Working the Heavy Rescue 411 idea and wanted to take a closer look at one of the episode's stars: LP Toys' popular and outrageous Gumdrop Alien, or Gumdrop Robot. Best evidence suggests he entered into manufacture sometime between 1966 and 1968 at the legendary Lik Be Plastics & Metals Factory in Hong Kong. Who produced such inexpensive plastic toys both for sale to other companies for repackage and under their own LP Toys label, and remarkably both are still in business.
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You can learn much about the LP Toys aliens in their many forms by visiting this page at the Triang Spacex Golden Astronaut Toys website.
I wanted to do a "Behind the Scenes Look" parody of how the episode is made, part of which requires extensive consideration of the toy forms utilized. Most are damaged or broken and are chosen not just for relative size but to suggest a story, the more absurd the better. In this case a parody of those Weather Channel shows with guys in foil suits pulling wrecked tractor trailers out of the snow. Only it's spaceships and they're on Ganymede, where it snows frozen methane.
This prior blog post details the concept with video more embeds etc spacetrucks.blogspot.com/2023/05/gilmark-toys-hard-plastic-space-ship.html
Our Irate Pilot character at left with Worried Spouse in orange & one of the Ganymede Station crew in yellow, poor guy. All paints are acrylics by Golden's and will scrub off under a warm faucet in about three minutes. I also start with the damaged ones, note Spouse's missing hand. Have enough of the gumdrop robots to spend one, and the astronaut is an inexpensive copy produced by Multiple Toymakers c.1969 for assorted miniature playsets.
NO VINTAGE SPACE TOYS ARE HARMED IN THE CREATION OF MY ARTWORK
Unpainted alien specimens with downsized LP Toys astronaut which appears to be in proportion to the larger figures. Smaller astronaut is a roughly 1/64 scale size identical to LP's astronaut figures utilized for the Golden Astronaut toy line but pressed in a soft waxy plastic.
Upscaled gumdrop from the bagged set featured below, believed to represent 1/36 scale representations of the designs. I'd rate them as near perfect in the larger scale, and find the designs to be at least as effective as the Marx aliens I've yammered on about elsewhere. Different sensibility however, with a more playful touch rather than the Cold War functionality of an alien menace worth blowing up. These guys would be fun to go have a beer with.
The green aliens arrived in this nice bagged set out of Australia, believed to have likely been manufactured in Hong Kong at some point between 1968 and 1972,
Bag contents, with "standard" 1/36 scale 50mm LP Toys astronauts in chalky white soft plastic. Aliens in a lustrous waxy green, and interestingly each bears the loop for a lanyard or necklace on their topknots.
Comparing sizes of reduced scale LP style astronauts in the same pose, which I named the Pistol & Lunch Box Guy. Unpainted grey, red and yellow figures made by unknowns for (amongst other things) party favor and cake topper sets, and are a head shorter than the Golden Astronaut size figures behind them. Note how all human figures in this image hold a pistol.
Our Ganymede Station crewmember noticeably shorter than the Golden Astronauts and missing his pistol. Got a bagful of 72 for about $10, so expect to see more of the pose.
So now he's just standing there with a lunch box checking his suit clasps. Whether LP signed off on Multiple Toymakers' appropriation is unknown, though the two did cooperate on creation of figures for the Golden Astronaut line.
Unpainted aliens were likely 1970s stock bulked out to New Jersey based outfit H.G. Toys for use as aliens in their generic space themed playsets. LP's version of the Golden Astronauts likely manufactured through 1972 both with and without hallmarkings. And copied ruthlessly by others aping the toy line.
Irate Pilots and their Worried Spouses. She just wants him to come down from there, Please!! Before he gets himself or someone else hurt. But he's all ticked off because the crew took a lunch break rather than finishing up with his wrecked space truck. Union rules, Sir.
And as the Principal taught us in "The Breakfast Club", some people don't even get a lunch.
GOTCHA
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