JURASSIC PARK AFTER HOURS!

What the tourists don't see when the park closes at the end of the day!

Ed B

USA

COCKTAILS ON THE UPPER DECK!

 I'm currently off work with a stinker of a summer cold, so to keep me on an even keel in between sneezing fits I've been touching up my new but incomplete Nikko Fire Boat.

Ever the bodger I've looked for low-tech kitchen-drawer solutions to missing parts and hey presto, we have ...... operation cocktail stick [I prefer that to toothpick!]

They were very easy to cut to size and glue in position!

After testing a red sharpie and a red paint pen I opted for the paint pen and set to work painting the new wooden stick rails.

A little new chroming on the water canon and a bit of general spit and polish and we're ship shape.

What do you think?

I may add a thin coat of PVC glue to the new painted rails to give them a more plasticy look but that'd be icing on the cake. I could actually use icing! ha ha

Without a remote I can't test it's motor but for now the refurbed Fire Boat will be in dry dock.

As an aside, venturing into the attic yesterday I found one of the very first bits of toy bodging I ever did, probably 30+ years ago. Its a Beatles Corgi Yellow Sub periscope made from Fimo. It looks awful but it was a lot of Fab Four fun at the time! A true relic from my early thirties, I was amazed its still around.

Hope Tony's Fimo Dredd doesn't Judge it too harshly!

A Macroscopic view of Micronauts

A few years ago, I produced a small book based on my favourite action figure line, Micronauts. First introduced way back in 1978 by Mego and later in the UK by Airfix, they were a hyper-poseable range of 3" figures that left the 'new' Kenner Star Wars figures standing. Besides being fabulously well designed and articulated, they all came with an amazing array of interchangeable vehicles, which made the options for play, almost limitless.

What I didn't realise at the time, was that they were a part of the much larger range of japanese Microman line, by Takara. Takara also made Henshin Cyborg, a Action Man scaled figure, similar to Micronauts with attachable weapon arms and accessories. Part of the Henshin line had also reached the UK via Denys Fisher toys, a few years earlier, as Cyborg.

The basic Micronaut figure was called a Time Traveller (with many other names in Japan) and was shortly joined by the enemy Acroyear, a more robotic figure and later by a series of cool aliens, which never found release in U.K, so I had to wait many years until the invention of the internet and the arrival of Ebay, before I actually acquired any!

With the advent of the internet, I began to realise the full extent of the Microman line and its relation to other toys such as Diaclone and Transformers.

Pharoid and his Time Chamber

For a full briefing on the toys and a comprehensive history of the lines, check out Micro Forever!

https://www.micromanforever.com/main.htm

Acroyear

Pallisades Repto and Pharoid reissues

Antron Attack!

Galactic Defender (original and re-issue) take on Repto

Classic Micronauts Aliens

Second Wave Centaurus

Space Glider

Acroyear warps in

 

THE AVENGERS ON SUPER 8

The Videotape Revolution of the 1970s and 1980s supposedly brought movies in to the home for the first time. In fact you could already watch movies and your favourite television programmes at home - on film.

There were a number of companies releasing movies and TV shows in the smaller film gauges (sizes). Mostly 8mm or Super 8 for home use; and 16mm for commercial or industrial use. 

Kodak introduced 8mm (later called Standard 8 or Regular 8) in 1932. It had large sprocket holes down one side of the film. Super 8 appeared in 1965. The film was the same size as before, but the sprocket holes were smaller, so the pictures were larger and of better quality when projected on to a screen. 

Both were available in silent or sound versions, with the latter being more expensive. The equipment needed to run sound film was also more expensive.

Due to the limited running time of 8mm or Super 8 film, a full-length movie had to be put on several reels, which needed to be changed over during the programme. Annoying. Multi-reel films were also expensive.

Many films were therefore released in shortened Abridged, Condensed or Digest versions, on just one or two reels. Short subjects such as theatrical cartoons could be released full-length, but usually just one short subject per reel. After the arrival of television, a number of popular TV programmes also appeared on film. Usually there were only a handful of episodes available, rather than full seasons. Again, these were often shortened versions of full-length episodes.

Film was expensive. The equipment needed was also expensive, and technical. Film was therefore never as popular as videotape would become, which was simple and easy to use, as the tape player just plugged in to a normal TV set, which most people already had by the 1970s.

The running time of a videotape was also far longer than a reel of film, so a whole movie would usually fit on to a single cassette. No need to change tapes part way through a movie. Film libraries existed, where tapes could be rented, just as in a video store. There was also mail order rental.

Now to the actual subject of this article. I wanted to look up the video tape releases of The Avengers TV series, and turned to my copy of The Complete Avengers by Dave Rogers (1989, published by Boxtree in Britain, and St Martin's Press in the US). 

Nothing at all on videotapes, but under Miscellaneous there was a section on Super 8 film releases, mostly by the British company Derann Film Services Limited.

Derann, founded by husband and wife team Derek and Anne Simmonds, operated from 1965 (another source says 1964) to 2011, according to Wikipedia. It was based in Dudley, in the British Midlands. They sold and rented 8mm and Super 8 films, and later moved in to videotape, having a couple of their tapes on the Video Nasties list in the early 1980s.

The Complete Avengers states that Derann released four Emma Peel episodes on Super 8 Sound film in the mid-1970s: From Venus With Love, The Living Dead, The Positive-Negative Man, and Return of the Cybernauts. All were from Season 5, and were in colour.

They were released in both a slightly condensed version (running time 45 minutes) on three reels; or a much reduced Extract version on a single reel (15 minutes).

There was also a full-length version of the £50,000 Breakfast by Centaur Films, on six reels. This was also from Season 5.

There is not a lot of information on these films, and even sales listings are uncommon. Both The Return of the Cybernauts and the Positive-Negative Man had the same oddly-coloured and uninspiring cover, showing Steed and Mrs Peel, so I assume this was common to all four episodes. 

Only the title varied. The cover states 'Sold for private and domestic exhibition only'. Other films from Derann are listed on the back of the box - including several starring Elvis Presley.

Front and back of the Derann box.

THE AVENGERS (TV) rare vintage original Derann Super 8 boxed film, John Steed | eBay

From the Super 8 Database is this page from a Derann catalogue listing three of the episodes.

Super8database Pdf

That is all I have been able to dig up so far.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Losing my Marbles

This is a clip I took today of a new Chariots marble run the Missus and me have constructed for Junior and Miss.

Reminding me of Capsela, I'm not sure I would have done this as a kid. Far too fiddley. Would you?

 

GUNDAM AND THE FLOWER BOY

Further finds from the weekend: a Gundam bootleg 12 incher - date unknown 

and 

a Hornby Flower Fairy called Elm from 1983 I think. Elm's missing his acorn cap and wings.

What do you think?

NIKKO FIRE BOAT RESCUE ATTEMPT

 I picked up this Nikko Fire boat at the weekend, a bargain at £4.

There is some damage; the windscreen is partly missing, there are missing red handrails and there's no remote control.

I thought I'd have a 'crack' at the damaged windscreen. After removing the glue holding it in I filed down the jagged edges of the split.

Placing the filed screen on it to measure up, I then cut out the 'missing' corner-side from an old plastic lid [don't tell the Missus!]

The new parts were glued in position and the whole screen was put back into place on top.

Nor perfect but it'll do!

Next up, the missing red rails.

A POCKET FULL OF RYE

Hello there Moonbasers!

We'd visited the village of Rye about twelve years ago and today, we dropped in for 30 minutes on our way to Sissinghurst Gardens.

Toys were a little thin on the ground but I saw a die cast US space shuttle with a UK maker mark tampoed on it's plastic underside.

The Antique shop was shut, but these die casts in the window were approaching Australian silly prices!

And just to prove sometimes you can go home, I'd remembered a neon Toy sign and it's still here! Interestingly on closer inspection, it seems to be 50s or 60s, judging by the stick and ball feet on the bottom. 

Sadly the toys upstairs were nowhere near as vintage! It was all Barbie, Star Wars Lego and plastic assault rifles in a bin by the cash register!

Looey

Oz on tour