G is for Glow-in-the-Dark Space Troopers

A real "Bloody Hell, this thing's taking off, find something we can put out there NOW!" moment, as Toy Box rushed to exploit the excitement being generated by events far, far away and long, long ago, back in 1977!

This auction was brought to my attention by someone on Brian Heiler's Faceplant group three or four years ago, and I was pretty sure they looked familiar (beyond obviously being the old Archer sculpts), so I grabbed the images, against one day blogging them.

 

Then, when I was up the storage unit in Jan. '22, putting space-stuff away, which had been in the garage, I spotted these in a tub, so shot them poorly, in a confined space, better than nothing, and you should have seen the shots I deleted!

 

I think they are from the old soft-ethylene Hong Kong copies rather than the proper Archer moulds which Glencoe cleaned-up/repaired a few years ago, well, a while-ago now. Although they do claim to be 'American Made'?

Finally, last year, these were up on feebleBay and I nearly bought them but the BIN-price was a bit steep for loose, seventies, rack-toys! They do seem to suffer from brittleness, but it may just be the tool, and I'm missing the chap with the longer ray-gun. Only the six poses seem to have been produced, with only two armed, and they are helmetless, but glow in the dark!

 

Space Trooper Action Team, from Toy Box Inc., absolutely nothing to do with Star Wars!

Not Archer . . . Ajax sculpts . . . Doh!

G is for Giants, Galaxy Giants!

Could have been 'T is for Two - Scales!'! We're box-ticking the Tim Mee Space Patrol / Galaxy Lazer Team figures here today, still available from Jeff Imel under his Victory Buy / Timmee labels, and have been in production now, as several entities, since at least 2012, in various new colours, but we're looking at the originals here.

 

These are the original 54mm set, there is clearly more than a hint of Star Wars about them, but a bit of Star Trek too I feel, in the lady with the machine that goes ping! The more conventional pair of astronauts are lifting from MPC's set I suspect, with Darth Tim waving a sword about, and a Buck Roger's chap on the far left . . . box-ticking some serious box ticking!

There is a figure missing from the above, I know I have him in 54mm (there is another sample with all colours somewhere? But for now . . . 

 . . . we'll have to look at the five-inch/120mm version instead! Not Chewbacca, oh no . . . no, no, no, not Chewbacca at all, who's he, indeed! He even has The Hulk's ripped shorts and a pair of antennae, so you don't draw that conclusion! This also shows a third colour, a very 'spacey' gunmetal gray.

Not Buck, Not Vader and Artoo-Timmeepio! The other colour of the originals was a screaming, electric pink. Issued in 1978 (as 54mm figures, Star Wars the film had been released the previous year) the upscales appeared in 1979, probably to try and compete with Kenner's phenomenal Star Wars action figure line which was changing the toy industry forever, at the same time? These are also the 120mm versions.

The Turtoise (or Tortle?) and one of the astronauts, you can see the MPC DNA as clear as day in the latter, but Crabster (or 'Lobbab') has no real or obvious influence I can think-of, besides a dozen 1950/60's pulp sci-fi novel covers!

This blog also covers them;

http://secretfunspot.blogspot.com/2012/07/return-of-galaxy-laser-team.html

 

 . . . with a very interesting Argentinian side to the story involving Anteojito magazine, which I think has been mentioned here before, but isn't in the Tag list!

 

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10 days later and Woodsey's found some more!

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2023/10/tim-work.html

'Albator' is for Space Pirate Captain Harlock

I don't know why the French changed his name to Albator, but he's far better known by anime/manga fan's in both Japan and the US as the Uchu Kaizoku (Space Pirate) Captain Harlock, and also in Italy where Atlantic had to produce boxes with both monikers, the French named example seeming to be far the commoner version on feebleBay!

These were produced by Fabien Plastica (I have little idea what else they made . . . Moomins and Sesame Street stuff, that sort of thing?) in 1978, off the back of the French version of the Harlock animated TV series.

Harlock had previously appeared as a Gunslinger in the American West (Gun Frontier; 1970), in space as Phantamunt Harlock (1970's The Great Pirate Harlock) where he began his career as a freedom-loving freebooter and as a WWII pilot in his first outing - 1969's Pilot 262, all created by Leiji Matsumoto and revealed to me by Helen McCarthy's 500 Manga Hero's & Villains which you may remember I grabbed in a charity shop, against such moments as this, a while ago!

They aren't that rare, when I got Nausicaa (from Chris Smith - cheers!) a while ago I looked at completing the set I'd been building for years and managed to get Albator/Harlock himself, rather tatty for a few pence off-of a UK seller, but there were several complete sets (only the five are known) on eBay.fr at the time.

However, even after he'd arrived (before Christmas) I couldn't post them as they were all over the place! The witch Sylvidre (Silvydra on Atlantic's boxes) originally Lafressia?) was an ID-lacking sorceress in the 'Unknown Fantasy Characters' box (she's been kicking around since 2009 I think), the boy (PW-show a couple of years ago?) and the doctor (John Begg, about 15-years ago) were in the 'Minor Makes F-J' box, and the more recent girl and captain were down with me; waiting for the sort-out the other night week which brought them all together!

The witch is almost demi-rond or semi-flat in her sculpting, while Nausicaa is, er'hem . . . very 3D! The doctor has what is best described as a 'hitler-cat' in his pocket, yet has quite animal-like feet himself and along with another character - not in this set - really is much smaller than the other Human/Humanoid characters.

Albator/Harlock on the other hand has been modelled oversized in comparison with the others, denoting his importance as the main character, and while we're told his gun ('Cosmo Dragoon' - based on the old Colt Dragoon) is a major part of his character, I rather like his space-laser-sword-raygun-thing with its basket-handle and pointy-pointy, space-death anointy, harpoony-tip!

There wasn't anything on Tadashi worth highlighting so I used him as a foil to the Crescent 'Berserker' for the sizer! Equally is he representative of Tadashi Daiba, Tadashi Monono, or Tetsuro Hoshino?

The bottoms of the bass-less feet have the same neat little holes in them as many of the Olá/Tito and Tylers/Mundi/Americana gum and ice cream premium figures, which may be a clue as to the real source? Remember the Comansi Lucky Luke have them too, as Olá scale-ups? Maybe Fabien Plastica was manufacturing-for or involved-with some/all of them?

This site . . .

http://www.cornponeflicks.org/harlock/harlockmain.html

. . . will tell you all you neeed to know about Harlock, but to grab a few details of most of the five characters in this set - in the order of the first image;

Dr Zero - Alcoholic ship's doctor, the cat in his pocket is supposed to be a ginger-tabby (not Hitler!) called Mi.

Kei Yuki (French; Nausicaa) - Sixteen-year-old staff officer on the Arcadia (Harlock's vessel; a Space Battleship), specialising in science and navigation, best friend (but not lover) of Tadashi Daiba.

Space Pirate Captain Harlock (French; Albator) - Rebelling against the right-wing government of Earth he takes his chances in Space at the helm of something closer to a freebooter than a true pirate vessel, he has some ethics and morals!

Tadashi - [read the character guide ofter the link-jump, he could be any one of three or four characters including two Tadashi's]

Lafressia (French; Sylvidre, Italian; Silvydra) - an alien witch queen who sparrs with Harlock (sometimes) in order to save her species; the Mazone and is not to be trusted, there may be confusion with Sunora (another Mazone) in the sculpting/naming/name-changes?

8th May - Geoff, who knows far more than me about this stuff, has them only being painted in Portugal, but made in Italy by Fabienplastica (all one word), more here with cleaner figures!

F is for Follow-up - Action Fleet Speeder Bikes

I was wrong to suggest I didn't think they'd never done the Imperial pilot/trooper for the speeder bikes, and further, it seems I need two figures and some - possibly - paler brown Speeder Bikes.

On the back of my Hasbro (2002) Dewback carded set, there is an illustration for a set I don't have, which clearly shows an Imperial pilot and someone; who one assumes is Luke Skywalker, but he doesn't seem to have the black-gloved hand of the other set?

The set I was remembering (earlier Galoob branding), and of which I do have the loose figures too; they are Leia and Luke and come with seemingly darker-brown machines than shown in the previous image, which are the ones we looked at yesterday. The trouble is the previous image is publicity material, and may not reflect what was issued, or even that anything of the sort was issued at all?

Q is for Quicker Than I Thought!

Glanced at one of these the other day and I said it was bigger than the others but would make for a good forced-perspective shot when I dug the rest out . . . well; I dug the rest out and did some forced-perspective shots!

The previously mentioned, likely line-up; In front is the most recent from Mattel's line of Hot Wheels 'Starships', it's a much more detailed machine than the others, but - as I thought - looks better with the others behind it. The second machine is the Galoob Action Fleet beast, which I believe only came with Luke or Leia figures, but also takes the civilians (two shots down) and here, the giant lizard rider from Tatooine, who with his giant-lizard prod, looks regal enough to lead the charge!

Behind them are two paint versions of the Galoob MicroMachines speeder with the slightly longer, but slimmer Hasbro MicroMachine from a few years ago (in-line - movie VII?). There's a new film out any day now isn't there? Let's hope there's something for us, there's been precious little from the out-of-line and back-story movies - none of which I've seen, it's all become a bit of a whore to Mammon!

This is a little simpler, but I have more of them! From the front Action Fleet Luke, Action Fleet Leia, and four MicroMachine rebels with the Hasbro Luke among them. Clothing colour variation (the rebels are supposed to be Leia I think) leads to a nice squad!

The climbing machine comes courtesy of a heat-bent stand, although in the movie they stay parallel with the ground even when climbing or dropping?

The old back-path weaving it's way through the brackish salt-swamps between Moss Eisley and Jabba's palace is busy with pirates, smuggles and hoodlums going about their nefarious tasks for the Hutt's!

From the front; Galoob Action Fleet speeders with un-named (?) bit-part hoodlums, Ray's Jakku speeder (Mattel), two Galoob MicroMachine civilian speeders from Tatooine and at the back, from the left Hasbro MicroMachine Ray's speeder, Hasbro MicroMachine Jakku Landspeeder (looks like a beach-bum, hippy speeder!) and a diminutive civi' (from one of the Galoob MicroMachine three-vehicle sets?) who's even smaller than the other two.

Snowspeeders; Mattel at the front, Hasbro 'Platinum Edition' die-cast in the middle and the Hasbro MicroMachine at the back, make a nice machine-gun platoon from long, long ago and far, far away!

Last time we looked at all three (I'd forgotten I'd done that or I wouldn't have sweated over the previous image!) I shot them from above without the stands, this time I played with Picasa to remove them, number them . . . and added some banana-bullets!

Full size-comparison;

GAF     -   Galoob Action Fleet

GMM   -   Galoob MicroMachines

HMM   -   Hasbro MicroMachines

HPE     -   Hasbro Platinum Edition

MHW   -   Mattel Hot Wheels

A is for Another . . . Speeder-Bike!

Now, we may have had this, but I can't find it here in the archive, so while it's dated 2017, I think it's 'new to Blog', we saw the big orange Ray's Speeder one (from the same series?), and we've seen the Hasbro re-issues of the Micromachines ones, but I don't think we've seen this version yet.

Clearance at TKMaxx, less than half-price at 2.99, which I happened to have on me, Bargain! It's a pity that every set of Star Wars stuff is A) in a different scale to all the other lines and ranges, and B) not to a consistent scale within the line/range, but there you go?

Mattel's Imperial Speeder Bike; it is the biggest one to date, at about 1:48th/35mm, which means that when I dig-out all the others (Galoob Micromachines, Action Fleet and Hasbro) he will have to go at the front, but it will make an excellent forced-perspective 'squadron' shot!

F is for Follow-up - Q is for Question Time

I managed to get three Applause figures going reasonable, offov* that feebleBay the other day in order to do a proper comparison on the copies against the originals;

And this is what the whole caboodle looks like with 'Berserker' and the next closest pose; Han Solo. You can see that the 'Luke' pose is closest to the original Leia colouring, while the Leia-clone has gone-pink! If they aren't a cheepo rack-toy, I think they may be a two-player board game with a Sci-Fi subject-matter, although not necessarily Star Wars?

* It might not be in a dictionary, but if you know what I mean; it should be a word!

Q is for Question Time - Star Wars Siblings?

These are a puzzle, they are clearly knock-off's of Applause Star Wars, but they (man and woman) both seem to be based on the one pose . . . Princess Leia Organa née Skywalker in her . . . errr . . . not even sure when or if she ever actually wore the outfit in a movie; some corridor scene in III-now-VI?

The Applause original is inset for comparison, she's almost more whatshername from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century . . . Dareling, Darling, Darring?  The Applause base has been copied albeit smaller, and the guy is virtually the same but with sorter, sensible hair and a less-lumpy shirt!

I sent them to Brian over at Plaid Stallions and he fed them to his forum, but nothing came back? I wonder if they might be characters from a board game, with maybe a red and green (or other colours) undershirt versions out there somewhere. And whether a board game or not, are they another Applause product, as the PVC is very similar, and there's no rule against copying your own stuff.

The other obvious suspicion is some cheapo rack-toy as they are painted in the same vein as all those carded princes and princesses you find - we've seen one or two here over the years?

Other questions include; is the male supposed to be Luke Skywalker (or Han Solo) or are neither of them meant to have anything to do with that particular galaxy, far, far away, long, long ago? Or - if they are game-playing pieces -are there more of one sex; say, four guys versus one girl or vice-versa, or are they supposed to be paired (boy/girl) in like-colours?

Note how the man hasn't been trusted with a wristwatch! Someone must know these as the Applause set was only 1996, so they (the copies) can't be that old, do you recognise them?

G is for Gurt Galaxy Guardians

As I've said before I think, I've not seen this in the cinema or since, and haven't followed any comics related to it, so I'm not particularly eau fait with the whole thing, story or character wise, but the toy figures are nice!

Good guys, from the left; Star Lord and Yandu, Groot and the alliterative Rocket Racoon, when I say 'good guys' I get the feeling they are more Han Solo than JC?

Which highlights my first piece of ignorance . . . if they pre-date Star Wars, there is a feeling quite a few SW characters are taken from GotG, but I don't remember ever seeing anything about them until quite recently - in which case Marvel are the plagiarists, except of Groot who's clearly an Ent?

I think these are also good guys, but one or two of them might have questionable loyalties? Not least the two girls Gamora and Nebula who are sisters serving different masters, but I'm not sure how seriously they try to kill each other? Marvel - everyone's there again next issue! Also I'm not sure who is who but I think Gamora (green?) is the good guy? And . . . err; they're not Rylothians twi'leks, oh no! Oh no-no-no-no-no-no-no; absolutely not!

The others are Drax Korath (good? See comments!) and a mini Groot?

Pretty sure these are all bad guys? From the left we have Ronan the Accuser, The Collector and Korath the Pursuer Drax (see comments!). There's also Thanos who's even baderer . . . badiest . . . badly-bad . . . I said that! But he's not in the set, which he could have been as the 12th piece was . . .

. . . a crappy micro-space-ship. I have a drawer somewhere with all the sub-scale sci-fi Micromachines that accompanied the Galoob figures; Star Wars, Aliens, Star Trek and even a set of fantasy stuff, this pretty-well matches them and will join them!

X is for Xenomorphs

Seen briefly the other day, this was one of those couple-of-quid charity-shop purchases which have become an almost weekly topping-up of the collection's figure total, but - while I normally keep the figures and a couple of accessories maybe - this is staying as it is, being a rather neat little game I knew nothing about (and there's a long list of games with figures, still to find!), which can join the stack!

Peter Pan Playthings 1993's Operation Aliens board game, licensed to - or loosely based on - the second movie in the franchise, but no Newt (thankfully - pesky kids!) and a nice bunch of 1:72nd scale figures!

Or at least that's what I thought until I studied the dates? It must be off the back of the 3rd (space prison?), 4th or 5th (?) movies? I gave up watching them, it all became a little silly and Sigourney Weaver was one of the biggest names in Hollywood until she tore the arse out of the franchise she bought . . . to tare the arse out of it! In one of the ones I didn't bother-with she even did an 'Arnie' with a vat of molten stuff, but them so did that Skywalker's dad, Frodo nearly did, but at least he 'nearly' did it first!

There is a dice (or die) but the mechanism is mostly 'order' card-driven as far as I can tell, and the 'winner' table suggests the survival or escape of the space marines is a rare'ish event! This was also photographed on one of those odd days (we had one last year a swell) where the atmospheric light seems to fight with the camera's flash to produce an insipid pinkish 'glow' which doesn't make for brilliant imagery, but I suspect we'll find excuses to return to these in the future!

Close-ups, equally washed-out by the lighting conditions, but good-enough for now. You get a queen alien, four offspring and four character players; Ripley, Apone, Drake and Hicks but I can't remember which is which - I think Ripley is the yellow one? The 'baby' aliens have three heads, the mother alien has about sex or eight arms!

I've put a comparison shot on the Airfix Astronaut page (which is a better image!) and you can see they are slightly taller, only a millimeter or two, so a reasonable 1:72nd scale or a tad too small for use as 28mm role-play gaming additions.

B is for Battle at Sarlacc's Pit

Another board game now, the Return of the Jedi licensed Sarlacc's Pit game from Parker, a super game for figure collectors, but not if they are a bit discerning as the figures are pretty poor, and with no board or box to look at (went to 'recyc' years before I had a digital camera) it's the figures or nothing here Peeps!

Good Guys! From the left - Luke, Leia, Han and Chewbacca. Sculpts are poor, paint is poorer, but they are recognisable, so all is not lost and a repaint would give you four more figures for a Wizards of the Coast collection, which they are vague matches for, size wise!

Bad Guys! As you were - Nikto, Jabba the Hutt and Bobba Fett. The bounty hunter looks like a street cleaner from Blade-Runner, the Nikto looks like an Ewok on steroids and JTH looks like a blancmange which has been left too long in the sun!

The Gamorrean Guard however is a much better sculpt and better painted, to the point where you think it must be a different sculptor, and possibly a separate sub-contracting factory? I'm not saying it is, but that's the impression given by the sudden improvement in overall finish on the one figure sculpt!

If you've got any of the figures from this set sitting in your TBS pile, it's likely to be this chap as there are a bunch of them in every set; six . . . eight or maybe ten . . . I've put them away and can't remember the total, but they are like the 'pawns' of the game - and chief Sarlacc food!

Same marking on all eight sculpts, the 'board' was a hex-decked skiff, suspended over the Sarlacc's maw, all in card, which folded and slotted together to create a theatrical 'vignette' playing area.

T is for Tiger . . . Electronics.

Having mentioned the conversion I did on a Tiger Electronics Star Wars vehicle earlier today, I thought I'd better show it, and in doing so we might as well look at the small sample in the collection.

These three came in first, all from the 2^nd/5^th movie in a franchise I've lost track of; are we up to No-9 or waiting for No-9? How many altogether, how many are back-story spin-offs, do I care now that it's all new characters?

The two cars/Speeders from the opening scene's 'car chase' came together in a sale - at Woolworths I thing? It was a long time ago now - while Jango Fett's spaceship was a separate purchase, I seem to recall.

The electronics were a simple set of sounds from a slightly raspy speaker, triggered by pressing a button.

This came out a year or two later, and had a handle attached so you could 'fly' it about while making noises, the removal of which I refereed to earlier. It'll need to be filled-in one day, but as you can only see it if you turn it upside down it's not an issue and it looks far better than it did with a handle attached!

Also Tiger and roughly scaled with the other one-man fighters from Galoob's Action Fleet line, it's a nice addition as I don't think we ever got 2/5-movie stuff for Action Fleet after everyone got their fingers burnt with the 1^st/4^th.

A comparison between the Action Fleet Bobba version from Galoob shows up the smallness of the Tiger Electronics one, they were 'header-card' scale! Which makes the speeders perfect for Micro Machines, but leaves Jango's ship needing some muck it its boots. Why they didn't use the Galoob one - when they had previously used the Action Fleet AT-AT for their battery-operated effort - is something to ponder?

News, Views Etc . . . Bits and Bobs

I'll post something more substantial here later today, but a few things that might tempt you to surf the Wibbly Wobbly Way . . .

A week after his last announcement, Barney Brown has more news about his Herald Toys and Models site;

Dear Collector, this week we have launched an early Autumn Sale on many Britains, Herald and Farm related models, with BIG reductions on many items, so why not browse our comprehensive stock of plastics, click on our SPECIALS and "Get Them While They're Hot!" Happy Collecting as always, Barney.

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Fascinating Blog Post over at Plaid Stallions the other day;

http://plaidstallions.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-last-star-fighter-prototypes-found.html

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Sometimes the world is so crazy you struggle to make it up!

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There's stuff all the way to the bottom boss!

Yesterday - less than a day after ITLAPD - I bought four Pirates in Basingrad! Today a large, unexpected box arrived from a military / film costumier in London (Thank you Peter Evans!) which my assistant pounced on, as is her wont!

It contained several lots of-, and some individual- Pirates! Which means that less than 48 hours after the event I already have three or four posts in the long-queue for next year! See you there in 361!

L is for Long, Long Ago . . .

. . . in a Galaxy Far, Far Away . . .

. . . all this did happen wiv a furry monkey-manned and black dalekmanned and spacecars thats are bigger than a house and lectric swords wot sing shiny and evwy'fing, its really did, and it is TREW!

With apologies to Morwenna Banks as 'The Little Girl'

Well, as we've been having a contribution/space day, here's another of Jon Alderfer's pieces to finish a one-day mini-season! And what a glorious artwork it is, the composition is lovely, beautifully balanced, well thought out, and both managing to channel the original posters AND covering many more memorable scenes than any of them and doing it all without a - now-clichéd - light-sabre in sight!

From the slightly offset Star Destroyer at the top, a dreaming Luke torn between the light and dark of the two father figures, the four 'kids' flanked by two hologram scenes and two 'Escape from the Star Destroyer' scenes and then the two comedy pairs down the bottom, it's immaculately executed. Even the 'footballs' of security- and trainer-droid's neatly balance each-other.

The rendition of the holographic chess pieces and Leia's distress message are superb, Jon confirmed he does use coloured pencil; some items highlighted with felt-tips, but at this level I think they are referred to as 'art markers' and the technique is 'Pen & Ink'! And the faces, how does he get the faces? That's not commercial art, that's just art!

Stunning piece Jon; humbled, again, to have it on the Blog.

PS - why has no-one done a set of those chess pieces, they would make a fantastic group of 50mm-odd 'Little Rubber Guys'!