darth Vader in a bag with a plastic doll's house telephone [he likes to chat].
Checking my old email archive I came across a nugget of insight from blog friend Paul Vreede regrading my Spanish toy aircraft carrier.
Paul V says that looking at the pics there, he noticed a couple of Hawker Harriers hovering in the box top illustration. So he looked those up on wikipedia, curious to know when those first flew.
Where it turns out the Spanish navy also operated Sea Harriers (they called them Matadors) off their carrier called the Dédalo.
Regular readers will know I'm a huge rock fan. Being a Seventies teenager my hair still wants to be long and my fingers air-guitar without warning!
The Seventies rock scene was prolific and there were thousands of hairy bands allover the world. One of my faves were Free.
Its hard to imagine now just how good Free were back then. Forget the radio musak of All Right Now, Free were so so much more. Four fabulous teenage rock musicians including the best young rock vocalist and best lead guitarist of their generation.
They had the swagger of a much older band because they were great, perhaps the best blues rock band ever. They weren't heavy metal like Budgie or Sabbath but bluesy hard like Humble Pie or Cream. Young and destined they blew their own bravura groove before disbanding in 1973.
With just a handful of superb albums and a sliver of sharp singles, Free were as cool as blues cucumbers with the bravado of a band who knew they were brilliant. 40 years before Oasis, Blur, The Strokes and the Killers, Free were that classic young power quartet eating up the stage with mastery and volume.
If you ever needed proof just how special Free where then take a look at this You Tube footage of them playing Mr. Big at the Isle of Wight Festival, England, 1970. Remember, the average age of the band was just 19 or 20! Enjoy!
Not only did we have a cool new LN Mechanical Fish, now we have this full set of LP animals new to MC!
The Ebay listing says it was found in a retail box of four. The set comes boxed in a plain white carton and appears to have its own colourful background card, which I think portrays a circus.
This set contains lots of animals new to the blog and I can only assume that they are indeed LP. The set contains just 4 of the 10 known jazz band players.
Does anyone know anymore about this circus set or LP animals at all?
This set is listed by Its Sold Here in Pennsylvania, USA on Ebay.com as an IDL set.
Given the number of LN and LP toys we know about, including all these animals, it'd be great to have a full list with model numbers and small pics maybe. Some work has already been done and there's tons of info here on MC [labels and search!] and Paul Vreede's wonderful Triang SpaceX Toys website.
Hi Woodsie, how's house arrest workin' out for you?
A Facebook friend sent me a link to The Getty Museum, who has been challenging housebound people to recreate famous paintings using just household items and the results are hilarious and inspiring.
Of course, I'm more of a film aficionado, so this is my contribution.
I've already had other ideas including The Lion King, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Alien and North by Northwest, but I'm holding off, to let others have some of the fun.
How do you think YOUR readers would go? Cheers, Looey Oz
