#105 THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS – FEARSOME FLUSH and FULL SPEED AHEAD GHOST (1989)

The Fearsome Flush is probably one of the funniest toys in this line. Although the Real Ghostbusters were a total flop in Spain, I knew at least two or three people who had this toy. As you can see in the picture above, Fearsome Flush is a WC, and inside of it there’s a ghost, with eyes and a big mouth with a long tongue. As other figures in this line, it’s feature of opening the mouth and the eyes while it rolls, it’s very funny, and it combines perfectly with the “fright features” heroes.

I said “ghost” because in the package of this figure there is no reference at all, what makes it an ordinary ghost. It doesn’t belong to the “classic monsters” line or the “Haunted Humans”.

Detail of the instructions for Fearsome Flush

In this third wave of Kenner’s Ghostbusters, apart from the old figures from wave 2 (“Fright Feature” figures and “Haunted Humans”), the new series were “Monster” figures and “Screaming Hero” figures, plus a new series of ghosts and new vehicles. Some toy guns were released again, but they have no relation to the figure line.

And for our portuguese visitors, a detail of the sticker with the importer. This blister was found by myself in a toy store during a trip to Portugal.

The Full Speed Ahead Ghost is a different concept of toy, that reminds me of Dragstor from the Masters of the Universe. The ghost is made of hard plastic, and on its guts, it has a rubber wheel, which can be triggered using a toothed belt. This belt is decorated with a ghost named T-Stick Ghost. Pulling hard from the belt makes the ghost really, really fast, so fast that it’s even dangerous.

I think it’s not a bad toy, but it’s not very “playable”, since you can only shoot it with the belt (mostly against the poor Ghostbusters, that were knocked down without mercy). If we compare it with Dragstor, the MOTU was a figure with practicable arms, legs and head, came with a bow, fitted in many vehicles and accessories, but Full Speed Ahead can only run.

If you take a look at the photos, you’ll notice that the cast of the ghost includes running shoes on its feet, while it holds its mouth with the arms. The shoes suffer most of the times from paint loss, since this part always drags when the ghost is losing speed.

UPDATE  (Thanks to Two-Headed Boy for the comment he left): Full Speed Ahead also had a cold-sparks feature. It also spits sparks while running. This feature was also used in other toys like the Sparkabots and the Firecons subgroups of Transformers and the figure of Saurod (from the Masters of the Universe toyline).

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: FEARSOME FLUSH and FULL SPEED AHEAD GHOST (with T STICK GHOST)
• Toy Line: The Real Ghostbusters (Wave 3)
• Year: 1989
• Company: Kenner (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 10 cm approx.

#104 BIELEFELDER SPIELKARTEN - KLEINE TIERWELT (1963)

This nice deck of cards was first published in 1950 with 36 cards (9 families of 4 cards each), and reedited in 1953, but this time with only 24 cards. These first and second editions were sold in the same package used for “Eroberung der Luft”, only in green, instead of grey. The version depicted in the following pictures dates from 1963, and was sold in a plastic case. For this reason, this version includes an extra card with the “cover” illustration originally included in the box. A card with instructions is also there, what makes a total of 26 cards.
The complete set of cards is shown in this entry. The “small animals” are distributed in 6 families: Snails, Toads and Frogs, Grasshoppers and Crickets, Bees and Wasps, Ants and Beetles. The names are written only in german.

The Bielefelder Spielkartenfabrik was a card manufacturer that was founded around 1950. In 1972 it was took over by ASS (Altenburger und Stralsunder Spielkartenfabriken), together with the German Spielkartenmuseum. Despite of this takeover, products under the name Bielefelder Spielkarten were still sold at least until 1980.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: KLEINE TIERWELT LUSTIGES QÜARTETTSPIEL (Entwürfe Heinz Osthoff) (REF .1042)
• Year: 1963
• Company: Bielefelder Spielkarten G.m.b.H. (West-Germany)

#103 GUILOY – CHOPPER SPECIAL “WILD CAT” (Ref. 274) (1975)

The whole 1:24 Motorbike series by Guiloy comprised 19 models, being most of them reproduction of real motorbikes, or at least real motorbikes decorated as police motorbikes. I searched google for police motorbikes like the Honda 750 cc, but I found nothing, I guess they just putted that typical windshield, an antenna at the back and they thought: “well, here’s a motorbike for a policeman”).

 

This model is one of the two exceptions in this line, one of the two “choppers” available at the time. The name given to this motorbike, which I think it’s an invention, or maybe a reproduction of a “custom” model was “Chopper Special Wild Cat”, and the reference number 274.

 

The motorbike takes its name from the feline in the gas tank. Most notable features of this model are obviously, the handlebars and front wheel, the long seat (for two people) with the bow at the back to lean against and very stylized exhaust pipes.

 

Here’s again a catalogue image, in which we can observe two differences with the real model. First is the colour of the handle bars, and second is the colour of the cylinders. From the few models that I have seen of this toy, all of them were like mine, so I guess the catalogue image was a prototype, that later was manufactured with other colours.

 

The same model was available by the Italian company Mercury, being the Italian model slightly different, first the handle bars are brighter red, the “wild cat” is depicted over red background and the chromed chassis is less bright, more “metallic” than “chromed”.

Picture scanned from a Guiloy Catalogue (1975), courtesy of Ángel Cabrera (artecar24.com, not active any more)

 

Update: Here is the picture of the motorbike in its original jewel case.

If you remember, in entry #2, a similar motorbike made by the italian company Mercury was presented. Now that I also own a boxed Guiloy motorbike, we can see the differences in the jewel cases between one and the other.

 

Guiloy (left) has printed its logo in front of the rear wheel

The way in which the motorbikes are attached to the case is very similar: Guiloy (above).

FACTS AND FIGURES

• Name: CHOPPER SPECIAL WILD CAT (Ref. 274)
• Scale: 1:24
• Year: 1975
• Company: Guiloy (Spain)
• Size: approx. 11 cm

#102 BIG JIM – THE WHIP (ref. 9060) (1976)

Big Jim also had some subseries. I have presented here some vehicles and playsets that could be assigned to “adventure” or “sports” subseries, but this one is a little more special. This figure belongs to the P.A.C.K. series, which was created by Mattel in 1975, some kind of counterintelligence strike team, very similar to the one that could be seen at TV in the famous series “Mission: Impossible”. Big Jim became in this series the leader of a group of heroes to hire, or as the acronym says: “Professional Agents, Crime Killers”.

The whip was one of those heroes, along with Torpedo, Warpath and three versions of Big Jim. Mattel finally released a villain to fight and created Zorak. The image of the group was a howling wolf, that every figure has tattooed on their left hands (except Zorak, who does not belong to the P.A.C.K.s).

The line also had their own outfits and vehicles, mostly decorated with the howling wolf logo.

As it can be seen in the pictures, the figure is completely dressed in black, with trousers, shirt, boots, watch cap, plus a brown belt. In the belt, we find again the howling wolf logo.

Apart from the figure and its clothes, in the box were included the following weapons and accessories (most of them are packed and I didn’t want to open them, I guess they are original bagged accs.):

• Bandoleer with 4 Australian boomerangs
• Brazilian “bolos”
• Japanese “shinai” stick
• Angolan bull whip
• Hand sleeve

The story of the Whip tells that he was a sailor that travelled the world learning the secrets of different weapons. That’s how he became the weapons specialist in this organisation. According to Mattel ideas, the Whip is not as strong as the other members, but has a great number of gadgets in compensation. If we compare the figure, we observe, that is has exactly the same body than any other (older) Big Jim figure. Other P.A.C.K. members include an “iron” hand or a mechanical arm, twisting heads, and other features, while the Whip only has the “classic” punch feature.

Another interesting fact is that the whip was later reused in the Masters of the Universe line and given to the figure known as “Beast-Man” or sold in the accessory pack.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: THE WHIP (Ref. 9060)
• Toy Line: Big Jim
• Year: 1976
• Company: Mattel (U.S.A.)
• Size: Around 23 cm.
• Scale: 1:8

#101 MATCHBOX – REFUSE TRUCK and COACH (Nrs. 7 and 66) (1966 and 1967)

Two more examples of late Lesney’s “matchbox” series die-cast miniatures

The “Refuse Truck” (also refered as Refuse Truck v2, since there is an older model with the same name) is nr. 7 issued in 1966. This one is the first version, the same model was re-released in 1970 with superfast “skinny” wheels, while this one is carrying the “original” wheels. This model was only released in orange with grey/metallic base and dumper. The re-release maintained those colours. The windshields are blue.

Note that the dumper can be shifted backwards to place it as if it was dumping the waste out of the container. At the front it can also be read that this truck is a Ford model, although in the base is not specified. This truck was the third miniature to carry the reference number 7, that’s why it is often referred as 7C.

The “Coach” is nr. 66 issued in 1967, and is sometimes referred as “Greyhound Bus” for obvious reasons. As the previous model, it was re-released with skinny superfast wheels, but it remained always grey with a black base and orange or clear windshields.

Since there were previous models with the reference number 66, the Coach is also known as 66C

Both are very nice models and are still labelled as “Matchbox series (Nr.) (Model) - Made in England by Lesney”. This way to label the miniatures changed in 1969, in which the cars were labelled “Matchbox Series (Nr.) (Model) © (Year) Lesney Products & Co. Ltd.”

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: REFUSE TRUCK and COACH (Nrs. 7C and 66C)
• Scale: 1:100 (approx.)
• Year: 1966 and 1967
• Company: Matchbox (G. Britain)
• Size: approx. 3’’ or 7 cm

#100 TFTP: 100 ENTRIES, 10.000 VIEWS and TOYS FOR TRADE

News regarding TFTP!

First is that the blog is going great, and receiving many visitors each day. We are already over 10.000 visitors from all over the world. We have improved the quality of the pictures, keeping most of the times it original size, so you can really zoom on them to see the details.

Something else, that you probably have noticed, is that I publish 11 articles each month. This was just a coincidence the first two months of the blog, but I then decided to keep it so, publishing an article each 3 days, plus one or two shorter ones (book, continuation of a previous one, or this one) randomly. This will remain this way, since I think it is a good average for a blog written by only one person. The last article of the first year is number 100 just by chance.

I bring a few stats that no one will care about, but maybe some of the most “loyal” readers.

First is a graph, showing how many articles have appeared so far in this blog sorted by year. The highest peaks are located in 1988, 1989 and 1970. This is so because I was born in 1981, and most toys I had were released around 1988. The peak in 1970 is just a chance. Figures tend to appear after 1975 and cars before 1980, but there are exceptions.

Another interesting graph is the “cloud” of labels in all articles published until today. Most recurrent labels are "U.S.A.", “figures”, “car” and "Spain". U.S.A. is the country of the most important toymakers, Spain appears because I'm writing about many toys I had in my youth and Figures and Cars are the most generic labels for my articles.

And probably the most interesting stats from any blog, the top 10 articles and the top 10 countries by number of visits.

Among the top articles, it is surprisingly high the article about Kidco’s Key Car Knight 2000. I didn’t expect it to be so popular, and even more surprising is the high rank of the Hero Quest article in just one month and a few days.

The top 10 countries by number of visitors list show no surprises: 1. United States; 2. Spain; 3. United Kingdom; 4. Germany; 5. France...

(All stats were registered on the 18th December 2011, )

And finally, I have started some kind of market to trade the toys I have doubled. It has been working for around one month now. Check it here: Toys for Trade.

I prefer to exchange toys, rather than sell them, although if you don’t have anything to exchange, but you're interested in something, you can always ask me if I would sell this or that. Contact email is on the right side of this window.

I tend to value those toys according to Ebay auctions: I search for finished auctions (or “Buy it now” listings) that have ended recently. I think this is the best indicator of the price that is being paid for a certain thing.

As you can probably deduct from this blog, I am interested in many vintage toy-lines. I have “want-lists”, but they are long and need a lot of space, if you have vintage toys you want to get rid of, I might be interested in them.

By the way... Happy 2012!

#99 CORGI – FERRARI DAYTONA (1973)

This car is made in a pretty unusual scale: 1:36 is between the classic 1:43 and the slot cars scale 1:24, but is not compatible with either one or the other. In this article I’d like to say that corgi built in more scales than the classics 1:64 and 1:43.

The first cars released in this scale were the 1972 formula ones “Surtees TS 9” and “Yardley McLaren M19A” (in several versions each). This is probably so, because to build an F1 they do not need so much material (F1s are much smaller than normal cars), and due to their form, they would be maybe too small to the boxes they used for the 1:43 cars, and maybe wouldn’t sell that well in comparison to heavier autos. This is maybe how the first cars in this scale were launched. Rare enough, not many cars were released at this scale other than formula ones… it took a few years to include some models apart from these, in 1975, 1976 and so on more models were released. Cars of this scale came to be nearly the 100% of the available products from 1978 to 1983.

This means that they were successful, they were bigger than those from the competitors, and since it included many plastic parts, they might be cheaper than other smaller models. And when it comes to size, it does matter in toys. Adults tend to buy the bigger toy between two or more with the same price, so the 1:36 scale somehow expanded the lifespan of the company a few years. In 1983 the company went into liquidation.

The story of Corgi Toys does not end here. It was sold to a management board and it was reborn in 1984 as Corgi Toys Limited. This brand would exist until 1994, although it had one more owner during this period of 10 years: In 1989 it was acquired by Mattel.

The toy giant sold the company in 1995, and the new management decided to change the name to Corgi Classics Limited. This company was finally sold to Hornby in 2008, to whom it currently belongs.

Versions of this car exist in other colours:

• Yellow: released with the number 324 (73-75) and had JCB/Corgi decoration with RN 33.
  
• Green: with RN 5 and Shell stickers (# 300)
  
• Black: (# 490)
  
• Blue: came in the Gift Set #29 (GS29) including a trailer towing a formula 1. It has "Duckhams Racing Team" stickers.

This entry is very likely to be updated soon, because I think I have the blue Ferrari somewhere and I'll post a picture of it when I find it.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: FERRARI DAYTONA 365 GTB4 (Nr. 323)
• Scale: 1:36
• Year: 1973 to 1978
• Company: Corgi Toys (G. Britain)
• Size: approx. 12 cm

#98 TRASH BAG BUNCH – WAVE 1 FIGURES 25 to 36 (1991)

In this last article of the “Trash Bag Bunch” series, we’ll check the last 12 figures of the first wave and we’ll take a look at the second wave. I can’t show pictures of those figures because I don’t own any.

These are the figures 25 to 36:

Figures 35 and 36 were aimed not to be sold directly, but to be hidden in the bags from other figures. There was an extra figure in one bag out of every 24, so if you were lucky enough, you could get two figures for the price of one. If you compare figure #36 with the figures with lower numbers (specially #5 Sterilizor), you’ll realize, that is there were the figure belongs. Incinerator (#36) is therefore a disposer.

As we said before, Galoob had planned to build a second wave of this toy line, but for some reason we don’t know, not every figure was made. In this second wave, some casts were the same of the first, but painted in different colours, and some casts were new designs. 24 new figures were made and sold only in Sweden and Denmark. The reason behind this strange marketing campaign could be that the ecologist approach fits very well in the mentality of north-Europeans. The thing is that these 7 or 8 cms. high, plastic figures can be sold for up to 100 Euros (140 US Dollar).

In the previous images, we can see the prototypes that we don’t know if they were ever produced. The figures marked with the pink diamond were produced, because they are the same that appear in the Swedish/Danish cardback (see below). The ones without the diamond were maybe intended for the American market, or as an extension of the wave, but, as said before, we don’t have a proof that they actually exist.

Trash Bag Bunch II (2nd wave cardback - swedish/danish market)

Additionally to the figures, there were two playsets made: the first one was called “Trash Can Playset” and was some kind of briefcase to transport the figures and to play with them when open. The second one is the “Grip’n Dip Bagger”, a crane to drop the bags in water containers. We don’t know if they were actually manufactured, or if the images that run through the internet are prototypes. From the Grip’n Dip Bagger there are only images of the box to find, not the toy.

NOTE: The text of this article was written by Pablo G. Del Río and myself for the magazine "Figuras en Acción".

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: MUCKOID (#25), STINK BUZZARD (#26), JUNKER (#27), SEWERBAT (#28), FUMINOID (#29), JUNK JACKAL (#30), TRASHER (#31), INFECTOR (#32), WASTOR (#33), SKUZBEAST (#34), SEWEROT (#35) & INCINERATOR (#36).
• Toy Line: Trash Bag Bunch (Wave 1)
• Year: 1991
• Company: Galoob (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 2½’’ or 6,5 cm

#97 TRASH BAG BUNCH – WAVE 1 FIGURES 13 to 24 (1991)

The figures that finally got to be released and sold came in a bag (that looked like a tras bag, but that was actually made of pressed paper). As you bought the bag in a toy store, you didn’t know which figure would you find inside of it. These bags were marked with a number, with which you could see at the cardback which figure you’ll find in that bag, although that didn’t worked as expected because of the misplace of some figures in that kind of checklist. What are we supposed to do with a trash bag? The idea was simply to drop it in lukewarm water, and wait until the bag disappears in sparkling water. That water would also be stained green and some people also assure that it also stinked! There it was! Your figure.

This toy line consisted of many figures with colourful decoration. There were 36 of them: monsters, robots, mutants, humans. Unfortunately, no TV series was ever made to promote this toy. The package was also a little poor, always the same one, with a short description of the toy concept at the back. This was no obstacle for the figures to be massively sold, and a second wave was designed, produced, and sold, but only in two countries, as we’ll see in the next entry.

As we just said, there were 36 characters in this collection. They were divided in two factions: the “good” ones were called “Disposers”, while the “bad” ones were called “Trashors”. Each figure was about 7 cms high (2,5 inches) and they had not a single articulation point. They were made of PVC, which seems to be a plastic with toxic components (toxic for humans). The same number that was printed in the sticker at the bag was also engraved in the figure, usually at a talon, or leg, so you can control which figures do you already had, and which were still missing.

Disposers habited the planet Garbagio. With the help of Prof. Garboff, they expelled the trashors from that planet, but these creatures arrived to the Earth. Now the Disposers will come and help fighting these toxic terrorists. The Disposers are mostly robots and humans/humanoids, equipped with guns, cannons and lasers. See figures from #1 to #17 plus #36.

The trashors are mostly different kinds of monsters and aliens, with many different colours and looks. Their aim is to pollute as much as they can, and turn the Earth into a filthy, toxic planet. See figures from #18 to #35.

Promotional picture, with prototypes of the figures. Note that there are slight differences in the sculpt and the colours of some figures.

NOTE: The text of this article was written by Pablo G. Del Río and myself for the magazine "Figuras en Acción".

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: D-STAIN (#13), JANITAX (#14), SPARKLER (#15), KAPT. KOLLECTOR (#16), SGT. WASTENOT (#17), SLOBBER (#18), SCUM LIZARD (#19), WILDEYE (#20), GARBEAST (#21), MUCK MASTER (#22), PLUTOR (#23) & LICEPLANT (#24).
• Toy Line: Trash Bag Bunch (Wave 1)
• Year: 1991
• Company: Galoob (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 2½’’ or 6,5 cm