L is for Late Show Report - Sci-fi, Fantasy, TV & Media

Some interesting items were found or donated in this section back in May, always interesting because all the genres are popular, and have given rise to lots of toys, over the years and decades, so ancient and modern figures turn-up in equal measure. Well, that was a load of flannel, but I've got my opening paragraph! The post from whence came Mr. Chitty, the Potato -headed!

 

The one on the right (Wild Republic) has been seen before several times, but the one on the left (Safari) is new to the Blog, I think. We've seen ten to fifteen or so, sets of these modern astronauts in recent years, which I suspect has more to do with the Chinese space programmes, and Chinese toy manufacturers rather than anything NASA or Musk have done, but whatever the reason there's a lot of it about at the moment!

Last year we saw three of the key-ring spacemen, but I realised when I got them home that I had rejected a probable forth pose, thinking it was a duplicate, but luckily the seller still had it in his stock, so I rectified my daftness and got him this year (large white figure), while the pale blue chap is my first Cracker Jack alien; I think there are eight or ten to find?

 

The others are a pair of Matchbox Adventure 2000 figures, still attached to each other, a Crossbows & Catapults barbarian, a Galoob Xpanders knock-off and a teeny-tiny astronaut, probably from those decorative mini tree-crackers?

Four of the standard size Christmas cracker angel/putti orchestra, there are several types/generations of them, and they all get separated and sorted into their own types' bag.

From the left we have a modern Tootsietoy Flash Gordon, a bendy taken from a Japanses Tokusatsu, probably the Ultraman franchise, the missing blue 'goldfish bowl' spaceman, which I celebrated immediately after the show, and Applause's vinyl figurine of the Rocketeer, which I have been after for years!

An Ajax/Archer full size robot, to join the others, and chrome-plated modern copy from the re-issue 'magic' question/answer games, with a sub-size copy from the same sculpt-set in between, I happen to have picked up another of the smaller ones yesterday at Sandown, in the copper finish, this off-gold or dirty-silver being less common, I feel?

Chris Smith found the caveman as he went round the hall at the Winning Post, and presented him to me, which was thoughtful! Disney I think, for the yobbo in pantaloons, while the flocked ape came as a surprise, as I thought the one I had, was the only one, so now I'll have to find the accessories for this one, while the horse behind them is also from Planet of the Apes, I believe, from the MPC set, being the mount of the firing ape rider?

A damaged premium pirate, a funny face I know absolutely nothing about, but which seems to have some age, a small angel statue, similar to one off a Faller fountain, which I already have in the collection, so I guess it's from another model railway lineside piece, of some kind?

 

The green thing is a Puff-Kin Popit from Weetabix, while the fawn seems to be a cheapo copy of the Marx 'Kin sculpt, which I now have in various plastic types and sizes for what James Opie would call a nice 'Cameo' collection!

These were mostly in Trevor's bag I think, along with the angels and the little blue chap, and are Bluebird Zero Hour/Code Zero figures, very useful for making up sets, or filling gaps in the existing collection.

While this beast, scaled with a  Zero Hour figure, was in Peter's donation, he's hugeormous! I think I've seen this twin red-headed dragon'o'saur credited to Imperial in the past, but the example here is a generic just marked Hong Kong, and very much in the style of a Japanese Kaiju.

 

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.