Marx Toys "Operation Moon Base" Morse Code Signaling Device -- It Really Works!!

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This thing rules! And once you think about it, the device actually works. And served as a nicely subtle little introduction to Morse Code for future Military-Industrial Complex employees. Already thinking of how to utilize it in some sort of performance art video and I am not kidding.

Rosevelt dime for scale.

Very very cool. And yeah, once you think about it, this actually works. OK the rockets are great, you can spit one across the room or put an eye out with it. But here kids could actually not just send each other "secret messages", but actually learn something applicable to their later placement in some branch of the military or service industry like shipping where knowing Morse Code would give you a leg up on the other recruits.

... I'd actually wondered what the point of the thing was, other than for show, while while researching the set online. And indeed it has the same outer casing of a very static placard on tripod from the "Tom Corbett Space Academy" set. And in the end concluded there must be some sort of spring mechanism that shutters a grid or something like that, flipping from black to white, and had to know. Saw one listed for sale and was like, Mine.

Yup.

As it turned out the piece was sold to me by the same vendor who'd had the Mercury Space Capsule from the previous week, so it's a given the both came from the same estate sale and authentic to the same "Operation Moon Base" set. 

And will likely pass on from me in similar fashion. Have even already thought about it and the niece will be the one to have Uncle Steve's Space Toys bequeathed, along with an "eB4y for Dummies" book + disc ... "Here's that trip to Europe I wish I could have sent you & your college roommate on. Get busy with selling it off and have a great time!!! <3"

Just another look at the mechanism in action, here at rest.

And pressed down. Ingenious, and I would expect the form was utilized in any other space or military type playset Marx saw fit to include it with. Universally applicable!

The hinge is faux. One position only, so the guys would have to turn it around and find some way to point it up or down in the right direction. But it's still cool.

Learning their morse code. 

Eyeballs watching more OMB components, stay tuned.

Marx Toys Six Inch Astronaut Figures + Others by MPC, Archer, Ajax, Glencoe and Unknown

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Had all six of the Marx 6"ers as a kid, have now reclaimed two. They're not uncommon and I could bring em all home in one fell swoop, having fun chasing them down one at a time. Toughest nut to crack is the guy with the flag, with flagpole intact. Everyone seems to have damaged examples, holding out for something more pristine.

Same head. They're literal clones, and how weird is that??

Childhood Toy Found: Plastic Half Ton Army Truck, 1970s (?), Maker Unknown

Hot Damn: Finally found my younger brother's sweet processed plastic half-ton truck, missing since 2014 or so when I saved it from being pitched by parental units who just don't get it. Squirreled it away someplace beyond their ability to be annoyed by and I have literally thought about it daily over the past year, wondering WTF I actually did with the poor thing. Unearthed it yesterday while helping clean out part of the basement and even my dad laughed upon recognizing what it was. SCORE!!

Phil would have obtained it in 1975 or thereabouts (born in 1968), almost surely purchased at the legendary Kid's Town on Erie Blvd. in Syracuse NY in a bagged set with some Army Men and a howitzer. Back covering still AWOL, likely gone and from what I can tell a 3rd axle mount is still missing its wheels. Overall length is about 8 inches & likely a standardized size and therefore finding a replacement back cover is not outside the realm of possibility.

No makers marks visible so my call is MPC / Multiple Products, possibly Timmee, made in Hong Kong somewheres between 1970 and 1974. He certainly had it by 1976 as it figured into so much play activity for so many years.

Surviving axles bent by endless play use through the 1970s. The thing went literally everywhere with us including cross-country family trips where we the three brothers were allowed to bring a shoebox full of toys each. And I'll say this much: Phil took care of this thing and even after his interest in such mementos had faded it sat on the shelf in our father's home office den for many years until being thoughtlessly placed in a recycle bin while ridding their home of "clutter" ;[  Thank God I was home that day, realized what was about to happen and acted immediately. Now reclaimed, given a light cleaning and now part of the collection of larger vintage plastic vehicles for my diorama projects.

Outstanding!! If anyone can provide additional information via comment or message I will be stoked.

Operation Moon Base: The Movie ("Battle in Outer Space", Toho Studios 1959, Ishiro Honda)

(Google Image find.)

Battle in Outer Space at Archive.Org with free online viewing & download options. 

And it's a badass Tohoscope ultra widescreen presentation with no cuts, likely authorized by Toho themselves. Grab it!!

Let's have some fun. I was surfing for Vintage Science Fiction Space Films I'd might not thought of a few weeks ago and came upon Toho Films' "Battle in Outer Space" from 1959. Sure, I'd heard of it before but had never seen. I have a passing interest in Toho's product from having weekly Godzilla movies aired on a local TV station while growing up, and will say with a straight face in dead serious tones that I consider "King Kong Vs. Godzilla" from 1963 to be one of the pinnacle feats of human achievement, and mean it. More on that some other time, but upon realizing that "Battle in Outer Space" was directed by the Kong movie's director Ishiro Honda there was no way to miss it.

The movie is an exercise in what I guess would be called Hard Science Fiction, namely a sober and lingering study on the futuristic technology being celebrated onscreen. I was already with Toho and Honda's techno-futurist thinking from having gotten to know his "Flying Supersub Atragon" and "Latitude Zero" films which likewise exist to showcase miniature vehicle and set piece scenarios for their star vehicles to exist in, and knew we were in for a good time. But I did not suspect an immediate crossover interest phenomena related to my current fascination with Marx Toy's likewise pinnacle of retro-futurist achievement, the stunning "Operation Moon Base" playset first debuting in 1962. Columbia Pictures brought "Battle in Outer Space" stateside in 1960 so they had plenty of time to see the movie and think about all of its wonderful toys.

Put simply: I sense some shared ideas here, enough to even outright suspect that some of the inspiration which went into the overall design ideals found in "Operation Moon Base" may have come from its designers having seen "Battle in Outer Space". Same Moon, for one, or same atomic age pop culture lunar setting. Same emphasis on hardware and placing humans in the midst of a vast cycle of machinery fueling plot that involves all manner of rocket ships, moon buggy vehicles, ray guns, strafing flying saucer ships, exploding mountains, and mischievous diminutive aliens who are no match for the Human Spirit. I'll review the film some other time -- it also shares a lot of ideas with Paul Verhoeven's vision of "Starship Troopers  -- leave it for now as we take the fight to the aliens, we slap each other around and then annihilate them when they decide to launch an all-out attack on the Earth.

Though for me the meat of the film is its middle third, set either on the surprisingly massive rockets used to transport men & machine to do battle on the Moon, which is richly depicted as an endless vista of craggy hill features right off the cover of "Astounding Stories". All of it likewise wrapped up in a Pulp Scifi ethos complete with a scene where the jabbering little aliens try to abduct the only decent looking woman on the Moon. For what? is left up to the imagination, though she was a looker. And remember, this post is just for fun, I love writing and pursuing the idea of what inspires the artwork I admire. With above all my deepest thanks to the web resources from which some of the pix below were sampled.

(Auction site find)

The Moon Suit had not been conceived of yet in 1958/1959 when "Battle in Outer Space" would have been in production, but I bet Toho's effects crews would have worked one in if the idea had come up. And while it's just a coincidence related to the way off-world landscapes were depicted in science fiction imagery they used the same lunar terrain which also populates the moon's otherwise lifeless surface.

(Google Image find.)

Sears Roebuck Catalogue from 1962, unless I be mistaken.

Photo courtesy of https://www.worthpoint.com

This picture found on the auction evaluation site Worthpoint depicting a complete "Operation Moon Base" set with original playmat. For that original $10.88 I am sold, now to be in a position to adjust for inflation -- Current going price for an absolutely complete set would push you upwards to $450 - $800, with not just box condition but which box likely being the final value determinant. 

And when able, what I'd like to do would be to contact a reputable dealer with a background in the idiom and ask them to find me a complete set with provenance for a commission. You won't find me bidding for it on e-B4y, or at least not the Bucket List set which has it all & in the box I'd skip a hot date to stay home and ogle. Would certainly consider taking an incomplete or unboxed one until then for the right score! so if you are looking to unload one send me a message using the form to the right. I'll read it.

(Auction site find)

The "other" box design, just referred to as "Moon Base", with instinct suggesting that it is from a subsequent year. Unless I be mistaken the contents are identical, but it's not quite the same on the graphics front. This looks less reckless. More like a designer's idea of how to simplify the printing cost, which may indeed have been the point (another commonly found web ad indicates they knocked a couple dollars off the retail price as well). Trust me, either would do! and to bring up my favorite Chico Marx like again, "We'll find time for both."

Photo courtesy of  https://www.marxwildwest.com, a brilliant reference

site for information on the Marx space toy forms + much much more.

Above an exhibit at the legendary (and now sadly closed) Marx Toy Museum depicting a partially assembled "Operation Moon Base" set, dominated by the incredible painted vacuformed Moon Mountain. Rocket gantries, flying saucers, laser cannons, cleverly designed moon vehicles, re-colored Tom Corbett gear, spring loaded rocket launchers, and guys in foil suits abound. But that mountain makes it a place, a point which subsequent Marx space sets never quite equaled.

(Phone screenshot as are all of the movie stills unless noted.)

"Battle in Outer Space"'s Moon Base, likewise dominated by a mountain formation but centered around a giant flying saucer formation (pre-echoes of Mystery Space Ship, anyone?) under alien control rather than human. It shoots off missiles & blows up mountains too.

(Auction site find)

Another partially assembled set. The vague similarity of form is only a suggestion, not even a theory. All of these ideas were commonplace in the popular culture of 1959 - 1962, including the original publication of "Starship Troopers ... Am eagerly awaiting back issues of Playset Collector type magazines which have in depth write-ups on "Operation Moon Base", and want to learn.

You must have rocket gantries with rockets in your retro-futuristic fantasies.

(Auction site find)

All five of "Operation Moon Base"'s cleverly designed Lunar Surface Vehicles. So far I have one. And to the right the set's Exploding Moon Mountain, with exploding moon features a recurring visual motif in "Battle in Outer Space". Good ideas have to come from somewhere! and sadly the exploding mountain was not issued in later Marx sets as its function gravely violated the Consumer Protection Act's child safety regulations, as did all of the components which fired off missiles, saucers, or other eye-poking projectiles. Darn.

One of "Battle in Outer Space"'s equally cleverly designed Lunar Surface Vehicles; They showed two of them so we could watch one being blown up. Same with the rockets.

It even flies in a pinch, begging the question of why they even bothered with the treads & wheels at all. Then again Godzilla could fly in a pinch it turned out. We learn all sorts of new things watching Toho Films.

Just to throw it out there, the "Battle in Outer Space" moon vehicles have another coincidental resemblance to the Spacex/Golden Astronaut "Mobile Moon HQ" vehicle. Mine came without an antenna so I'm sticky puttying a loose one on in the pix above.

(Google Image find.)

A coincidence for sure. But a good one, you must admit! :D

"Battle in Outer Space"'s strafing flying saucer attack, or "Raider" as I believe one of the characters referred to them as.

(Auction site find.)

"Operation Moon Base" also came with a strafing Space Jet, here adorned with USAF markings. One of the most difficult individual components from the set to find "loose" in its original form, though non-firing static recasts are common. $10 or so will bring one home including postage. I'm holding out for the real thing, and an interesting side note is that like all of Marx's other projectile firing toys the Space Jet became forbidden fruit after the 1972 Consumer Protection Act went into effect, in part banning toys which fired solid shot. Which just makes it even more cool.

"Battle in Outer Space"'s Space Jets come and go from the mothership on the alien Moon Base, which we also get to see blown up real good. I'm telling you, this movie is cool. A toy playset in action, with its own action figure spacemen scurrying about.

"NUKE EM."

Nice crew-served weapon manned by the film's gender-integrated multi-national Moon Squad.

A desperate chase to Landing Zone with Raider ships blasting the exploding mountains to bits. Which can only mean that a scene of Heroic Sacrifice is about due ...

Toho doesn't disappoint, and to me this is actually the most interesting shot in the film, seamlessly perfectly placing its spaceman into a forced perspective environment with a glorious matte painting background.

Yeah it is.

I'm telling you, Rocket Gantries. Without em you're just standing stuff up and waiting for a stiff breeze.

Battle in Outer Space at IMDb, with a link to Amazon.com.

Marx Toys Space Ship Recast / Bootlegs from Mexico, Age + Maker Unknown

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OK, back to these things. Five Marx vehicles recast in fluorescent flexible plastic -- The kind that jeeps & tanks from your basic Army Man set would be cast in. Obtained to be utilized as subjects in photographic based Space Art, so their provenance was not an issue. Only how cool they look, and by the time I was ready to score had done my basic research, knew exactly what I was getting, and actually kind of like the day-glow colors. When queried the vendor stated they had been obtained from an old store which had gone out of business and was being liquidated, which sounds about right.  Cost was about $6/ship, which I count as a bargain.

The package was a loosely sealed bag surrounding the vehicles and a printed "card". More like a printed sheet which just happened to be on cardboard. Nobody ever hung this thing from any pegs, the bag was sealed though with a device using a hot wire to both sever and seal a two layer plastic form with closed sides. We used one in Rhino Records to seal used CDs as an anti-theft measure.

... The colors actually don't matter as the point of having them is to utilize as subjects in diorama pix which then get painted over in any color which strikes the fancy. Anyway I had to have em and here is what was discovered upon opening:

Here's the card after unsealing and it has nothing to do with space ships: Looks like a TinkerToy type building set. My translation came up with READY FOR PLAY / POLI-MAN / "VERSATILE MAN", with "Poli-Man" likely being the brand name of the toys and "Versatile Man" the name of the specific playset.

 All totally bogus, spuriously re-used, likely from a leftover stack which whomever was responsible for it there in Mexico didn't want to go to waste. Then they had these space ships and needed a package for them to be contained in. Since the figures on the kid's creation resembled spacemen well, there you go. Borrow a wire sealer from somebody and seal up a hundred to distribute locally to a network of stores who didn't ask a lot of questions and would stock anything that looks like it might sell. Nice painting.

The business corner. MADE IN MEXICO FOR / DYNAMIC TOYS OF MEXICO with their address. Right. Of more interest is the NET CONTENTS X PZS. on the side, with the number 24 X'd out. That would have been the number of pieces in Poli-Man's "Versatile Man" playset pictured on the card.

Which leaves us with this label (and the loose matchbook sized note about a guarantee of quality) mentioning HUNTER PLANES (which I guess would colloquially translate to FIGHTER PLANES, you'll see why) with 5 PIECES and a printed bin number. The printing on it does look modern, as in 1990s or since, and the vendor had stated that the set was packaged in the 90s but they didn't know how old the castings themselves were. I believe them.

Now for the ships. Delving around during the period between first finding the listing and making the buy -- quite a while, actually -- I was able to determine that these were recasts of Marx made spaceships from the 1950s, though not necessarily Flash Gordon spaceships as the vendor had claimed in their listing. Which makes sense as they do resemble the Flash Gordon ships made by Premiere and later Tootsie Toy, though to my knowledge Marx did not specifically market them as Flash Gordon merchandise. They may have hinted at it, and their original castings were done in a very hard plastic with metallic colors of varying hues. To learn more about them here is a link to the venerable Space Plastics database at the Alphadrome web hub of all things related to vintage space toys:

http://www.danefield.com/data/thumbnails-27.html

The four space ships unbagged. 

 NICE.

Right there at the top of the database page is this monster, identified as a recast A WING SPACESHIP #4 in lemon.

That actually does look like something which might have been proposed as a functioning design, and the USAF emblem is strangely fitting -- Never knew our Flyboys had any of these.

Now one bit that is fascinating is that these recasts all have the correct numbers on their bases but in reverse. All I can think is that they used originals as their mould-positives, obliterated the Marx logos and forgot to flip or remove the numbers. "Unauthorized Bootlegs" is what we'd call them if they were copies of CDs or DVDs.

But still way cool!

CLAMSHELL SPACE SHIP (#3), easily the most visually striking of the bunch, and I like how they put the Japanese emblem for a Mitsubishi Zero on its wing.

Gorgeous, whatever its origin.

My favorite touch is the ladder leading across the wing, which helps fix a sense of scale in the mind's eye. I'd bid on a metallic plastic casting of one and gave up at the forty dollar mark, which was one of the things which prompted me to just put these in the cart and make it happen. Brought home one of each for about 1/2 the cost. And as for the originals, to conjure up Chico Marx from "The Coconuts" once again "We'll find time for both."

#3 reversed with what could possibly be a defaced Marx stamping.

On the opposite wheel hub, and again I detect a defaced or removed logo stamp. Also note the uber-simplistic wheel/axle design.

... Thing does kind of look Japanese. Like a Baaka bomb.

DOUBLE GUN SPACE SHIP (#1) in Key Lime green.

The most Flash Gordonish of the batch, I'd say.

Yeah, go strafe somebody with those things. Totally badass space plane.

My favorite of them all, the TWIN FUSELAGE SPACE SHIP (#2). I've wanted a Manoil Blimp Car for the longest time and you know, this is kind of better. The blimp thing is just a car. This flies.

AWESOME.

Backwards #2 and what I am pretty sure is a scratched out Marx logo. Busted.

Six bucks was a bargain. That thing is cool, distinctive, unique, and not at all like anything you can order off Amazon, Walmart, Target. Nope.

 

Also included to round out the group is this recast delta wing fighter which I believe to be based on either a Convair F-102 Delta Dagger (conceived 1953, entered service 1956) or a Convair F-106 Delta Dart (conceived 1956, entered service 1959) and am hedging on the F-102. Am fairly certain that it is a simplified re-casting of the basic body of another Marx delta jet which had firing missile launchers under each wing. And what is also very interesting is that its markings are not reversed.

Pretty sure that's an F-102. Am not up on my Cold War era fighter jets however and would be delighted to have someone in the know ID it for sure.

Some of the stickers had come loose in the packet over the years, will have fun marking em up! and I want more Zero emblems for the Clamshell. Very very cool.