A is for Arstornuat!

Which can only be pronounced arse-torn-out I think, but you'd have to ask TJF, as I'm getting this gift from a legend-in-his-own-lunchtime Loyal Readers, and I'll definitely be tearing the arse out of it, it's not every day your self-confessed 'eemie' drops such a prize in your lap, so gently, and while he's been back and corrected some of his 'egregiousnesses', the spelling's still up there!

Box-ticking these semi-flat 'novelty' figurines from CP Inc./US Toy, you get six poses-each of astronauts (are you taking notes at the back there?) and aliens, they look like they were probably party favours, issued in the last decade or two, C ― P marked stuff started appearing in second-hand lots round about the mid/late-2000's?

 

The aliens, shades of Mars Attacks (exposed brains), which could further narrow down the issue date, and while one is armed, they seem more occupied in getting their first semaphore lesson off-pat! Approximately 50mm and manufactured in a dense polyethylene or 'propylene.

 

The Astro [star] Nauts [sailors], it's all Greek to me! NASA-like with no weapons or killy-things. "We . . . come . . . in peace . . . to do . . . no harm!", said Captain James Tiberius Kirk, before shagging one of the lady-aliens! I thought I was probably missing one pose, hence the reversed figure, but they are just similar poses.

B is for Brenner?

Sorry, got a bit lazy after the Pirate-fest! It's always nice to add a new name to the tag-list, or sum-total of the hobby's knowledge, and to add two, unrelated lines in the same post is a bargain-bonus! Except there is a US Toy in the tag-list already

 

One of those situations where I sort of knew I knew, but couldn't remember where from. Turned-out it was an old dealer list from the 1990's which either Paul Morehead or John Begg gave me a very 'black' (no contrast whatsoever) photocopy of a copy, years ago.

 

Warrior Ants from US Toy (Brenner) is what I have, and of course, trying to Google US Toy just gets you a million US toys, same on evilBay and Etsy, so what was a patriotic company name back in the pre-internet days, is now a liability lost in a miasma of Adsense, Google-Ads, spam Ad's, hidden-Ad's. pop-up's and all the other marketing shite which has been tacked-on-to/embedded-in the Internet in the last 15-years!

 

However, they are still going and have a lot of novelty/party/rack toy stuff, including some of the figures featured in Plastic Warrior magazine (courtesy of Les White in the magazine, Brian Berke, here, the tag mentioned above - firefighters), a few years ago, but not, sadly, either of these sets, I don't know the significance of the Brenner in brackets, as annotated in the old dealer list, but will add it as a seperate tag?

Aren't they brilliant, probably taking-off the insect movies of the 1990's; such as Bugs Life  and Antz (both 1998, which may help date them) rather than the earlier Hasbro/GiG franchise Army Ants/Kombatini, there is also something of the Trigan Empire about their Greco-Roman get-up, but I accept it's a tenuous link, verging more on wishful thinking!

 

As is often the case, Shaun at Fantasy Toy Soldiers is the only other source of info' on them and he has had them as unknown, for some time, which I've just been over and solved, but a larger sample, with a better selection of colours.

 

Also credited to US Toy (Brenner) is this set of anything but grey 'Grey Aliens', in a palate of lovely metallic shades. A bit bigger that the Warrior Ants at around 54mm vs. 45mm, and both sets are supposed to have eight poses for a full set, ants in four pastel shades (I have no green ones, yet!) and hopefully each of the aliens available in all six of these shades?

 

Seen elsewhere only the other day, a quick alien comparison with, on the left an unknown 65mm, glow-in-the-dark figure (I may have a note on them somewhere?), the silver chap is a pencil-top, we saw the next two here (Soma on the left, Imperial on the right), then the US Toy (Brenner) and finally a counter-top/point-of-sale type, pick-tray/carton novelty, 45mm alien of unknown brand'age!

S is for Shelfies - USA

As well as the Ja-Ru shots Brian sent which we looked at yesterday, he's send lots of other Shelfies, some of which are in other articles in the queue, some of which are still in the 'long queue' probably destined for a straight to A-Z entry (when I get on top of them), but here are three which can go on the blog forthwith!

As a follow-up to another Bible Toys set he sent which we saw a while ago (Noah I think or was it JC himself), we have David and Goliath with other sets illustrated on the blister's backing card.

They all look a little Euro-Caucasian for Arabs, an excuse you could justify explain in the past when the whole of Western civilization was a war-loving, patriarchal, colonising, Pope-driven, racist, Christian cult, but these days they really should know better!

We've seen these before, both sides of the pond, under about five different brandings. Peter Evans sent one to the blog which was more of a candy-premium? Here under Hunson's moniker and four figures to a card, they are second-generation copies of the old Supreme sculpts - which also got several brand-outings!

The bowman (who also came with the candy set) is arguably the poorest pose in an otherwise reasonable group.

Graphics are odd - even by rack-toy standards, with the figures suspended over a lava-lake held-in by a glowing-red 'Berlin' wall??? Wild Willy's Gun Shop is clearly some portal to Hades, or the ammo-store just took-off with a bang!

These look very familiar, are they the sets we saw in Plastic Warrior magazine a few years ago (issue 159 - back issues avaiable) as US Toy from Les White? I think they are, you also see them from time to time on evilBay in sets of 12.

Now, they are six-pose sets, but there are only five in the bag, so you would have to buy at least two sets (four in this case as the firefighters come in red or tan), but as JPW they are likely to be so much cheaper than as US Toy or feebleBay's £$€6-something+postage, that it looks a good deal! The other set which comes in two colours (not in the PW article) are the soldiers who come in tan or green.

Many thanks to Mr. Berke - all useful stuff, especially if you are over the pond.