The Trendy Troodon: Timmee Tuesday: Galaxy Laser Team!

For today's installment, I'm featuring a group that should be old friends by now, the Galaxy Laser Team reissue set. I have been wanting to give these guys their own installment for a long time, but they weren't quite fitting in the features I had started. I finally decided the best option was to use them to introduce something new, and I finally settled on a feature dedicated to Timmee Toys, which I now know to be more responsible than any other company for the mysterious army men and generic toys I grew up with.

As I have recounted in other installments, I grew up with a Galaxy Laser Team space guy and their insane alien, which usually got mixed together with the Rogun Robots and the arcade-prize fleet. When I figured out what they were, I ordered a reissue that came out around 2013. A bit later, I ordered a large-sized set called Star Patrol, consisting of large-sized versions of 6 of the 8 sculpts used in Galaxy Laser Team. Here is a lineup of the figures, starting with a mixed group.

Here are the space guys with the GLT bot plus the two Rogun Robots I had back when. I don't have a lot to add beyond the fact that the Rogun bots are not only better but in many ways closer in style to the astronaut figures. Next up is a new acquisition and a few things I dug up.

This is a sub-army man scale space guy I picked up with a mixed auction lot, something I had heard of once or twice before. He's about 1 1/2 inch tall, and of high enough quality that I am satisfied it is based on a Timmee mold, though whether this specimen was made by them is a separate question. He's featured here with a "vintage" alien which I suspect to be a bootleg/ knockoff, and two reissue "spaceships". The planes are quite good, even futuristic for the late 1970s, but they're one more thing that doesn't quite fit. They are clearly still regular planes (though the X-wings weren't much better), and on top of that, there's nowhere to carry a crew. Without re-envisioning the scale, there's only space for one or two guys in the cockpit, with space for a cargo bay and a ramp to access it being conspicuously absent. Here's the little guy with a lineup of the rest of the crew, which will incidentally show how much smaller the space guys are than the others.

The lady in the set has intrigued me the most. She was left out of the large scale set for reasons that are unclear, and further stands out as based on Star Trek. She's also the only character who is clearly at the controls for a ship, which just might make her the captain. Here's another pic of her, in two colors.

Here's pics of some more guys in large size.

These two are the heart of the set. Obviously, they're knockoffs of Han Solo and Chewbacca, but creative enough to be interesting. The Solo analog has touches of much earlier science fiction, including a strangely ornate helmet. He has made me think of an ancient set of characters I came up with called the Galactic Police, sort of semi-benign version of the Borg, especially with multiple clones around. In hindsight, it blows my own mind that I came up with them when I was a kid.

Here's closeups of the alien and the bot. I think kids were literally traumatized by how weird the turtle crab is. The army man scale versions of both were significantly altered in later production, to the point that the back of the robot was simply left out, but the large scale molds escaped unscathed. The only apparent reason for the change was to save plastic, which has given me the further suspicion that they were produced in greater numbers.Something I get a kick out of is that the original and altered versions of the alien's shell correspond to the shape of a female and male turtle. That's one big female...

And I don't know what to make of this guy. Everyone says he's a Darth Vader knockoff, and I'm sure they're right up to a point, but I'll be damned if he doesn't look like Magneto. The freaky part is that Timmee did make Marvel Figures (as covered with the Legendary Battles set), but apparently several years later. Was there an earlier plan for a Marvel set? Might Timmee have made a mold before they had licensing lined up, and recycled it when a deal never went through? Were there other sculpts that were reused, or lost entirely? As always, anybody who would have known isn't likely to talk.

Finally, here's some "story" shots. Some are semi-serious ideas, others jus for fun, but it's all part of the Galaxy Laser Team legacy.