MOONBASE CENTRAL

Saturday, 11 February 2023

THE INVISIBLE BOY WITH ROBBY THE ROBOT, FULL FILM 1957

Enjoy! What do you think?

TURBOTRON AND ASTROBOT: JUNK SHOP DROIDS

I've just invested a fiver in these two bad boys in a junk shop.

I never had anything like Mazingers so these big fellas from the mid- Noughties will do for now. I just need a robot fist and a rifle and some new batteries.

Looking them up on You Tube it appears I have the M.A.R.S Turbotron from 2008. He needs a gun rifle.

His larger chum is the Adventure Force Astrobot from 2010. He needs a big green fist thingy.

Both bots hail from Hap p Kid and are destined for Junior's playroom. It'll be a good pre-amble to watching The Invisible Boy [with Robbie the Robot] if I can find it online.

Do you have any big bots?

SUDDENLY SOME TOYS

I was off work one day in January with Vertigo brought on by olive oil dribbling in my ears.

As I normally do after an poorly-sick sleep I recuperate later with some afternoon telly.

As usual I often spot something bloggable.

The UK TV show Homes under the Hammer was on. I don't normally watch it but the abandoned house's contents caught my eye. Scattered all over a bedroom were games and oddments from yesteryear. I've screengrabbed them. What can you see?

After Homes I watched Suddenly, an old black and white thriller with Frank Sinatra playing an assassin hell-bent on bringing the President's career to an end. The town of Suddenly was the setting, hence the film's mysterious title.

At the start of the flick a kid peers yearningly through a toy shop window. he wants a cap gun and the local sheriff buys him one because he fancies the kid's mother!

Anyways, here's the toy shop window screengrabbed for your enjoyment. See anything you like?

Oh, and that final grab, M & N Market. Is that a real shop? Was it a chain? Anyone know?

Have you seen any toys in films and in TV shows? Piccies welcomed!

FLIGHT OF THE CHROME SEED

I watched Flight of the Navigator with my Grandson recently. A fun family film from the 80's in the vein of ET with the boy pilot bonding with his alien spaceship.

The spaceship itself is like a big chrome beech nut. Its an interesting shape, which can change too.

I love the first shape shown, its so organic-looking like a nut or a a seed. It reminded me a bit of the insect hive spacecraft buried in Quatermess and the Pit, a sort of ovoid seed too.

I imagine there are a few more seed-like spaceships in film, TV and literature. Last week I think someone also mentioned a similarity with old ice cream cases from ice cream vans. I wonder if they meant oysters?

Anyway, because I couldn't find any toys connected to Flight of the Navigator at all [which I thought odd] I tried to make a small and quick Navigator ship for Junior myself.

I used tin foil rolled up into a ball and then shaped and smoothed with a spoon. I seem to recall doing this as a kid and after a lot of smoothing getting a fine flat finish in the foil. On You Tube there are videos of foil balls being given a perfect mirror-finish.

My tinkering sort of worked and Junior recognised me efforts when he said 'That's the ship from the film!"

Alas, I didn't photograph my tin foil craft but I'm sure you've had a bash at foiling yourself.

Here's a class rocket someone's done on the net. There's even a tin foil astronauts club.

Photographs of your tin foil spaceships welcomed!

And finally, as I was surfing for silver seeds and the like, this Alessi lemon squeezer popped up. Instant War of the Worlds tripod or what! Anyone ever used one in a sci-fi setting?

JYESA'S TRUCK OF THE FUTURE

We've seen this truck many times on MC. Recently too. Here's the Spanish version by Jyesa, the Camion de Carga.

All in all a superb futuristic design.

Do you have one?

Friday, 10 February 2023

LOOEY'S SUTCLIFFE VALIANT

Hi Woodsy, great Jules Verne thread!

Speaking of Sutcliffe toys, I never had the Nautilus because I didn't like the mint green colour scheme (much like Dinky's SHADO interceptor!) BUT my father did pick up a Sutcliffe Valiant Battleship in an antique shop in Australia.

It was always featured prominently in his living room. It was always agreed it would be mine one day and I even found a Sutcliffe gun boat to match at a Sydney swap meet.

All that nearly changed when my father took the photograph of a prominent (and particularly odious) NSW QC "Destroyer Lawyer". He posed the man with a chess board which perfectly summed up his attitude to his work - it was all a game that he intended to win.

My father often tried to ingratiate himself to the famous and powerful and asked me if I'd let him give the Sutcliffe to his latest buddy.

I replied with a resounding NO, which is why I still have it to remember him by.

Here it is alongside some pictures of my dad as a younger man and one of him with his long time friend Barry Humphries admiring one of my Art Toys!

Cheers

Looey

THEN AND THE ART OF WAR: FOREIGN POWER

As a follow up to the Topper posts, here is a re-post of an earlier toy I showed a while back.

The Armoured Battalion halftrack and heavy field gun featured in the first post and just recently, I found a knock off version of the vehicles. Made in Italy by Polistil, the main vehicle is clearly copied from Topper, but adds four standard wheels in lieu of tracks.

The Polistil version also manages to improve upon the original design, by adding slits in the armoured windshield, where the Topper version opts for blanks.

Chrome detailing is kept to a minimum, restricted to hubcaps and a single panel on the cannon, leaving the main bumper and headlights in white plastic. The cannon shells are carried on the main wagon, rather than a dedicated trailer, but the cannon itself is almost identical.

Whether Polistil picked up the licence and adapted the design, or just plagiarised the design, I don't know, but its a robust and well made toy.