H is for Hexbug . . . Not? Junkbots

These are a real oddity, marked-up to Hexbug, but not taking Hexbug's as motive power, or for added play-value, so I can only guess, they were another 'line' in the Hexbug 'range', designed to tie-in with the declared STEM aims of Innovation First International for their Hexbug branding?

 

Remaindered or 'on clearance' at TKMaxx last Christmas (2022/3), these were back in TKMaxx again this Christmas , just gone, with different packaging (I didn't make another purchase), suggesting they had been tried again somewhere, or more stock had been found/located in the intervening 12-months, I don't know?

 

What I do know, is I can illustrate/testify to several reasons why they might have failed, and this is very-much in the we-buy-this-shit-so-you-don't-have-to department, rather than any advertisement to rush out and find some?

 

Immediate problems are presented by the ripped elastic band, fashioned as a chain and padlock, the padlock is both non-functional and depicted as open! The container is modelled to represent a North American dumpster, although such flat-top designs are getting as common as the roll-lid ones over here now . . . we will go to our extinction homogeneously!

 

One of the models had two accessory bags for small parts, joined with hairs of extruded plastic, from some production problem, and with several smaller pieces loose in the box? 

 

A [sealed, so no replacing the-] battery-operated light unit was included with one, which was not part of the model, not found on the instruction, but clearly a 'spare' for use in the line? While fit was poor on a fair number of the component's link-portions, and the two very small pieces above (one from each of the two I purchased) were so badly manufactured (you can see the rough finish of the orange 'flower' clearly) they wouldn't locate in the designated position.

However, with perseverance I did manage to produce the two, almost to the instructions, without breaking anything, although a couple of pieces did get damaged/bent in the task, and wouldn't survive too many more constructions/dismantling?

 

Any interactivity/swapability between the two was limited, due to the various joins/ball-sockets/studs being different diameters/dimensions, and/or, therefore, location specific. As you can see, I got (blind boxes) a Dino-bot and a Seal/Sea Lion-bot!

 

Final criticism - I would say the colour-palate was/is pretty uninspiring, without being actually stressed/weathered to represent junk?

 

So, one can see that this line seems to have been half-thought, half-executed and then neither properly supported, nor improved? Glaring errors like poor fit, were never corrected, and the fact that toys dated 2020, were remaindered so soon, is not a mystery.

 

What is a mystery (to me) is why were these 'Series 2', was a 'Series 1' better? And was it a 'Series 3' which I didn't even look-at properly, a few weeks ago, which was being cleared a year later, and which are probably still in some TKMaxx's, if you want to try them for yourselves - I really wouldn't recommend it?

 

And, if the four or five-quid I paid in TKMaxx, was a clearance price, they were surely overpriced for blind-box/capsule novelties in the first place? I am reminded of the - much better executed - Horrible History figures and their short life, the powers that be (the board, the PR Company/ies, the marketer/s), don't care if they are stuffing landfill with this shite, so long as they sell enough 'units' first.

 

I love the space station, before I've even had a proper looks at it, and the insects look very good, and fun, but this is unadulterated, ephemeral, opportunistic shite, and would disappoint, from a Christmas stocking, damaging the brand, no wonder they sold their toy division to Spin Master!

H is for Hexbug Space!

So the reason I knew about Hexbug (previous post), to spot them at the Toy Fair, in a way that without, I would normally have walked straight past them, zoning them out as multicoloured plastic shite - how many other useful things have we missed that way, like looking for your key by doing 'Radar' eyes on the hall and somehow failing to register them on their hook by the door! . . .

 

. . . is - I digressed a bit there - because a few months earlier I had found a nice little spaceship in a Charity Shop's 50p bin, and taken it home to ask the wise coves of Brain Heiler's Faceplant group if anyone knew what it was and/or who made it.

 

The turret was a plug in and there was clearly room for more.

 

 Amelia A. Baranet answered the call not only with an ID but also with a link to the Hexbug Nano Space Cosmic Command Habitat review, which seems to have been deleted, a small chat ensued and it turned out several 'Stallions' had them, or their kid's did, and loved them, but I had already gone-off to evilBay, where I found one going cheap!

 

 

 

Turns-out, all the blue and orange bits are interchangeable with the mounting points of the buildings, vehicles and 'ship'. While, you get two Hexbugs, in way cooler colours than the everyday ones we looked at in the previous post. It's all a bit Lego or Tente, but without the studs ruining the lines of the finished constructions.

 

There are other sets, and because this one then went straight to storage (autumn of '21), we will have a box opening post in a year or two, perhaps when the existing Internet images have died-down a bit, but for now, there's tons out there if you look, and I think it'll go well with the little 20mm'ish Giant spacemen and bug-eyed Aliens?

H is for Hexbug!

Just a quickie before I go to work, a post from 2022's Toy Fair, which clearly I haven't got out in a timely manner, because it really doesn't matter! I won't be going this year at all, although I think it was last week anyway, so I didn't go this year!

Hexbug and Hexbug Nano (or Nano Hexbug) are brands of Spin Master, bought by them with all properties this time last year, from Innovation First International, who continue to trade with other non-toy brands, and which has, at its core, small battery-operated 'robotics' which move about and provide motive power for various lines, aimed both at STEM for younger kids, more generl fun toys, and pet novelties.

I'd become aware of them a year or so earlier, following a charity-shop purchase (more in a subsequent post), so was interested to see them at the show, but as you can see, little to interest Loyal (or casual) Readers, beyond the insect carcases being quite realistic as stand-alone models, without their Hexbug 'innards'.

Catalogue imagery, well, more of a trade 'flyer' really!

Packaging of the basic Hexbug units, in one's or sixes.

The insects

As you can see they are very good, and follow real life patterns of 'wee bestie'

Larger arthropods, and a sort of gecko-dragon thing!

Insect packaging also comes in singles or multiples

Cat toys!

W is for We Never Learn From History.

 Guy Venables in The Metro . . . 

Beyond the jokes is the realisation that everything which has happened since Thatcher/Ragan (1979/80) has taken us back to where we were in 1939/40, the Right on the rise everywhere, nations ignoring international or pan-national treaties to vie for power and influence, a fascist state (Israel) exterminating a populace (the Palestinians) they have passed dozens of discriminatory laws (72 I believe) against, while the populations' recovering from a decade of austerity following the failure of the money markets, are going to be expected to fight and die in a probably global war, to keep the 'Rich & Powerful' wealthy and in power. While the League of . . . sorry, 'United' Nations becomes an irrelevance, and international courts are ignored by the people who set them up.

A is for Answered - Box Ticking Toy Major!

The pre-Christmas question time was answered, they're Toy Major, I should have worked it out from some of the pirates, but they don't have the more comprehensive (or complicated!) marking of 'modern' or current Toy Major, so, anyway, that's what they are, and to be fair, I did suggest they looked like Toy Major 'stuff'!

Yes, the fourth from the left/third from the right Alien, is 'Mirrorman'!

And, no, they haven't really improved since we last looked at them here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/10/q-is-for-question-time-u-is-for.html

It occurred to me there was a bit of the Party Pig set of Star Wars knock-off's about them, but I think it was fanciful thinking based on the over-use of Wellington-boots in both sets! It's actually more a case of four 'Hoth' snow-troopers and two AT-AT crew!

Comparison shot with a few other puke-green figures!

Yeah, it's not very 'spacy' writting, but I haven't

imported all the stuff from the old laptop yet!

S is for Sorry, I'm Having a Rather Lazy Week!

I've just sat here for two hours and not posted anything, as I also couldn't be arsed to this afternoon before I went to work, but here's something from the unsorted folder!

Domage et Cie ('et Compagnie, like our &Co.,), who would go on to be known as  Aludo, producing aluminium toys, then Acédo, as a producer of polymer-acetate figures, were first branded D et C, where they could be found making these pastoral subjects, among other things, also in an early plastic, but with more of a recycled polystyrene feel?. Here the shepherd meets his paramour, while the farmer's not around!

Beautifully marked-up on the base, leaving no real doubt as to their lineage! And only about 60-mil, so a nice 54mm without the heavy bases, which have been modelled to resemble turned-wood! 'Unbreakable' it says (in French, and they know what they're talking about, they all speak it!), and to be fair, neither of these has any damage, but both Domage! And are they replacing earlier wooden or composition figures from the same line?

T is for Triang

Another one with the images all from Jon Attwood, as mine are in storage, we've looked at them before, but they are rather all over the place, with more in a follow-up than the original articles, and they are a bit far back on the Tag, but you can find them! Although, thanks are also due to Bernard Taylor for his help, previously.

Really nice to see all six in their Tri-Ang Railways guise, although I'm not sure if we've even seen the Minic Motorway versions? I have three sets, somewhere, or one? But don't seem to have shot them/it despite seeing them in passing several times since the original posts.

 

The mechanics, second up, were issued in white overalls/plastic as motor-racing personnel, in the Minic Motorway series, but - here - in blue as locomotive engineers.

The set of diminutive peeps for fitting into coaches, I can't remember if you had to unscrew the whole assembly, or if the roofs popped-off, they certainly popped-off some of the rolling-stock as I remember filling the container wagons with 'stuff'!

 

And when I say 'diminutive' I mean it, the restaurant-car's waiter has short legs to fit realistically, while the passengers are simply torsos, as the seats were simplified, presumably before someone thought about a set of figures! And the platform figures.

Ah-Ha! Rare as hen's teeth in rocking-horse droppings! The factory-painted crew from the boxed-set of Stevenson's 'Rocket', the first proper train with commercial pretensions, but not the first 'locomotive steam engine', Stevenson himself had built several, prior to Rocket.

 

The coach sets got a late issue in pink, or at least that used to be the 'received wisdom', having failed to find them in any packaging, I now have my doubts on what they were or who/how they were issued as/by?

 

They may have been supplied to someone else, or issued with one of the clockwork starter-sets, possibly as a generic, released through/under a chain's branding, one of the bigger department stores maybe? Not a vast question-mark, as we know they are the Tri-Ang sculpts, but something which might benefit from a little more digging?

 

To the far right of the line-up is one which may be a Hong Kong copy, it's hard to tell, but I have a set (we'll see later in this series of articles) of Airfix piracies which look very similar, an odd colour, whatever she is? Thanks, as always, to Jon for his contributions to all this.

I is for Intellects - Vast and Cruel and Unsympathetic

I think we've seen some of this before, but while visiting Mr Morehead back in 2016, I shot it again properly, and it's been sat in Picasa ever since . . . there's still tons of it! Anyway, War of the Worlds, which was set, initially, on Horsell Common, not far from Woking, Woking seems to claim it as theirs, almost as hard as Mr. Andrew Windsor claims Woking as his alibi!

First landing capsule.

(beautiful brickwork)

A 'Glitering Machine'

Martain tripod

The valiant defenders

A Hawker Hunter

(Monday, 30 June 1958, RNAS Fulmar, Hall JHS, Lieutenant, RN

my uncle's coffin)

 

The microbes that made the difference.

 

The dedication plate.