"I found my thrills..."

When Happy Days burst on to Australian TV screens in 1975 nobody could resist the lovable geekiness of Richie, the wisecracking mouth of Ralph or pure dumb nerdiness of Potsie. Everything 50's was cool again; the cars, the clothes and of course the tunes.

Standing above all though was one Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli, AKA The Fonz, AKA Fonzie. This James Dean / Marlon Brando 'Rebel above the Garage' superstar of the show could clear a stall with a look, start a tune with a fist, and defeat aliens with a single thumb and an "Aaaayyyyyyy".

Fonzie rode a motorbike and had a way with the ladies, a jacket that meant business and hair that had its own management. Little Aussie kids couldn't get enough of the show and the Fonz in particular, so of course he was afforded the greatest honour this country could bestow upon foreigners in the 70's, an eponymous snack food. As if that wasn't enough, the show itself was canonised antipodean style with it's own ice cream.

I remember Fonzies as a cheesy snack similar to Cheetos, complete with all that great yellow snack-dust that clings to jumpers, fingers and mum's back seat. The Streets Happy Days Ice Cream I can't specifically recall, so one of you guys will have to help me out with memories of that. The sticker above was a Milk Bar premium, I'm not sure if Happy Days were ever sold in multi-packs. The Fonzies stickers were most likely given away the same way, there are a number of others out there, I'll add a third example soon.

Henry Winkler (who played the Fonz) continues to appear in film and television to this day, while Ron Howard (Richie Cunningham) never really kicked on as far as I know...

Cheers!

Will

Have Fun with Scanlens Gum! 

So went the slogan of this much loved Aussie confectionary maker, active from the 1930's to 80's. But how do you make bubble gum fun? How about producing animal-dropping sized pellets and packing them in calico bags with a Gold Rush theme?  

Kids were apparently more than able to look past the droppings angle and concentrate on the Western-themed goodness and a highly portable container, one that I'm sure would have gone beautifully at the bottom of the school bag for a couple of months or more, waiting until high summer before assimilating itself with every text book and rotten apple within oozing distance. Gold indeed!

The gold nuggets had the cowboys covered,  so the next logical step was to go after the protagonist market with the American Indian themed Totem Poles. I'm dubious that much historical or anthropological research was undertaken by the creators of these, but nevertheless the result is still slightly less culturally insensitive than Redskin Split ice creams :-) 

I believe these were peach flavoured, which sounds awful to me, if anyone can remember the taste and enlighten me, feel free!

More Scanlens ahead on Toltoys.com...

Cheers!

Will

The MYER LEGO National Building Competition 1984

By 1984 LEGO had already cemented it's place in the psyche of kids all over the world with fantastic products, lead by the now-classic Space series. 

The time was right for the company to move in for the kill by staging building competitions in major department stores. I remember well the excitement and hype surrounding  the MYER Melbourne competition, without the fun of actually having the opportunity to participate myself. 

No such problems for Toltoys.com regular contributor (and former child) Paul Naylor. 

Paul's construction abilities were on display for all to see in the Queensland state competition in 1984. 

Paul wowed all and sundry with his very impressive spire work, just checkout the serious tower-envy from the kid on the right! 

The envelope please.....

How hyper would you have been as a kid to see that turn up in your letter box? 

Ahhhh! Close but no cigar. Still, who need's Denmark when you can have Space LEGO?! And where are you Nigel Newton of Leongatha? Bring forth this Portable Cassette Player of which we have heard so much. 

My email is on the top right of this blog :-)

Thanks so much to Paul for these wonderful photos and scans. 

Cheers,

Will

Superman at Safeway

The Aussie Safeway catalogue from Christmas 1978 (I think!) features all the usual specials one would expect from a large grocery store; nappies, bananas and ...

...the Man of Steel and his big green mate The Hulk.  Yes sitting there among the no-name brand trikes, bikes and ray-guns were the beautifully crafted 12-inch MEGO World's Greatest Super Heroes.

Interestingly the Superman is the harder to find "Comic Head" version, previously thought to have only seen release in Canada, the UK, France and Italy according to the authoritative Mego Museum.  Hulk appears to be a regular US version. Dig that lab coat!

No telling if there were other Heroes available on the Safeway shelves "ready to continue the fight against the baddies" back then, but we can only hope so. 

Did you buy your super heroes in Australia at Safeway? 

Tell me about it - will(at)toltoys(dot)com 

Cheers!

Will

Willy Water Bug

If you look closely underneath the "1982" text on the Walton's Wishbook cover below you'll see a strange little yellow creature. He's the one sitting innocuously next to the cool Tomy / Toltoys Air-Jammer motorcycle. 

Who or what is this thing you ask? Meet Willy Water Bug, one of Wham-O's contributions to the summer-toy craze of the 70's. This was to be no Slip'n'Slide however, since the result of attaching the prescribed garden hose to the rear of Willy produced viciously whipping tentacles of terror reaching out for small bare legs in all directions. Fun for all the family! 

I can't say I recall Willy from my childhood, but finding the example above complete with Toltoys liveried box was manna from heaven for this blogger let me tell you. What was it with Wham-O? Not content to poison us with Super Elastic Bubble Plastic they went on to unleash this water-laden lacerator on frolicking children. Even the kid on the box is recoiling in fear. 

Being a William in real life, I'm not a massive fan of the nickname "Willy" either, so lets' just consign this one to the circular file shall we?

  

Cheers!

Will

An unusual Star Wars Toltoys find!

To most Star Wars collectors that item above appears to be your run-of-the-mill Kenner Star Wars C3PO 12 Back figure. The keen eyed collectors will note that the blister has been reattached to the card-back for use as a display item, but that is not of consequence here.  

Flipping the card over reveals a metric conversion sticker of a type used by Toltoys Australia. These stickers were applied to foreign card-backs to comply with local sales laws requiring the use of metric measurements over imperial. These stickers have been previously found on Toltoys printed cards, but to my knowledge they have never been found on a Kenner card-back.    

These are tough enough to find on Toltoys card-backs, but this discovery opens up a whole new variation for collectors to search for! Speculating on where these figures fit into the chronological release of Star Wars figures in Australia is tough to do, were they late release items dumped here at the change-over to Empire Strikes Back figures? Or were they in fact the very first Star Wars figures sold in Australia, before Toltoys managed to print their own card-backs. All suggestions and ideas are welcome!

Special thanks for this discovery goes to Toltoys collector Pat O'Brien, who also provided the photos.

Cheers,

Will

More Star Wars from the 1982 Waltons Wishbook 

$60 was a lot for a toy in 1982, hell it's a lot for a toy today. Just as well then that you received one of the all-time great play-sets for your cash back in '82, the Kenner Millennium Falcon. 

Walton's caption writers went off the deep end in this one, declaring the Falcon to be 'faithful', as opposed to all those other lousy cheating spacecraft one presumes. Dig the "Simulate Space Chess" - is the simulate really necessary? I mean even slow Darren from down the road gets that we're not actually playing real space chess here. 

The keen-eyed among you will have already noticed the uber-cool Empire Strikes Back Electric Toothbrush labeled as a Star Wars one, a tough item to locate for collectors today. They were one of the earliest Star Wars toys so it's good to see them still around in 1982.    

The last little reveals of this particular page are the fantastic AT-AT, still sold in the modern Hasbro line today, and the short lived but much admired Micro Collection, represented here by the Bespin environments. Comparing the prices of the Micro stuff with the creature / figure combos to their right gives some insight I think into why the line did not last. What would you have preferred as a kid? Micro Rob don't answer that :-)    

Finally we have the whole page on show, and what a treasure trove it has proved to be, solving the mysteries of the not one but three Toltoys Special Offer items, and throwing in rare ads for 3-Packs and ESB Toothbrushes just for fun.  

I'll be continuing the Wishbook posts soon, but stay tuned for some other vintage toy coolness this week. 

Cheers!

Will