1970′s Toltoys Six Million Dollar Man Model Kits
Issued outside Australia by Fundimensions, these great unpainted snap-together kits featured Steve Austin wrestling an alligator in “Jaws of Doom” and lifting a gorilla in “Fight for Survival”, which I presume is named for the ape! The best feature of these for the unskilled modeller (such as myself) is that they required no glue, a fact trumpeted on the box art.
Check out this awesomely low-tech 1981 Aussie TV spot for Corgi’s Batmobile, Bond and Buck Rogers range. This voice-over guy must have made a fortune in the early 80′s, he seemed to read almost every ad.
My chances of finding a Detective Comics #27 at a garage sale in Melbourne just got slimmer.
From The Argus, Wednesday 14 September 1938…
TWO ‘COMICS’ BANNED
SYDNEY, Tuesday. – Magazine distributors were notified to-day that seven publications had been added to the banned list, including, for the first time, two classified in the trade as “comics.”
These comics are publications for boys, and sell at fourpence. They are entitled “Keen Detective Funnies” and “Detective Comics.” Both come from America, where the price is 10 cents. Copies inspected to-night contained principally a series of crime and adventure stories in picture form crudely printed in colours. Some of the titles of the stories were “Dictator of the Pope Dynasty,” “Too Many Crooks,” “Bayfront Cowboy.” “Captain Jim and the Chinese Pirates.”
The names of the other magazines banned were “Black Mask,” “Clues,” “Yellow Book,” “Top – Notch Detective,” and ”Gang Detective Fiction.”
How lucky my grandparents were to live in a country protected from the social evils of these new-fangled American “Comics”!
Recently dug up this cool double sided Toltoys promotional flyer featuring three 1970′s MEGO Action Jackson accessories.
All three items are scarce today, particularly when boxed. The Action Jackson Formula Racer had an Aussie cousin, a yet to be formally documented promotional release in BP livery, if you have one I’m buying!
The Action Jackson Campmobile is a great VW Combi playset, Toltoys changed the “Discover America” sticker on the door to “Discover Australia” for the local release, but only managed to scratch out the “America” for the promo flyer shown above.
The Toltoys “Discover Australia” door sticker.
The reverse of the flyer shows the large Action Jackson “Jungle House”. This great playset is better known by its later release as the MEGO Planet of the Apes Treehouse.
For all things MEGO be sure to visit the MEGO MUSEUM
Thanks to Toltoys Kid reader “robspromos” I’m delighted to present the complete set of shrinkie premiums from the 1979 Nabisco Weeties Australia cereal tie-in.
A small set of five that were issued in these boxes, and very tough to find. A bit of a strange mix of characters and ships, but kids weren’t complaining when V.I.N.CENT, Maximillian, Charles Pizer, The Cygnus or Palomino fell into their bowls! Well maybe a few complaints about Charles.
Since Australia began its love affair with LEGO in 1962 we have been collectively obsessed with the stuff. It should come as no surprise then that the world’s first dedicated LEGO store was opened not in Denmark, but in Sydney. Opening around 1984 and closing in the early 90′s (Please drop me a line if you know the exact dates), the Birkenhead Point LEGO Centre was for its short life the first and only LEGO dedicated store experience in the world.
Featuring iconic Australian models such as the FJ Holden above, and offering keyrings and minifigures such as these, the Birkenhead Point LEGO Centre looked to be a magical place. Many of you obvioulsy agree, there is even a Bring Back the Birkenhead Point Lego Centre page on facebook!
Check out this 1987 TV Spot for the centre that some kind soul loaded on to YouTube:
LEGO Centre Birkenhead Point TV Spot
Special thanks to Paul Naylor for the scans of the brochure and sticker for this post.
One of the most viewed posts here on Toltoys Kid is the entry featuring Willy Water Bug. I receive regular requests asking where they can be found today, unfortunatey I’m not much help, suggesting they start a ongoing search on ebay. It seems the kids of the 70′s want their kids today to enjoy the same summer fun we had, running on the lawn with water splashing everywhere and not a care in the world.
I feel I may be in for more requests with today’s post featuring a cousin of Willy, the Wham-O “Fun Fountain” clown sprinkler. The example below is again the Toltoys Australia branded version, I was lucky enough to find this guy in mint unused condition. When the hose is attached to the base and the water turned on, the hat rises above the head on a stream of water. Unlike Willy Water Bug I do remember this toy, in particular hitting the hat by swinging a cricket bat at it. Really loved the 70′s I did.
Enjoy!
This is actually the third time I have blogged about this particular promotion, the first time I was speculating as to whether it had ever actually gone ahead, the second time I was delighted to confirm it had by producing a cut back and side panel from the box, and now finaly I have a complete box to present. Now the search is on to find some (presumably) bagged figures from this promotion. Someday!
In the wake of Star Wars came a slew of wannabe space epics, but Disney did quite a respectable job with it’s 1979 production of “The Black Hole” . The robots had jerky actions and the actors were robotic, and let’s not mention the tinny sound and special effects, but as a nine year old I still ate it all up.
I was able to eat it up at the breakfast table too thanks to the Weeties Black Hole promotional tie-in. Each pack featured a “shrinking badge”, which I suppose was a type of shrinky – You remember those little plastic pictures your Mum put in the oven until the whole house smelt like burnt drinking straws? Yep those.
I’m sure I had the Vincent one but can’t find a pic, if any Aussies out there can contribute pics of the shrinkies I’ll add them here. I’m sorry about the quality of the images, the box appeared on ebay Australia in 2010 and as often happens these days I was the under-bidder. Didn’t get the box, but I did get the pics! Er, hooray.
If you’re a fan of the classic Universal Monsters (and who isn’t?) you’ll enjoy seeing this licensed tie-in with Nabisco Australia’s Weeties brand of cereal from 1982.
The “Doublies” refers to the fact that instead of printing one sticker with a plain backing piece, doublies use the backing piece as a swap card featuring the same image as the sticker. The set is very tough to assemble, I’ve chased them the few times they’ve appeared on ebay without much success, if you have a full set of 12 I’d love to add the images here. The box is featured below.
Classic Franky on the back!
The cards feature comedy along the lines of the Creature from the Black Lagoon examples above; “Teacher from the Black Lagoon” and ‘I got this way from Swimming”. Haw!
Below: Lon Chaney as the Phantom of the Opera, AKA The Babysitter…
Boris Karloff’s monster at school…
