MAISY

 Maisy, one of Moonbase Junior's fave TV theme tunes on his car CD! It's a real hoot!

I FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON: My adventures in Merchandizing Part 2 by Lewis M.

I'd been feeling pretty good about my Phantom lamp with the white glowing eyes, it looked exactly like the 80's original - or so I thought.

King Features who owned the Phantom property thought otherwise. They claimed the face didn't look like the face on the lamp in their office, but despite emailing photos of said lamp, they couldn't effectively explain what they thought was wrong. 

The easy way out would have been to drop over to their office and take a look myself, except... their office was in New York NY USA!

As luck would have it, I was actually just about to go on a holiday that was taking in Tokyo and New York. So I made an appointment and packed some tubs of 2 part silicone putty in my suitcase. 

King Features in NY was a swanky office complex and I spent about half an hour photographing the face of this damn lamp and making a rubber mould of the face. When I got back to Australia, I made a direct cast and glued it over my own sculpt, so the client would get exactly what they wanted.



The final approved lamp was a good seller and encouraged my Merchandiser to look at other options for lamps based on the same gimmick. He tried Marvel and got me to sketch up a proposal, but it went nowhere...




So next, he decided to try Star Wars and here is where the troubles really began...

What was proposed was a ceramic Darth Vader with red glowing eyes. I clearly remembered a pottery Darth Vader coin bank I had in the early 80's and as The Phantom had basically been a ceramic vase with empty eye holes, I decided to go for a smoothed feel as opposed to a hard edged look. 

The merchandiser also wanted a Yoda lamp as a companion with green eyes and I was actually quite pleased with the organic/ceramic look I achieved.





So we now had two reasonable working prototypes to take to the next level. Unfortunately things got off to a bad start with Lucasfilm who had very specific procedures that my Merchandiser didn't follow to the letter and things only got worse. The Darth head was sent to China to get a quote on manufacture and instead, they chose to cast the entire thing as a solid lump of resin.

I don't know what happened to my prototype, but the resin lump really got up Lucasfilm's nose. They didn't like the sculpt, they wanted to know which film the design was based on (the actual design changed subtly from film to film and they were insisting our piece represent a specific version).

They were suggesting the Merchandiser hire Gentle Giant Studios (fully owned by them) to do a sculpt at his own additional expense. He could see how it was going and already being several thousand dollars out of pocket, he decided not to throw good money after bad...

So I don't think my Yoda lamp was ever even seen by Lucasfilm, certainly it stayed with me and still peers down at me from the top shelf of my studio. Whilst a white eyed Phantom worked quite well, the red eyed Darth (although quite effective) never got to strut his stuff and poor old Yoda... 

While the idea of a glowing green eyed Jedi might have seemed a good idea, it practice it was more reminiscent of "Village of the Damned Yoda"!



And pretty much here ended my Merchandising adventures, certainly we never worked together again.

I think the demands of Licensing Holders are very specific and certainly the charming "off model" toys of the 60s and 70s are a thing of the past, in this pre-vizzed computer designed, computer manufactured world. Sadly, movie making has now gone the same way with everything pre planned down to the micron.

But like Rock and Roll, I'm thankful for the little bit I knew.
Cheers, 

Looey

CAPRICORN GONE

De-cluttering is hard. Especially if you're a bit of a hoarder like me. It doesn't come naturally.

Chucking videos is a case in point. I love video. I collect 1980's big boxes and clamshells and have loads.

But we also have stacks of the normal-sized later video tapes, which we don't want anymore and I don't collect. Throwing them out seems wrong though.

But that's what I've had to do. We couldn't even give them away. Video has been killed good and proper. Even charity shops won't accept them.

We had a stack of about forty VHS was available free of charge to any good local home that wanted them, via Freecycle online. Twenty were kindly picked up yesterday by a lady who still watches VHS. 

One video was put aside for someone who just wanted Capricorn One last week. It's still on our outside porch step in a bag!

For the rest I had considered specialist recycling but it seems so complex and I was appalled when I saw the image on this site with piles of tinned film stock for destruction. God knows what treasures and gems people throw out! https://www.tiptopmedia.co.uk/recycling/

I even checked Cashconverters and Musicmagpie but Video isn't listed as something they buy anymore so no joy there.

The bin seemed the only option. In a bid to reduce what I had to chuck I have recycled all the paper covers [sleeves] and kept the plastic cases as hard packaging for when I sell action figures. That just left the tapes themselves.

So into the wheelie bin they went. I hate the idea that this once beautiful and ubiquitous technology going to landfill but they had to.

Only Capricorn One remains. Waiting for a final launch. My favourite film of the whole pile. It's still on our doorstep, where next door's cat has left half a shrew. Not a bad trade really!

AOSHIMA ZERO-X IN DIECAST COLLECTOR MAGAZINE

Hi Woodsy

The latest issue of Diecast Collector, the November 2020 issue, has a four-page article in it on the Aoshima version of the Zero-X from Thunderbirds Are Go. By Mike Pigott, who has done a number of Gerry Anderson articles over the years. I thought it might be of interest to readers.

Paul Adams

New Zealand

BILL EV'S MINI-DISKS

In the days before Computers ruled all in broadcasting, Mini-Disks were one cost effective solution to replace NAB Standard Jingle Cartridges. When I built the original studios for the Bridgend Local Radio trials I installed Mini-Disks as replacements for the Cartridges which we all found very easy to operate and were reliable.

Needless to say when Celtica Radio's studios were first set up we used Mini-Disks as Computerisation was still in its infancy at that point. And I was not convinced that it was reliable enough.

Within three years though, by 2003, the Mini-Disks were virtually obsolete. But we decided to keep a couple of these great instruments operational in each studio installation, as even now they are still useful.

This full size Rack Mount Mini-Disks is only rarely used, but it is occasionally needed.

This much smaller Mini-Disk has a removable 4Gigabyte disc as it's recording media and can support a high quality digital recording of many many hours.

On this link https://www.celticaradio.com/archive.html you will find a number of outside broadcast recordings, interviews and concerts all either recorded with this 'NET' Mini-Disk, or an earlier version owned by Ed Risby who is Celtica Radios Company Secretary.

The quality of these recording instruments is absolutely stunning. And of course without them, Celtica Radio itself would never have been able to exist in the first place.

Keeping them serviced and in use, together with CDs, Turntables and Reel To Reel Tape Recorders, means that if our Playout system stopped working we could still sustain the service the old fashioned way!

Bill Everatt

ROB'S KINTSUGI

Woodsy

Here is another small project I'm working on. I found various pieces of an old Tootsietoy Car behind the radiator of our very old house when I was doing some cleaning last year. It was in such crummy shape, I was going to chuck it, but for some reason I didn't.

Then I read about the Japanese Art of repairing broken things, Kintsugi. Traditionally, it applies to pottery, but philosophically, it could apply to anything which cannot be brought back to perfection, but which is still a beloved object. The purpose of Kintsugi is not to restore the object to its original, pristine state, but to repair it showing the cracks and seams and all, to show it's "life journey" as it were.

So I'm going to take the existing pieces and try to patch them together as best I can, and see what I come up with. I might try to polish up the surface, but then again, maybe not. I'll send along the results. And maybe somebody can identify the car model? I'm thinking somewhere in the 1930s, but I don't know my classic cars.

Rob C

USA

TO THE BATCAVE!

I love the Batmobile going in and out of the Batcave.

I would have given an entire bag of gobstoppers for a go!

There's the original 1966 Batmobile leaving the cave.

and perhaps my fave bat-ride on film, the 1989 batmobile zooming through Tim Burton's gothic forest as it wends its way to the Wayne cave.

Have you a favourite Batmobile scene from the last 60 years?

MINI WIND UP SPARKING MOON PROBE

You don't often see the Mini Wind Up Sparking Moon Probe, part of the Mini Wind Up range. This was on an online sale so I kept the pics.

Its an unusual looking space toy with its long sweeping blister dome like a steam-iron snout.

It includes this small silver thingy, which I'll have to read up on.

Colour variations include an orange version.

if I was to get one it would be the blue version.

Do you like them?