Glimpses of Ships

A few snaps of Hull docks and Immingham docks. Lots of lovely big ships under evening skies.

SCHAPER'S TRACY: THE GHOST BUSTERS GORILLA ACTION FIGURE

Sometimes films and TV series get as mixed up as spaghetti.

So it is with Ghostbusters. Or should I say Ghost Busters. As such characters get lost, forgotten and misplaced like a gorilla in a haystack.

Tracy is such a gorilla, the resident ape in the CBS live-action Ghost Busters TV series which ran for 15 episodes in 1975.

Tracy was played by that classic man in a gorilla suit, Bob Burns, the famous monster and sci-fi film archivist. Bob's passion for props is very much on the vein of Forry J. Ackerman but that's another story.

Like any great convoluted story, it was the success of that other more famous Ghostbusters a decade later in 1984 - Yes, Who ya gonna Call! - which gave the original CBS show the bananas to swing back into view as a new animated TV series by Filmation, Ghostbusters and later Filmation's Ghostbusters after a rumble in the jungle with Stay Puft the Marshmallow Man.

As a toy collector its the toys that Filmation's show spawned that really interest me. It only lasted a single season in 1986 but Schaper released a whole troop of toys and sets, including yes, you've guessed it, Tracy! After ten years Bob Burns's aping around was immortalised in plastic!

The toy Tracy figure carries a purple Ghost Gummer, a gadget which, in the cartoon, blasted a pink fluid over evil nasties. It was really good at slowing ghosts down.

I've never ever seen a Tracy toy in the flesh, neither carded nor loose. I can't even recall seeing the Schaper line at premier UK toy fairs like Memorabilia. Did it sell outside of the home market in 1986? It cannot have been easy competing with that primordial slew of Real Ghostbusters' toys from Mattel, which were everywhere!

A couple of interesting points about Schaper's [of Cootie fame] 1986 Ghostbusters line. In the same year they were bought by toy giant Tyco, so whether this changed any of the branding on the cards I would be interested to know. Also each toy came with a mini-comic, again, something I have personally never seen.

Have you?

If you have a Tracy Gorilla figure then spare a thought for Bob Burns and his original ape suit back in 1975, as you can see here in this You Tube clip. Now that's proper monkey business!

What do you think?

CABINET MEETING

A quick skeg in my toy cabinet is in order I thought. 

Here are the middle levels with my fleet of old die-casts garnered from  car boots and charity shops, with donations from Kevin and Bill too.

Mostly Hot Wheels and Superfast, with some Corgi

Bottom rung includes two vehicles I've re-chromed with a chrome pen, a Superfast Hot Rod and a plastic Telsalda SR51 Hovercraft. I attempted to make a complete new rear fin array for it but it proved much harder than I thought! The radar and the aerial came out better!

SPACEPORT MODEL FROM THE DALEK MASTER PLAN

 Aside from the Whomobile which I’ve already posted about, another high point at Smallspace was a selection of model spacecraft and landing pads similar to what was seen in the classic 12 part 1965/66 Dr Who serial, ‘The Dalek Master Plan’.

This impressive recreation was built by Derek Handley, a member of the Doctor Who Restoration team, who set about creating the models to pass the time during the Covid Lockdown, and attempting to use similar materials that the screen used models were made from.

This included wooden cotton reels, paper plates and a cake mould!

The centre piece is an excellent recreation the space craft belonging to the traitorous Guardian of the Solar System, Mavic Chen, which is complete with motorised spinning fins. (Remarkably, I’m told that the original prop, although in a poor state, still exists)

Sadly, for the Dalek Master Plan serial, only three of the twelve episodes remain in the BBC archive, with the remaining nine still missing.

Derek also brought along several other replica props. This is a replica of the Time Destructor’s weapon’s core.

Two replica guns as seen in the four part 1965 Doctor Who serial, Galaxy 4. Galaxy 4 is another Doctor Who serial that was wiped Sadly, only the third episode has so far been recovered.

A replica of the Time Sensor, first seen in the 1972 Doctor Who serial, ‘The Time Monster’.

KONGA ON SUPER 8 FILM - RESEARCH BY PAUL ADAMS

Before the appearance of videotape in the 1970s, watching a movie at home involved running real film through a projector, on to a real movie screen. Just like in a movie theatre, although on a much smaller scale.

Movies intended for showing in halls and other large venues usually came on 16mm gauge film, while home movies were usually on 8mm. Standard or Regular 8mm; and Super 8, which had a larger image.

The films could be black and white or colour, and silent or sound. Most feature films were cut-down considerably to fit on to just one or two reels of film. These condensed versions were called digests.

Konga was available on Super 8 from Ken Films, of Fort Lee, New Jersey. The movie came on a single reel of film, packed in a square cardboard box, with a lift-off lid.

The box top illustration is taken from the movie poster, but for some reason Konga is now facing to the right, rather than to the left. London has also been reduced to just a couple of famous landmarks.

The catalogue description reads: 276 Konga - Science Fiction thriller about a small monkey which grows into a huge beast threatening the people of London. An exciting film. (B).

The (B) code stood for a black and white film, on a 200 foot reel, with a running time of approximately 11 minutes. At the time this catalogue came out, the regular price was $7.95, or $5.95 with coupon.

It seems there was also a colour sound version available, but not mentioned in this catalogue. Colour sound films on a 200 foot reel were $15.95, or $11.95 with coupon.

There is no date on the catalogue, but my guess would be early or mid-1970s. These were the prices for an 11 minute film - so they were really expensive for the day. No wonder videotape took over the world.

Photographs from Worthpoint

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Postscript

I just found these interesting little items on You Tube. A Super 8 digest version of Konga, in colour with sound, dubbed in to German. The title is Konga - Schlimmer als King Kong, which seems to be Konga - Worse than King Kong.

The running time is only around seven and a half minutes, so at first I was not sure if it was exactly the same as the Ken Films version. But it does give a good idea of how a one and a half hour movie was cut down for home viewing on 8mm and Super 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74KAiFC2nZc

Then I found a ten minute version in black and white. This one is silent, but with sub-titles on the screen. It seems to be the same as the above version, despite the difference in running times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4UIjf2CE88

Paul Adams from New Zealand

DALEKS IN TV CENTURY 21

 As I've got a couple more Smallspace Dalek related posts to come later, to get you in the spirit here's some photos showing the Dalek presence in TV Century 21.

But to start, here's the front covers of the three sixties Dalek annual books.