TV21 comics and advertised toys from Will Osborne's collection
UK
Did you have either of these toys [both seen before on Moonbase, see the labels below]
Friday, 27 January 2023
Thursday, 26 January 2023
THE MATSUSHIRO SECRET 07 SPY GUN
Regarding the post on Matsushiro toys last year, I spotted one interesting looking item. The Secret 07 spy gun. The one with a boy dressed as James Bond on the box top.
The gun is clearly modelled on the WW2 US M3 sub-machine gun, which used .45 calibre pistol ammunition. It has the same telescoping wire shoulder stock, although the magazine is shorter.
The bar just ahead of the trigger guard is the cocking handle on the real thing. The toy has this on both sides, but the real M3 had it only on the right side. This was eliminated from the M3A1 version.
The real M3, on Wikipedia
Photographs from Worthpoint and Wikipedia.
Anyone got one? The Secret 07?
Paul Adams from New Zealand
CHUFF ME, STOP SWEARING!
Swearing has always been around. No doubt cave men swore when faced with a Mammoth.
I swore as a kid but I wasn't a career swearer. I never swore at home - my parents would have gone nuts! Maybe the odd bloody hell or bugger slipped out at home but that was it.
I didn't swear much at school either. There was a real taboo surrounding some high-value swear words, the C word especially. I wasn't a great effer and jeffer. I was more drawn to insults like pillock, prannock and dimmock and phrases like get stretched and the universal get stuffed. I never swore in public spaces.
Nowadays, with my time in education, I hear every swear word under the sun all day long every day and there are no taboos about using any of them at any time, in class or out, or in any type of sentence. It has become common currency in school despite the best efforts of the grown-ups there. I'm not going to effing Maths so you can F off is the rallying cry of the modern secondary schoolkid.
It is also a facet of life in general. I hear swearing everywhere from adults nowadays too; in the cinema, in cafes, in shops and in the street.
Kids are pretty much reflecting back what they hear themselves and sadly some of it will be in the home.
It all feels like its part of a wider rise in aggression in society, of aggressive language and posturing, of hostility toward each other in general, although this could be my age getting in the way there!
Is gaming making kids hostile? I dunno. I've never played a computer game in my life but its all modern kids do. Our generation had toys. We still talk about them here on this blog. We don't seem particularly aggressive. Did toys keep us happy and calm as kids?
Don't get me wrong about swearing though. I do swear - but its a private cursing that I do. Nothing in public.
But it seems that I'm old-fashioned in this regard. Having Grandkids has made me sensitive to public cursing, as I don't think small youngsters still shouldn't have to hear it.
What do you think?
A DIFFERENT KIND OF TRUK
Aquarium ornaments have appeared on MC a few times. My contribution was a cast resin version of a WW2 Sherman tank that I found in a pet shop.
You asked if there were any real vehicles still down on the seabed. Well here is the cover of the May 1976 National Geographic magazine. It contains an article on the sunken Japanese ships in Truk Lagoon, in the Pacific. During the war, Truk was a major Japanese base, and was therefore heavily bombed by the Americans.
The cover shows a Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go light tank on the sea floor, now covered in marine life. It is probably still there. Thought it might be of interest.
Paul Adams from New Zealand
Wednesday, 25 January 2023
FORGET ORION, HERE'S ARTO'S BELT MADE OF SHELL MAN IN FLIGHT COINS!
Just wanted to send you a piccy of this preposterous invention that I learned of only today.
Remember those collectable Shell space coins from the Sixties?
Well, there must have been some surplus stock left here in Finland, because there were enough coins for these Super Belts. "Suits All Outfits"!
A brill idea of some Finnish Gyro Gearloose, who wisely has left all information out of the header card.
No limit for innovative recycling here!
Here's the Finnish version of the Shell space coins' backing card, found online. Lentävä maailma means "The Flying World".
I believe they made a different backing card for every country, even though the coin set was the same.
100% unlicensed and off-the-grid!
The question remains: who took the trouble to punch two holes on every coin and then join each and every one of them with a metal wire?
Arto
Helsinki
PS. Woodsy adds: for the UK TV ad for these Man in Flight coins check out the top of the right side-bar.
CHROME SWEET CHROME
I saw this Star Wars Razor's Crest toy online and immediately thought of that similar chromed craft the Helijet from Terrahawks!
Which do you prefer?
Tuesday, 24 January 2023
ARTHUR'S PROMETHEUS AND THE OX WING
I was blown away by this cover art for Arthur C. Clarke's Prelude to Space from the 1950's.
Just look at that ship! Its basically a set of super wings!
Don't know the artist but that huge jet-tipped hyper wing totally reminds me of the wings of our fave Century 21 space plane, the Zero-X!
Check it out!
Below is Imai's plastic wing from their vintage OX Mars Explorer set.
Its a dead-ringer! What do you think?
Clarke's amazing lunar plane is called Prometheus and predates the Apollo programme by over a decade.
Prometheus is made up of two sections, Beta and Alpha, and flies to the moon and back in a certain way involving separation.
The novel, Clarke's first, written in 1947 and published 1951, concerns Dirk, a journalist for Interplanetary , who is sent to England and Australia because ...
'The world's first lunar spacecraft is about to launch. The ship, Prometheus, is built from two separate components -- one designed to travel from Earth's atmosphere to the Moon and back, and the other to carry the first component through Earth's atmosphere and into orbit.'
Wiki describes the Prometheus' separation manoeuvre thus:
'Beta is a nuclear-powered flying wing which carries Alpha into orbit .... Alpha separates from Beta'
[above is an extract from a fuller description here]
This could almost be a description of the Zero-X uncoupling from its wing units in space, which we can clearly see in the movie Thunderbirds Are Go
[courtesy of You Tube]!
Later editions of the book gave Prometheus a chromed finish
but I still prefer the early cover art with the mega wing!
What about you?
MJ'S SPIDEY COMPETITION CAPER
Here's my new custom action figure short Woodsy, a Mego Spidey. Its totally original, apart from the dash of paint on his face and hands.
Enjoy!
The story of how I came to have him could be straight out of the book from that Plaid Stallions fella. The Spiderman film (that was actually a TV series) was on at the cinema and my local paper had a competition to win some Spidey merch.
I entered not expecting to win. Then 2 weeks later I get a letter saying I had, my prizes were to be presented to me by Spiderman himself (a bloke in a costume!).
Unfortunately I couldn't go, so although I had won and received my prize through the post, the Newspaper still did a piece with a random kid receiving the prize. The photo was with the kid and some laughable costume on a member of staff from the Paper!
MJ
Southcoast Base
UK
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