About Me

My photo
No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Bee is for Bumble Bear!

There was a fad among the poured, painted-metal branch of the hobby a few years ago (I say 'a few', it's more like fifteen to twenty years ago, I keep forgetting how old I'm getting and how quickly!) for vignettes, issued around Christmas time, involving a child or two with a set of teeny-weeny, tiny toy soldiers they had found under the tree, that trope - for toys of toys with toys - was behind this purchase, from the struggling Poundworld Plus.

A World Of Play, Biplane Toy, Buzzbee, Junior Distribution, la Cassa delle Api, Mookie Toys, Nice Group Italy, Novelty Figurine, Plastic Novelty, Poundworld Plus, Small Scale World, smallscaleworld.blogspot.com, Space Enterprises, Teddy Bear, The Bees House, The Hive Enterprises Ltd., The House Of Bees, The House Of The Bees, Toy Bi-plane, Toy Locomotive, TV Characters, TV Related, TV Tie Ins, Packaging, Box, Carton, Window Display Case
What appears to be a bit of 'Euro-clearance' from Italy, but it may have been available here earlier in somewhere like the late Toysaurus, and related to an Italian kid's TV-series La Cassa delle Api (the bee house/house of the bees), I only bought it for one item, but we'll look at the whole thing 'cos it's there!

A World Of Play, Biplane Toy, Buzzbee, Junior Distribution, la Cassa delle Api, Mookie Toys, Nice Group Italy, Novelty Figurine, Plastic Novelty, Poundworld Plus, Small Scale World, smallscaleworld.blogspot.com, Space Enterprises, Teddy Bear, The Bees House, The Hive Enterprises Ltd., The House Of Bees, The House Of The Bees, Toy Bi-plane, Toy Locomotive, TV Characters, TV Related, TV Tie Ins, Smaller Contents, Rubbish Bin, Bee, Bumble Bee, Close-up Shots
After umming and aah'ing, I kept the three 'toys of toys', put the bee in the charity-shop pile and recycled the bed and hexagonal bin (bee comb - see?!). While the packaging and all other ephemera was in Italian - apart from an English age-restriction sticker - I would imagine some UK kids are familiar with it as the nature of the Internet and multi-channel broadcasting means most things tele-visual (or clips of them) are available somewhere, these days?

A World Of Play, Biplane Toy, Buzzbee, Junior Distribution, la Cassa delle Api, Mookie Toys, Nice Group Italy, Novelty Figurine, Plastic Novelty, Poundworld Plus, Small Scale World, smallscaleworld.blogspot.com, Space Enterprises, Teddy Bear, The Bees House, The Hive Enterprises Ltd., The House Of Bees, The House Of The Bees, Toy Bi-plane, Toy Locomotive, TV Characters, TV Related, TV Tie Ins, Bear-Bee, Bee-Bear, Bumble-Bear, Close-up Shots
But this is what I was after! Is it a Bee Bear or a Bear Bee? A Teddy-bee? It can't be a Honey-bear, I know what they look like - I'm not stupid! It's too cool for nursery-school (about my level!), it's a Bumble Bear!

A World Of Play, Biplane Toy, Buzzbee, Junior Distribution, la Cassa delle Api, Mookie Toys, Nice Group Italy, Novelty Figurine, Plastic Novelty, Poundworld Plus, Small Scale World, smallscaleworld.blogspot.com, Space Enterprises, Teddy Bear, The Bees House, The Hive Enterprises Ltd., The House Of Bees, The House Of The Bees, Toy Bi-plane, Toy Locomotive, TV Characters, TV Related, TV Tie Ins, Bear-Bee, Bee-Bear, Bumble-Bear, Close-up Shots, Bee, Bumble Bee,
There's a mini bi-plane and a mini locomotive too, and you'll know from past posts that I am slowly amassing side-collections of both, but the bear is the best! The Bee; 'Buzzbee', has a fold-down hook so he can do a bit of zip-wire action, along a cable in one of the bigger play-sets.

A World Of Play, Biplane Toy, Buzzbee, Junior Distribution, la Cassa delle Api, Mookie Toys, Nice Group Italy, Novelty Figurine, Plastic Novelty, Poundworld Plus, Small Scale World, smallscaleworld.blogspot.com, Space Enterprises, Teddy Bear, The Bees House, The Hive Enterprises Ltd., The House Of Bees, The House Of The Bees, Toy Bi-plane, Toy Locomotive, TV Characters, TV Related, TV Tie Ins, Catalogue, Flyer, Ephemera
Some of the other sets available at the time (2014); I've seen no evidence of them being part of this import tranche, and with none of them having anything like a stripy bear, I'm not concerned, although the little ladybird looks fun.

A World Of Play, Biplane Toy, Buzzbee, Junior Distribution, la Cassa delle Api, Mookie Toys, Nice Group Italy, Novelty Figurine, Plastic Novelty, Poundworld Plus, Small Scale World, smallscaleworld.blogspot.com, Space Enterprises, Teddy Bear, The Bees House, The Hive Enterprises Ltd., The House Of Bees, The House Of The Bees, Toy Bi-plane, Toy Locomotive, TV Characters, TV Related, TV Tie Ins, Corporate Structure, Corporate relationships, Logos, Brand Marks, Registrations
The problem with a globalised toy market is trying to make sense of who (or to whom) the toy can actually be attributed for the purpose of archiving the post after Blog-publishing, this appears to be manufactured (in China by an unnamed contract manufacturer) for Mookie Toys, on behalf of Space Enterprises licensed or licensing from/to Hive Enterprises (the TV company?), distributed (in Italy?) by Nice Group in collaboration with Junior Distribution who may (or may not) be responsible for it's turning up in the UK on Poundworld Plus's shelves!

I will archive it under Mookie and Space with a cross-reference (eventually on the A-Z Blogs) to Hive!

Of course it's all childish, but if I gave you nothing but wall-to-wall Marx, Cherilea and Airfix you'd soon get bored . . . and it was a quid, you know . . . a quid, why would you walk past it - it's got a 20mm bear in it . . . with stripes!

No comments: