MOONBASE CENTRAL

Wednesday, 31 March 2021

IS THIS A TOMMY BUSTER?

Is this the famous TV21 Tommy Buster?

This toy, the Super Mira, is from Brazil.

STAR COMMAND BAGATELLE

We've seen a few Star Command toys over the last 13 years but I think this bagatelle is a new one for us. Like all of the range it features an uncredited Thunderbirds craft, in this case TB2 and 4.

Is this a toy you had/ have and a range you have come across?

For more about Star Command click the label below. We have hundreds of labels on Moonbase, all linking to other similar posts.

ETERNITY IS NOW JOHN NEEDHAM'S FRONTIER

I've blogged about a few You Tube clips called Gerry Anderson's Eternity many times on MC over the decade. Here's one of them.

I've always loved the sweeping space vistas and the epic music in these clips.

I had thought that was it. There would be nothing more.

Well someone kindly commented recently that Eternity is now called Frontier and is a project of the well-known film and TV creative John Needham.

John has his own website https://www.peculiarpictures.co.uk/about and Frontier is there too https://www.peculiarpictures.co.uk/tv-series-drama-and-feature-films

What do you think readers?

BLAKES 7 HOMING BEACON FROM SCRATCH

Hi,

Continuing my cunning plan to recreate all the obscure Blakes 7 props, here is my scratchbuild of the homing beacon that Blake uses in 'Trial'.

He goes off to contemplate his future after our heroes get things disastrously wrong, resulting in one of them dying. The beacon is so that he can find his way back if that is what he decides he wants.

Now where did I put it?....

Kevin D

Mystery TV21 Badge

Hi.
Found this button badge in a box the other day . It doesn't look like the proper tv21 logo. Anybody got any idea what it is?
Will O.

Matchbox National Parks Police Car

This is the Matchbox '59 Dodge Coronet Police Car. I know this is a long way from space toys, or anything else you normally cover, but I thought the finish might be of interest to you, given your interest in parks and the outdoors.

Initially released in 2019 (copyright date on the base is 2018), this is a 2021 version. The model is a four-door sedan, with a single roof light. Being part of the main window moulding this is in clear plastic. The interesting thing about this version is the light green colour scheme.

It depicts a National Parks vehicle, with Superintendent Park Operations just ahead of the doors. The base and bumpers are black plastic, with a light grey interior.

Matchbox models are not as widely available in NZ as Hot Wheels models, so it is harder to get all the models you want. They are also a little more expensive, usually $4 each, rather than $3, which is the usual price for a Hot Wheels.

The latest card design includes the Dodge badge in the upper left corner. The artwork is rather odd, as it has the Parks vehicle driving through a brightly lit city, rather than a forest track.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Tuesday, 30 March 2021

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DEVIL

I caught How to Train Your Dragon with Moonbase Junior a few weeks back.

The dragon has a peculiar flat face.

I knew I'd seen it before!

THE MEG

OK. I've seen the Meg again. Being a big monster nut I'll give any old mega beast a whirl and the Meg is mega.

Like Rampage the lead actor, in this case Jason Stathan, tries to out-muscle the monster for screen presence but its not possible is it really when the monster is a Megalodon.

The story is as schmalzy as a melting sweet but that aside I loved the giant shark footage. Meg really is a gigantic fish and because of its size the camera can perform those wonderfully long pass-by's as the creature glides past.

The stand-out scenes for me are where the shark is pitted against frogman Stathan as they face-off underwater. It reminds me of those beautiful illustrations of skin divers encountering sharks in old comics like Look and Learn and those fabulous encyclopedias we all used to have.

The scene where the Meg stares at the kid through the marine base window is pretty cool too and hints at older flicks like Jaws 3 and The Abyss. I have to say there's a lot of Jaws in the Meg generally including lots of chum.

I couldn't see any specific Meg toys online but there are schoals of big plastic Megalodons out there.

The sheer size of the Meg recalled the vast presence in an old TV series I caught one year called Surface. It too had a giant undersea beast and I thought it was great. Sadly the show was cut for some reason. Do you remember Surface?