B is for Blue Box . . . A Meander!

I'd better get some rack-toys up in RTM, just got so much to post we're rather spoiled for choice!

I didn't know whether to use 'meander' or 'variations on a theme' here, but I think meander is the better word for a look at how the Blue Box penny-based figures evolved over time, or (as it's not a comprehensive survey!) how they were presented at different times!

This is fascinating and probably pre-dates the "Blue-Box" logo/branding, being a generic from Tai Sang, dating from some time in the mid-/late-1950's, before Peter Chan Pui had discovered what Cecil Coleman was doing and came-up with the Blue Box concept. It would have been contract manufactured, or - more likely back then - speculatively manufactured and offered for sale/wholesaled as a generic.

It contains the Crescent-copy gun, a runner of ammunition (both in green) and a handful . . . alright; half-a handful . . . of the green, 1st version of their small-scale Britains khaki infantry piracies, these are the same as the brown ones they supplied to Triang-Mettoy for the Battle Space train-sets in the same brittle polystyrene.

The penny-based figures would go through a painted soft-plastic polyethylene phase, before they were issued as unpainted mouldings; and here we see a late 1960's crossover set with the Merten navy-copies still in painted polystyrene, along with unmarked ships and Blue Box-marked copies of the MPC 'Minis' aircraft. Indeed the aircraft and the backing-card are the only marked items here!

While this set (which I think has a date of '72 on it, I'll have to check though!) is another generic, only revealed to be Blue Box/Tai Sang from the contents. Now the gun has yellow ammo' and we get four vehicles to fire at!

A few more shots, we will look at all these elements in greater detail over on the Hong Kong small-scale Blog - when I pull my finger out, and - to be fair - we have looked at the vehicles already, while the figures were itemised here, although that page ran-out of puff and is due to be replaced on the But Is It Giant Blog.

And thanks to James Opie for the latter two sets above. 

S is for Supermarionation Supercar!

After looking at the Camberwick Green figures the other day - another set of figures widely held to have been made by the Marx plant in Swansea (or sourced by them from the Hong Kong arm of the global brand) are these characters from the Gerry Anderson 'Spermarionation' TV series; Supercar.

Supercar was the first of Gerry's Supermarionation children's television series, running for 39 episodes between 1961 and 1962 (so these toys are older than me?!!) and set the tone for all the subsequent Anderson puppetry oeuvre - a super sci-fi unit with wacky stuff solving an insurmountable problem (half caused by them) inside 40 minutes with a cool groovy vehicle or two!

 

The figures were supplied with a plastic model of the eponymous Supercar, and are presented here with one figure missing: Mitch the Monkey! He's the idiot who half caused the emergency most weeks (sometimes Wikipedia is actually useful - well!...I wasn't born then!)

Like the missing Mitch; the four other Characters are in a dense creamy-white polystyrene, painted in the style of Marx Miniature Masterpiece or Tinykins, and - from the 40mm figure on the left - represent:

'Aeronaut' Mike Mercury (steely-jawed hero)

Dr. Horatio Beaker (Popkiss's assistant)
Jimmy Gibson (annoying brat)
Professor Popkiss ('Brains' [Geditt] behind this version of the Anderson universe)

The missing monkey being around 20mm and the smallest, I think there was a torso of Mike in the vehicle in a darker paint scheme, the likelihood of my ever having one in good nick to show here is doubtful...but I'm sure it will turn up on Moonbase Central - if it hasn't already!

The carded toy was sold by/issued (distributed) under the title/brand of Cecil Coleman, London, N1. and I've included a paint variant of Beaker and an early mould-release shrinkage variant of Mike below.