It's time for another feature, and this is another one I've had backlogged for a very long time. This time I will be covering another breed of space toy, the "generic" space ship. They might be too small for action figures or even army men, but they could still get the heroic space explorer to his destination, and whatever mysteries the hero discovered would never be as great as that of where they came from. These are the toys that I personally held onto longest, and this is the tale of the one that got away.
My first sighting of this item probably happened sometime in 1988. The real backstory is that I was an utterly devoted and obsessive fan of Calvin And Hobbes. I especially loved the brief (and usually grim) adventures of Spaceman Spiff, which I now know to be older than Calvin himself. I got to thinking that I wanted a toy like Spaceman Spiff's ship. Then, one day at school, on a prize table my teachers set up, I saw a toy that looked exactly like the ship. It turned out to be a friction toy, the kind with a little motor that made it zip along if you pulled it back. I had to save up for it, but they set it aside for me, allowing me to get fixated on it well before I could play with it. I finally took it home, and I'm sure I played with it plenty, in part because I recall a time when I wanted to take it to the pool. My solution was to take out the motor, which didn't seem difficult at the time. Of course, some time after that, the toy disappeared, but I remembered.
Fast forward to the age of the internet, and I spent well over a decade searching here and there, now and then, for something like my ship. I found plenty of toys like it, mainly much older "tin toys" that I am now sure must have inspired the comic strip spaceship. I picked up a reissue model kit that I discovered was used in Plan 9 From Outer Space. I even found a model kit for the Calvin And Hobbes ship, but that wasn't my style. But then, in one of my recent online auction binges, I found the two items shown above, one from the US and one from a seller in the UK, and ended up getting both of them. Here's pics of the first one to arrive.
On receiving this item, I very quickly decided to remove it from its package and remove the oversized, peeling sticker, because I certainly wasn't going to sell the toy and they literally disgusted me. On examination, I discovered it had a sparking mechanism, something I have no recollection of on my old toy. That proved to work, though the motor won't move it an inch. I had no trouble believing a kid could remove the motor with bare hands, in part because a piece of a wheel housing was rattling around inside the toy when I took it out of the package. There were enough things I didn't remember that, especially the patterning on the top surface, I might still convince myself that the toy I had was a copy or imitation. However, the only things I remember being different were that the missiles and engines were white instead of clear orange and that the sticker was much smaller with some kind of number, and the second one (received just a few days before this writing) had both.
Meanwhile, I found out enough about the toy for it to feel anticlimactic. It was made by a company named Blue Box, whose products appear to have been sold mainly in the UK and/or Europe, as part of a series that also included alleged tie ins to the show Blake's Seven. All known copyright dates are from 1978, though it is suggested at least some were made earlier and they were made and sold well into the 1980s. The one I opened was sold in the US with the name and logo Zee Toys, but the only markings on the toy itself are from Blue Box. The US card had a printed back that showed more toys, also identical to Blue Box offerings. Here's a pic of the other side:
As for availability today, anyone who doesn't remember playing with one of these things probably isn't going to pay what it takes to get one. In my own searching, I found exactly one other one on sale loose, which ironically would have cost more than either of those I bought on card, especially after shipping. Given how flimsy they have already proven, this might easily reflect the realities of preservation. If you're a Calvin and Hobbes fan, you can better honor the strip by getting one of the vintage tin toys.
As for me, this has been my holy grail, and I still don't know how I feel about finally finding it. The one I just received is certainly staying as it is, as the card is far to charming for even me to damage, though it might or might not stay with me. The other will be staying on my desk, as another reminder of where I've been and where I've come.
For the links, most the ones I can offer are going to a blog called Moonbase Central, particularly posts covering the Blake's Seven tie in and an HP friction toy of similar design. I have chosen not to link to certain pages for models based directly on Calvin and Hobbes/ Spaceman Spiff, which are certainly out there. You can check out this video from Space Trucks/ Steve Nyland about what I believe to be a version of the Blake's Seven ship design, by his report released somewhat earlier.
See also my last post reviewing Message From Space, which includes a preview of material to come in this feature.
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