Sunday 26 December 2010

"WAY OUT IN SPACE TOGETHER..."


Steve & Zoonie - but how did they fit in the box?  (I know.)

Here's a nice little Christmas present for you - a picture of GOLDEN GATE's STEVE ZODIAC & ZOONIE The LAZOON on a FIREBALL XL5 JETMOBILE.  The copyright date on the box is 1962, so it must have been released to toyshops no later than 1963, as it wasn't unusual for a toy to carry a copyright date of the year before it came out.  (Another example is MATTEL's MAJOR MATT MASON - it came out in 1967, but bears the date 1966.)  Of course, it may well have come out in 1962 just like the box says.

I didn't actually get this friction-drive toy until 1968, in the Scottish town of Millport (just across the water from Largs) on the Isle of Cumbrae, so it was old stock when I bought it.  Good as it was, I'd have loved to get one of Steve and ROBERT The ROBOT on a jet-mobile, but - alas - such a toy never existed (although my brother pretended lied that he'd seen one in a local newsagent's shop.)
Gordie, Steve, Zoonie & Paul

Above is me as a 9-year-old lad somewhere in Largs or Millport with my original jetmobile toy on my lap.  (Taken a day or two after purchase, if memory serves.)  I'm also holding a bendy CAPTAIN SCARLET figure bought at around the same time (a day or two either way).  You'll need good eyesight, but if you focus hard, you can just make them out.  (Now all I have to do is track down a replacement Captain Scarlet figure.)

Sometimes I look at these old photos and wish I were a lad again.  Life was just so much simpler then.  Anyone else agree?

4 comments:

Wayne Thompson said...

Seeing toys like this just takes me back to happy days of growing up as a child in the sixties.

Kid said...

Yeah. Brilliant, wasn't it?

Wayne Thompson said...

Such a fantastic time! We had everything comics,toys, etc. It was exciting and i really do miss it.

Kid said...

As do I. Just think how different our childhoods would have been in regard to toys if plastic had never been invented. Most of the toys we grew up with could never have been made.



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