Zulu is for Zero Hour!

Ryan Davis - who sent yesterday's Chopper Ace - also sent two pages of Zero Hour stuff, from which I have cropped-out the following images - all the Bluebird catalogues I've encountered (four or five now) have been larger than A4 which makes them problematical to handle!

Also repeating yesterdays message - If you sent me stuff back around 2008-2012'ish and wondered why I never posted it on the Blog - remind me and I'll rectify the omission! In the meantime here's some more Bluebird Zero Hour from the probably-1992 catalogue courtesy of Mr Davis

The truck with the split (or splitting?) wheels seems to one of those things you often find in catalogue imagery . . . something which never got released; it's not in any of the photographs, it's not - to my knowledge - in any evilBay lots and having now seen parts of four catalogues, I've never seen it 'in the flesh', so we only have the two art-works (there's another lower down) to hint at what might have been!

I suspect[ed] this was another of Mr. Dixon's show-display/press-shot dioramas? The vehicles are 'out of the box', but the figures and scenic stuff have been painted and the monorail weathered and pushed through a tunnel, and over both a stream and gully!

I asked Richard Dixon about it after I'd actually put this post to bed, and he recounted the whole sorry tale of woe and complication;

"The monorail set display is one [of Richards] of mine....It was the first big set I created for the product...it was four feet long and about three feet wide....wooden base / landscaped. We used it for a creative picture which appeared in the Bluebird Toys Trade Catalogue first. At that point the monorail train worked....subsequently, somebody down at Bluebird played with it and broke the track!!!

It was then decided that the item would need to travel as a mobile display for shops....so I had to strengthen the whole thing and get a Perspex cover made to [go over] it .

When the item arrived at Bluebird in Swindon....plan changed!!....the marketing department decided that it would stay there for display as they liked it so much....when they got a visit from Hamleys to look at the range it was then decided to go in the store on Regents Street London for Christmas.

The saga is not over - because of the weight of the thing - due to the strengthening procedure - Hamleys could not move it around in store for various displays - it had to stay in one position as they only had one gondola stand that could take the weight!!....After Christmas it went back to Bluebird where I was called to do some repairs - eventually going over to the country estate home of the [redacted] in southern Ireland for its final display.

If I had known it would be sent around....the construction method would have been done differently....but as usual things in this business are often decided upon on the spur of the moment...."

Richard also sent the following;

They made a bigger one!

There's at least eight-feet in frame, and more going-off either side! Both monorails and most sets are in evidence, it's no wonder the various arms of Bluebird were vying for the rights to hold these at their sites, but one wonders what it did to productivity figures at each site before they were moved on . . . I'd be all-day, playing on any of them!

And look how dated that Panasonic CRT-monitor looks now - I think it's got its own VHS slot, very flash for the late '80's!

Thanks again to Mr. Dixon, his website'shere.

A smaller version of the monorail was issued for those on a tight budget, and it's operated by the Bad Guys! Only a small train and a handful of figures; this stuff gets some silly money on feebleBay for what it is!

Seen in the contribution from Mr. Dixon the other day, but here from another catalogue* and with a shot of a boxed set; Action Task Force. There's that split-wheel truck again, have you seen one in 'real life', real-toy-life that is!

Again I also asked Richard about it;

"The 'monster ' Jeep....I think it existed as a prototype....saw something at Origin Products** in London when I visited the designers on one occasion....not sure it was Zero Hour though....may have been planned for Manta Force....I certainly did not photograph it for Zero Hour....not sure if it was going to be released or just something which was planned but never went anywhere."

*Catalogue Listing is complicated, I think Ryan's was 1992, mine is 1990 (I think - in storage now!), the shots Richard showed us the other day may have ended-up in the 1991 catalogue and the one I photocopied at Kingston Uni' in 1994 was possibly the 1993 edition, but it or another in the same folder (no Zero Hour) may have been 1989? Also there seem to have been both trade and retail/customer versions; which is which in the above is open to question but mine and Ryan's (with packaging details) are both 'trade'.

** Origin Products survive - after a fashion; the core was actually bought by Mattel in 2007, while staff in the UK gravitated to Character Options/Toy Options of the Character Group, where one of the 'main-men' at Bluebird is still on the board; Mr. Kiran Shah, or - at least - he was last time I looked into the subject (2008)!

Close-up of the boxed-set, it seems to consist of most of the vehicles from the larger monorail set.

Thanks again to Richard and Ryan for all the above images.

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I'd better contribute something to the post . . .

Listings

Zero Hour (stated to be approximately 20mm high to a 1:65 scale)

Figure Sets 1990

900281 - Eagle Air Squadron Troops [Good Guys]

900291 - Swordfish Navy Task Force Troops [Good Guys]

900301 - Army Wolf Pack Troops [Good Guys]

900311 - BAD Brigade Troops

Accessory and Play Sets 1990

900321 - Crop Duster Set

900331 - Gemini Two-man Tank Set

900341 - Swordfish Navy Marlin 3-Man Sub Set

900351 - Quick Silver Fighter Set

900361 - Cougar Armed Vehicle Set

900371 - Navy Hammerhead Power Boat Set

900381 - Kestrel Chopper and Snipe Fighter Set

900391 - Blueshark Torpedo and Rubber Boat Set

900401 - Thunderflash Armed Halftrack and ATV Set

900411 - UAV Armed Tour Bus and Trike Set

900421 - UAV Petrol Tanker and Assault Boat Set

900431 - Night Hawk Bomber and Quicksilver Fighter Set

900441 - Supreme Headquarters Monorail Superset

Figure Sets 1991

910281 - Army Wolf Close Combat Troops [Good Guys]

910301 - BAD Polecat Gang Troops

910311 - BAD Scorpion Force Troops

910731 - Eagle Air Para-wing Troops [Good Guys]

Accessory and Play Sets 1991

910011 - Action Taskforce

910321 - Close Combat Howitzer Set

910331 - Polecat Gang Piranha Airboat Set

910341 - Scorpion Force WASP Gunship Set

910351 - BAD Black Mamba Monorail Set

910361 - Scorch Global Attack Bomber Set

910421 - UAV Petrol Tanker and Assault Boat Set

910431 - UAP Winged Demon Bomber Set

910441 - VTO Para Wing Troop Transporter Set

910451 - BAD Scorpion Force UAV Ambulance and Armoured Landing Craft Set

910541 - Close Combat Rhino Armoured Missile Carrier Set

910551 - ?

910561 - ?

910571 - MV Surprise Q Ship and Landing Craft Set

910581 - Para-wing Hornet Micro-light

Other Lines

920011 - Chopper Ace, contained figures drawn from (seated) or compatible with (standing) Zero Hour and we looked at it/them yesterday.

A part range was in the 1992 catalogue while a fuller-range returned in what I think was the 1993 catalogue but I only copied the figures!