I wanted to get a short post in today, and I definitely have wanted to do more Timmee. As luck would have it, in the last week, I made a major new discovery about an old friend. I have regularly featured Timmee's Galaxy Laser Team line, including the large-sized figures. Not long ago, I also introduced a rather mysterious figure that was clearly a smaller version of the "Commander" figure. Now, I finally have information on where he came from, and it turns out to be a whole new twist on the origins of GLT. Before I get into that, here's some pics of the mini space guy with other GLT figures, including a "vintage" figure that came in the same group as the Marx and Lido aliens.
I had previously commented that the GLT astronauts were very different from the other figures in the set. They were oddly realistic compared to the other characters, even a little "retro" (though certainly less so than the Marx 4 inch space guys), and also slightly different in size. These inconsistencies quickly made me wonder if the astronauts came from an earlier set. As soon as I got the mini astronaut, he puzzled me further. It would have been easy to assume he was a "bootleg" copy of the Timmee figure, which certainly existed. This, however, was of a very high quality with details that closely matched the more familiar figure. I quickly concluded this had to have been copied from the same mold, most likely by Timmee. Here's a few more pics to show what I mean.
My big lead was courtesy of Steve Nyland, a Y*utuber I have consulted for a number of posts. He reported in a response to a casual comment that the small versions of the GLT astronauts had been included in a set of rocket toys released by Processed Plastic, the company that bought out and then revived Timmee. After following that rabbit hole, I quickly concluded that the "mini" astronauts must have come first. Here's a pic of one of the rockets with the astronauts, and another of a specimen on card.
Just how old these guys are is still unclear. The style of the card art and the rocket itself definitely points to the era of the actual Apollo program, which went from the mid-60s through the early '70s. A tantalizing further detail is that some versions have USAF rather than USA. This suggests that some were made even before the formation of NASA in 1958. On the other hand, some of these early versions didn't have the figures, notably a mindboggling ICBM set. Because who needs Marx casualty figures when kids can enact World War 3?
This is another discovery that's a bit of an anticlimax. I was especially disappointed to find out that Timmee never tried or planned to do a "realistic" astronaut set on the lines of Marx. Then there is one more loose end. For me, the main piece of evidence that the astronauts predated GLT was the commander's open hand. It always looked like it was intended for an accessory, perhaps a flag, that certainly wasn't in the GLT set. But now I know the pose was there all along, and there is not only still no sign of an accessory, but clear evidence that the sculpt was never meant to be compatible with the "army man" scale sets that could have supplied one. So did they plan on issuing a flag? Was there a version of the set that did have something to go with it? We may never know, and we probably care far more than Timmee ever did.
That's all for now, more to come!
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