THE DAY BRIAN SHOOK HANDS WITH GODZILLA

Hi Woodsy. I share with you today a Medicom Toy Real Action Heroes Godzilla toy.

An interesting fact is it is not so much a Godzilla toy as it is a Takara Combat Joe toy.

Combat Joe is the Japanese version of Action Man or GI Joe. The doll comes with a rubber Godzilla suit to wear, accurately depicting how difficult it must have been to masquerade as the big G.

I had the rare opportunity to hand this toy to the original Godzilla costume actor himself, Mr Haruo Nakajima!

He was delighted by the concept of the toy and requested that I take it out of the package so he could see the finished product.

It took us a few minutes to figure it out, but after the toy was complete, we posed for a picture and he autographed the box.

Sadly, Nakahima-San passed away in 2017, but I am grateful for the opportunity to have met him.-

Brian F 

NJ USA

ORION TOUCHDOWN

 Some photoshopped images using my Airfix Orion Spaceplane.

More familiar images of the spaceplane!

CRIME LAB 1976

I would have loved this ten years earlier in 1966, the 1976 mobile crime lab. How cool is that! Did you have one?

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1976-vintage-amsco-mobile-crime-lab-2101289570

2001: A SPACE AUTOGRAPH

Hi Woodsy. Seeing Scoop's 2001 pictures on the blog the other day, I remembered I’ve got these. 

Knowing my fondness for autographs, here’s some from the film: Gary Lockwood, Kier Dulea and Arthur C Clarke himself. 

Open the pod bay doors, Hal!

All the best. 

Will O

UK

RESCUE PATROL TEAM

There's something very Thunderbirds about this Rescue Patrol Team set of Transformers. What do you think? 

https://www.transformerland.com/wiki/toy-info/transformers-g1-zone-micro-transformer-teams-rescue-patrol-team-c-331-/7337/

THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR ON UKTV

Another heads up that Talking Pictures TV, here in the UK is showing I, Monster and a Tigon favourite, The Haunted House of Horror next Friday starting from 9.05 pm, as part of their Cellar Club, introduced by  Caroline Munro.

Although I'm not really a horror fan, The Haunted House of Horror is sort of  special to me, as a couple of locations used  were filmed in my home town of Southport. One was at the 'haunted' Palace Hotel shortly before it was demolished, and the other was at the dilapidated Bank Hall at nearby Bretherton. Both were great and very spooky locations. Bank Hall still stands, and still looks spookily impressive. When I was a teenager my mates and I use to ride our motorbikes up to Bank Hall, were the derelict house was occasionally taken over by local amateur  rock bands who would do impromptu gigs there! 

I do have a DVD copy of the Haunted House of Horror, as part of my Tigon film collection. A few notable aspects about the film was Dennis Price's part was originally intended for Boris Karloff, however Karloff was to ill to appear;  Ian Ogilvy was the original choice of Chris, the lead role, but that was taken by Frankie Avalon, and the part of Richard, which was re-written for David Bowie, went eventually to Julian Barnes. Film producer, Tony Tenser who was the head of Tigon pictures, retired to Southport in 1978, and remained here until his death in 2007.

 

Star Wars Arms

 Following on from the earlier discussion on rifle stocks, here is an article from 'Fantastic Films'  August 1978, that shows where each of the main weapons in A New Hope came from.

TOPO TOR ROCKET

If you like Topo Gigio then Dreams of Space have posted a wonderful picture book. There's even a plastic TOR rocket toy in Topo's place too!

http://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2021-09-24T13:16:00-07:00&max-results=7&start=5&by-date=false