Ph is for Phollow-up to Phidel

Eager to see what TJ had taken delivery of, the other side of the pond from TK, Brain B took himself-off to the local outlet, and was sadly disappointed - no Marvel, no DC! However, he took his usual plethora of shelfies and fired them off to Small Scale World Towers, and it is them we are going to meander through now.

The Disney Princess is a sort of collective sub-brand, bringing various otherwise unrelated young ladies together under one heading, and there's some useful items in this set. The Mermaid looks familiar, although I don't have one here, and I didn't think Phidel had been doing these for that long, but . . .

. . . since the TKMaxx purchase and subsequent Blog post the other day I have been seeing them everywhere, or when I say everywhere, there have been at least five in the various charity-shops in town in the last week or so.

Some of which have been these, semi-flats with suckers on, that can be attached to the glossy board pages, also while looking on feebleBay I think I've seen magnetic versions as well? There's also the added element of a board-game included.

New one on me, assuming from the Nicolodeon flash that it's a kid's TV thing; less of use by the looks of it, but when they come in - in mixed lots - at least you'll know where they came from!

Also missed this, but from the number of MLP things in shops at the moment I'm guessing there's been a recent movie!

Squeeky-voiced mouse and friends, take'em or leave'em they will enhance all those 1970/80's Heimo, Schleich, Comics Spain and latterly Applause, Bully & the French Poly-whatsit figures!

And! Because it contains both Pluto and Goofy, you can arrange your own anachronistic vignette on the bookshelf, of an anthropomorphic, talking-dog in human cloths, leading a dumb-idiot dog around on a lead!

I bought one of the sets I encountered this week, incomplete it looks like a shotgun-wedding photograph for a very strange coupling! "Well; OK, I'll marry you, but only if our kids can be page-snowmen!" They were only 50p! Box went in the recycling before it was photographed and there is a second, different Frozen set out there - That's 14 different snowmen!

I've also discovered WHSmith are carrying them - they had a really nice Spiderman set, but they want £9.99 ($12.50'ish?) for theirs against the £5.99 (8-odd dollars) of TKMaxx!

I don't know why anyone actually patronises WHS, they are pricier on everything than their rivals, here we have WHS and Ryman's next door to each other and you can compare in seconds; it's not that WHS are a bit more, they are 10, 25, 50% more - every time! From books to Biro's, calendars to Christmas-cards, Ryman's, Clintons, Partners - all cheaper . . . probably not Paperchase though!

The next five images are further-cropped close-ups of the 'goody' trays from Brain's above imagery.

The woman with a bow & arrow looks very useful for fantasy stuff, and as they all have flowing dresses they may all be useful for those Napoleonic ballroom scenes which used to be de rigueur in modelling mag's a couple of decades or so ago!

Flats - with suckers . . . sorry; 'suction-cups'!

Is the peacock a worthy addition to a poultry collection, or a daftly cartoonish sculpt? The others seem to be half-Aladdin, half Powerpuff Girls!

I think the foxy-gentleman is my favourite in this lot.

Chipmunks! Donald Duck! Some other stuff . . .

Cheers Brian! We're really getting the hang of these now and they're good value for money, there are about five Superhero-sets out there, hopefully we'll get them all on here in the near future?

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Norev

Good news for Collectors, bad news for 54mm Toy Soldier Collectors, as Norev showed-off a new line (well; new to the author!) of 40mm farm sets which I suspected were designed to complement the 1:32nd scaled vehicle ranges of Siku and Britains-Tomy (or is it Tomy-Britains!?), but they had their own tractor/trailer set on display and it's all 1:43!

Smaller animals are over-scaled, those rabbits look positively dangerous and the hen could damage that farmer, but he's the all important figure and he looks well in-line with Britains, Starlux or Timpo.

Imported into the UK via- Amerang, there is a nice - if rather generic - farmhouse and a barn/outbuilding which will be of far more use to large-scale war-gamers, I recon it'll easily take a 'hidden' Acht-acht; sight it on the rockery and it'll have fields of fire over the whole of the vicar's lawn! What? It's always a vicar's lawn, or a padre's - men of peace seem to love a bit of vicarious blood-letting!

1:64th scale Construction vehicles were also on show, but without figures or accessory blisters, but play-mats hinted at a wider range?

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.

.....●●=============◙=============●●.....

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!

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Melissa & Doug

Relatively new to me; they joined the tag-list a few weeks ago I think, Melissa & Doug are about thirty-years-old, a US firm; they opened a UK office a year ago and were stalling-out at the Toy Fair.

Their display was mostly craft stuff aimed at youngsters, and I only took the shot because we have been covering paint-your-own here recently (how they snuck into the tag-list), and once the gods have loaded you with a theme, you can but follow it until it runs out!

I didn't shoot the owl as it was very 'infant-toy'-like, so are the dinosaurs really! But fun for the kids, I didn't shoot the horses because . . .

. . . I'd already shot them as a shelfie in TKMaxx after Christmas!

Melissa & Doug have had a set of horses in the past; 'Pasture Pals', but these are simpler sculpts and almost as daft as the dinosaurs! But they're out there, they are figural and they are small scale!

Remember also; Mr. BB  sent us a couple of Shelfies of these before Christmas, so this is tag number 2 for M-&-D!

C is for Chopper . . . Ace!

Putting the images Richard sent away on the dongle I found a load of stuff from 2011, which came out of the last time I looked at Bluebird here (bottom left shot, but I think I'll re-do all those blue-bird articles, I cropped/collaged them very oddly? I was still learning how both Blogger and Picasa work I guess)! Sent by Ryan Davis as part of an image swap, I don't know why I didn't Blog them at the time, but I used to be bad at recognising 'contributions'; presuming private emails to be err . . . private! It's probably an Asperger's thing?

If you sent me stuff back then (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 something which looks like Zero Hour but isn't! From the 1992 (?) Bluebird catalogue courtesy of Mr. Davis.

The set got a whole page to itself in the Catalogue and I've further cropped the images out below. Most of it is imminently forgettable as a cheap 'placky' novelty, but it's the figures which caused the stir, I posted them on the original posts as 'can't find them in the catalogues Zero Hour', and Ryan kindly ID'd them as coming from this set.

Although a cheap plastic toy, removal of the rotors and a bit of a paint-job might give you some airborne capability for you 'Space Marines'; the rear landing-gear is quite Gerry Anderson'esque I think?

Sooooo . . . let's get this straight: One wrong move on the part of the pilot and you're going to be wearing a couple of tons of lifting hook as a face-ornament? Good luck with that then!

There was a rash of these toys at the end of the 1970's, Airfix and Tyco (?) to the fore - I seem to recall, some bombing, some dropping (one dropping parachutes), others picking things up, this drops and picks up!

I don't know if it can go backwards or if - upon missing - you have to go round and try again, but if it does (did!) go backwards you could pick up both chaps at the same time! When I get everything out of storage I'll have to check the odd & sods boxes, to see if I have some of the stores. Finally reads the blub - Yes it goes backwards!

Although the figures are Zero Hour compatible, the 'Red Angel' / Chooper Ace set is very civilian, in outlook/setting, which was a growing trend by the late 1980's as we know from the dearth of figures around at the time; at least there were these!

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Oxford Diecast - Military Trains

Under their Oxford Rail sub-brand, Oxford Diecast had some interesting things on show and/or in their Catalogue, so they will get two Show Reports! This is the 'rail-report' and it's the Military stuff I'm concentrating on here.

A Class 2533 locomotive (0-6-0 Saddle Tank Loco - I think!) in World War One War Department scheme, this is the better-looking equivalent of the old Tri-Ang/Hornby 'Battle Space' loco we looked at ages ago and is a prerequisite for hauling your 'trooper', or getting your Flanders-bound defence-stores or supplies down to the South Coast!

Or

A Class 2533 locomotive (0-6-0 Saddle Tank Loco - I think!) in World War Two War Department scheme, this is the better-looking equivalent of the old Tri-Ang/Hornby 'Battle Space' loco we looked at ages ago and is a prerequisite for hauling your 'trooper', or getting your D-Day build-up supplies down to the South Coast!

It's not clear and - to be honest - the wars were close enough together for it to not matter much?

It has a choice of W↑D and civilian Warwell Wagons to tow.Which shows how out of touch with model railways I am, I used to call them 'Well Wagons'? Anyway, two of the military ones (with and without a mid-war, cast-turret, welded-hull, Sherman tank - short 76mm barrel), come with different rolling-stock numbers which is a nice touch.

A third military one has a steam engine road-roller with another set of wagon-markings and there's a three-pack of separately numbered W↑D Warwell's to boot! So a troop of three tanks on un-matching flats (wells?) is attainable for the modeller, or a full train with six wagons. Detail is far better than the old Triang ones I've been collecting over the years.

And then there are theses two behemoths to be towed-about the place!

I didn't ask the kind lady about the difference between the two examples (one having a six-sided barrel, the other - apparently - 12-facets), but I think the difference in barrels may be down to which type of 3D-printer you happen to have, as they were planned for the ready-to-run range, both the likely price pushed them to a download option mid-project - still ongoing!

A close-up reveals the tell-tale lines of 3D-Printing; but they can be mostly hidden with 'crack-filler' auto-primer, or careful applications of modelling-filler with scraps of plasticard, and then a decent paint-job.

I'm guessing the railings and ducted wiring-loom have to be 'provided by the modeller'? But most of the other small pieces should be part of the print?

The now dated catalogue entry, for more information on this Rail Gun thereis a site with few details. but it's supposed to be becoming a download , whether the train packs will still go ahead without the gun or not I don't know, but from the blurb, I'm guessing one would set the gun's scene in WWI the other; bring it forward to the WWII era?

Calibre seems to be pretty unique for an artillery-piece, being '24 Tommies'!

F is for Follow Up - Kaskey Kids' Soccer Guys

Brian B sent me a couple of images to cast a little more light on the Kaskey Kids football set we looked at the other day, with useful shots of the team's make-up.

Apparently we're moving to a 12-a-side game! And while it says "30+ Pieces", I can only count 29? Are they including the box, and - separately - its integrated lid? Still, carping aside; working on the £5.99 for Phidal's dirty superhero dozen ($8-odd?), 26-dollars seems reasonable for 25 figures . . . even if they need a repaint!

News, Views etc . . . New Subscriber?

You can always come over here Ed? Just don't bring the idiot-monkey with you!

F is for Fair Lady, Foam, Fakes, Fat Fellows and Finger Flyerz

A round-up of the other super hero stuff which has come in since the last season, even as other things were slotting into the queue, and most from Brian. We'll look at them pretty-much as they came in, and I'll tack one on the end, we're mostly looking at the 'novelty' end of the spectrum today!

I'm loving this! Brian sent this back in January and it was destined to hang around for probably a few months waiting for a 'superheroes season', little did I know how quickly it would pile-up, but . . . it's chocolate! It's coloured chocolate; in the [quite svelte] likeness of Wonder Woman; it's too cool for l'Eccole Chocolatier! It's only five dollars that side of the pond, this side we can only hope!

This was Mr. Berke's immediate response to the weird flying superman thing the other day, puking superheroes, whose spit - cleans kids! Bleargh! Oh god, why didn't we have this stuff when we were young? We got Matey bubble-bath, who dispensed from under his hat, which you had to remove first! If it's three-in-one, do the kids end-up with glowing, shiny-skin?

Almost as cool as full-colour chocolate.

Also from Brian; this seems to represent a bit of a swizz for our North American neighbours as I'm sure they are the same as the ones we've had over here for a decade or more now, which always come with small-scale 'mini-me' clones (looked at again the other day LINK), but not supplied here? It sort of makes sense, but weather you can get the little ones over there (on a very small card!) I don't know; but I doubt?

Scratch-that - no link; this is the 33 post with a 'Super Heroes' tag (that's a lot of superheroes, you'd think the world would be in a better state than it is!), but we haven't looked at the figures I was sure we had! I'll remedy that ASAP!

Mr. B recently found these, and they look like a few similar things seen at the Toy fair and called Funko (or by Funko, it wasn't clear and several stands were carrying them or similar things), basically deforms or super-deforms, they're really 'big-heads' or big-head deforms!

If you like key-rings or like super heroes, they are fun! Covered in the two shots are DC, Marvel and Disney, and I think I've seen other TV-related stuff in the new kidult pop-up in Basingrad . . . Breaking Bad, Zombies, that sort of thing.

Thanks to Brian for all the above.

I tacked this on the end of the contributions just to clear the current superhero stuff from the laptop. Sold/imported by TKC Sales and seen at the Toy Fair, they seem to be almost as mad as the foam-wing Superman 'spinner' thing we saw the other day. Probably soon to be rendered obsolete by budget, novelty-drones doing more for the same money!

C is for Comics Spain Comparison

These are the two I referred to yesterday, also 70mm vinyl, also sent to the blog about ten years ago by Juan Angel, and an interesting comparison between a Comics Spain super hero and a Bullyland one of the same era - the late-1980's/early-1990's.

Bullyland Batman versus Comics Spain Superman - both a standard 70mm, both substantial sculpts, both with solidly-integrated cloaks, there's nothing in it, but I think there were cross-fertilisation deals between the two companies anyway, so the same sculptor may well have designed both, I'm sure TJF knows all about them!

Marking is similar; both reading bottom-to-top on folds of the cloaks at the backs of the figures.

As you may have noticed, we've had a few posts with super heroes in the last few days, we were going to have a sort of mini-season, but it wasn't planned in advance so it's been a bit 'bitty', it's just that with contributions and the 2018 Toy Fair (and the above find), there was a few in the queue, but there's still another post to come.

I is for If You Like Sci-fi Toys!

I received an email and some very interesting shots of Zero Hour (Code Zero in the 'States) toys, as the Photo's aren't collageable and the text is self-explanatory, I give you first Richard Dixon's own words, then the shots...

Hi Hugh

I've just been reading your site stuff on Zero Hour Toys....

....I was the principal photographic designer for Bluebird Toys in 1989 - 1990....I also designed the Toy Fair Displays for the Range at Earls Court Toy Fair and the smaller display at Harrogate Toy Fair to launch the range.

During my time on the promotion for the product I also built a large display for Hamleys in London for the Christmas Display to promote the Range...and worked on the TV advertisements and all Children's Comics for the Range....

....Best Regards

Richard's website is a wealth of toy info and nostalgic imagery . . .

RICHARD DIXON / TPD STUDIOS 

. . .  thank you Richard for these fascinating pictures!

T is for Two - Dungeons and Dragons . . .

. . . from Comics Spain! Looking for something else the other day, I found the Bullyland folder, and thought "Ah! I must Blog those two", looking for them again a few days later I went instead to the Comics Spain folder and found these two - not for the first time; things Juan Angel sent me about nine-years ago! So firstly - ThanksGog!

It's two vinyl characters from the Dungeons & Dragons franchise/license held by [the recently demised] Comics Spain from TSR (Tactical Studies Rules), taken-out in 1985 and pertaining - I think - to a kid's cartoon of the early-evening/after-school TV type? The girl is supposed to have a staff or weapon of some kind (in green) but it has been removed by a previous owner . . .

. . . .and the catalogue managed to obstruct it too, so I still don't know what it should look like! Nevertheless an interesting pair and I think the Girl is called 'Diana', the short chap 'Master'? Scale is best described as 'Cartoon-size', but will be - nominally - 70mm?

The whole set; not quite what you expect from D&D, being all quite friendly-looking, even the obviously evil 'bad-guys'! Shades of Harry Potter in the boy wizard, years before the HP books as well; nothing new under the sun!