I never really quite understood the design behind these. I think it would rather be clumsy to have your backpack bellyside if you were an astronaut... and these tubes, gosh ! The different types of helmets is quite intriguing as well...
OK, this is for the freaky funky ugly Hall of Fame of toys. Just one question pops into my mind : WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? (or what drugs were they on when they created this?)
Bruce Wayne's sidekick always had a pasion for two wheeled superbikes... as shown in this toy from the 70ies. Forget American Muscle... this is Japanese technology at its best !
No helmet ?
Robin bike, Gulliver ?, Brasil, 1970's
Now I can race Superman : Honda against Suzuki, ... how nice
OK, I know the caped crusader had a rough life, but come on ! Holly Pizza Batman ! What will Cats say ? Chasing psychopats around Gotham makes you hungry ? Drinking to much Guiness at the Irish pub with friend Gordon ?
French toymaker JIM made this figurine - the ring on the head meant it could be worn as a pendant of some sort...
Batman, JIM, France, 1970's
The funny thing is that later on, in the 1986 "The Dark Knight Returns" novel to be precise, there is a 55 year old version of Batman going back into the cape. And he doesn't look very slim either.
When Stephen King wanted a specific model for a possessed car, that was it ! The best Detroit had to offer in the late 50's : Virgil Exner Forwart Look, with twin headlights for that devilish "je ne sais quoi ..."
OK, don't give me that look ! Royal Red and Iceberg White
Sometimes the absurd becomes beauty, and this was certainly the case with this bird. An experiment on how countries could work together to make dreams come true. A show off for technological acheivements and nations, just like the Zeppelins in the 20ies.
The Concorde was faster than anything you could fly 40 years ago when it first showed its nose... and it is still faster (2.5 times faster) than any comercial plane you could fly today. And it flew much higher than the others... so less air = less turbulance.
Ambientalists ? They cried (fuel consumption of 20 thousand liters of kerosine per hour, big bad boom each time it passed the sound barrier)...
The trully wealthy ? They cheered (Paris / New York in 3h30) because they actually could afford the ticket.
Concorde, ?, Hong Kong, 1980's
For the little story, originally it was not supposed to have any "passenger" windows on the sides. (lighter, better structural integrity) But after some studies it seemed that passengers needed visual recognition points... so they altered the design.
I collect space guns and Leji Matsumoto's heroes, and it is nice to have a toy that fit in both categories. Maybe the strangest space gun ever - but it has all the details of the Yamato space ship - and it takes a battery and makes space sounds !
What does a spaceman look like after laundry day ? Well...
For the info, space suits like the EVA are white to reflect heat so the astronaut doesn't get too warm. And they are really visible against the black background of space... Very logical, yes ?
It is nice to go back in time, and this is one of my time machines...
No thrills, just little blue and red LED ships flying over the screen. Way back, this is all we kids had. And it was wonderfull. And it still is... Shinny plastic, cool design, ... and only one big bad-ass red button. Didn't need to read any manual to understand what it did. Sweet !
Bécassine is a French "Icône", maybe as much as the Eiffel Tower or the Camembert. Bécassine is a comic strip and the name of its heroine, appearing for the first time in the first issue of La Semaine de Suzetteon February 2, 1905. She is considered the first female protagonist in the history of comics.
The Thunderbirds TV serie became such a hit that an actual movie was made in 1966, Thunderbirds are Go. This here is the original toy of the Zero-X craft made by Bandai.
All of the other Thunderbird
vehicles also available...
Inspector Gadget, ? (P&M marking - Maia e Borges ?), 1980's, Portugal ?
Not really a superhero - more like the anti-version of it. But he did have some very cool robotic attachments!
Vaguely copied from Inspecteur Clouseau? Where is Peter Sellers when you need him ?
Not very far off from the Japanese version of Robocop... this is the Ingram Robot. Controlled from the inside by specially trained police agents, these robots are the best of the best in law enforcement...
Turkish company NEKUR made a number of spacetoys. This is one of them. The "JET OTO" ship came with different colors and numbers on the nose - but all had N.K.880 markings on the side.
Straight from the Time-Bokan / Yatterman series is this little guy. Remember the fuzzy dice people installed in their cars ? Well, here you have the bot-version. Strangely enough, it even appeared in a Gatchaman spin-off later on !
For all the would-be engineers between us, it is nice to see that beneath each wonderfull mecha design of Go Nagai, there is a very planned structure of how these robots really do work.
Turkish company NEKUR made a number of spacetoys. This is one of them. The "JET OTO" ship came with different colors and numbers on the nose - but all had N.K.880 markings on the side.
