Apollo Saturns Around the World

 America's Sears Rocket Launch Base. Wow! It smokes too!

Japan's Tomy Apollo-X, the original Saturn I reckon.

Peg Leg and His Hidden Map

 Having returned home from sunny Filey I double-checked my Fighting Furies Cap'n Peg Leg for the hidden map. 

Nada. Taken by Cap'n Hook years ago!

Arto first reminded me about the map and I had a look for repros as it's just a bit of paper.

Yep, Twentieth Century Box do the leg stopper, map and leaflet for £6. I'll have a think.

 https://share.google/iTcq0p4Bhrf1rwnEE

Being an Action Man nut in the Sixties and early Seventies, Fighting Furies will have been a no brainer. It was 1975 though and I was 14. I reckon they were the last gasp for action dolls before I picked up my first electric guitar.

I think I had a few. Peg Leg came window boxed.

The cutting action was fab and my new one still works fine.

Still, Matchbox played a blinder I thought. Combining all the good things of action dolls before it and at the time, I understand that it's a huge range and very collectable. FF will have it's devoted fans like any other item.

I adored the Fighting Furies marketing artwork.

The garish colours and flaming backdrop brought to mind those brash Topps Civil War News gum cards, especially the one called Trapped. Ugh!

 It was, though, I thought, unusual for Matchbox to enter the crowded action doll arena and now I think of FF almost Mego-like or Gabriel'ish with their own Lone Ranger line.

Matchbox would go all oddly action doll again in the next decade with their monsterin' Maxx FX, a largely unrealised range. I remember Freddy Kruger!

Did you have any Fighting Furies, Maxx FX or pirates?

Action Man Quartermasters Store Blue Peter 1977

Not sure I would have seen this in 1977. I was 16 and Heavy Metal Kung Fu mad. Besides, our family had stuff going on that year, but you may have seen this segment.

You may have even made the home-made store! 

https://youtu.be/GMRqWjpsIV8?si=5WR3Z2I01M7_ah_V 

Fighting Fury in Filey

 We've done a flit to Filey to celebrate our Jasper wedding (42 years).

The first time we visited this East Coast town was back in 1989 with our 5 year old daughter and her mate, when I'd just started collecting after seeing Batman at the flicks. In a coastal grocers was a rack of cheap blister carded toys and I recall getting two Spider-Man sets, a pistol and some rubbery suckers most likely by Gordy or Larami. They were contemporary things but I was so chuffed and kept them for years (can't find pics sorry).

Decades on and several visits later I again got some toys in Filey.

A big bag of old Airfix soldiers. £3.

And in a pleasantly surprising vintage toy shop called Timeless Toys ( closes permanently at Xmas) I was genuinely spoilt for choice.

A Corgi Captain Pugwash set caught my eye, all new to me, but in the end it was two undressed action dolls and an incomete FAB1 that were bagged. £15 the lot.

LtoR:

Lion Rock 1975 - Little Big Man?

Dinky FAB1 to restore over Winter

Matchbox 1973 Fighting Fury with hand action

The owner is selling up so get down there if you're on the Yorkshire East Coast.

Do You Want to Know More?

I really like this boxy 1996 Galoob Starship Troopers Drop Ship. Do you?

I've never seen this toy in the flesh. It must be big. In fact I've never come across any Starship Troopers toys, unlike say, ALIEN and all those strange Xenomorphs.

In some respects Starship Troopers sits well with ALIENS, albeit much more tongue in cheek with its frenetic TV ads asking Do You Want To Know More (or was that Robocop?),  enormous brain bugs and very giddy troopers. I enjoyed the film.

Have you anything from Starship Troopers? 

Will's Hornby Chocolate

Hi Woodsy

My latest purchase. A Hornby O gauge Cadburys van. I thought…what’s this got to do with moonbase and space? Then I remembered that someone took some Cadburys chocolate on the shuttle up to the International Space Station!

Will O

Virgin Territory? The Red toy Thunderbird 2

 I wondered why I'd never seen one of these red Thunderbird 2's at a car boot sale. There's just 250 of them! 

Made in 1999 by Vivid Imaginations, this Virgin Atlantic release was a limited edition blister carded toy.

Here's a carded one and a loose one I saw on auction. 

What do you think? 

Is it the only red TB2 toy?

ITV Sold!

It was an odd feeling hearing that ITV will be sold. 

As a UK boomer kid ITV was so important for my 60's and early 70's telly watching. After all, there were only three TV channels back then in Blighty, ITV being one, providing no less than true icons like Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and The Avengers.

OK, regionalization of ITV meant that different names appeared on the box, like Anglia and LWT - where I lived in Preston it was Granadaland - but it was all ITV.

In the modern world of a million trillion stations available on everything with a screen ITV probably isn't that important now. It's not a channel I seek out myself anymore, so times have changed.

Anyways, ITV is sold. Another part of our childhood gone.

What do you think?