LP Toys Astronauts in Varying Sizes Including Multiple Toymaker "Space Case" Copies

This was meant to be a final installment on the kinds of reduced size space figures I'm utilizing for my art projects. 

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Rarely seen LP Toys four inch astronauts with 50mm counterparts. The smaller three are correctly marked with the distinctive LP Toys logo.

Quite hard to find.

No base markings but a fairly safe bet they were pressed out at the Lik Be Plastics & Metals Factory sometime between 1967 and 1974. 

Learn more about LP Toys' astronaut figure legacy at this page here on the Triang Spacex Golden Astronaut Toys website.

The sizes I usually work with up front. What led me to them was wanting astronaut figures roughly in scale for 1/64 diecast Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars. Which are great, but dude get me more of these spaceman figures. In fact to heck with the Hot Wheels, there's Golden Astronaut bling to score.

What I call Pistol Lunch Box Guy in 1/36 and HO scales. Smallest white figure at front center is a Multiple Toymakers "Space Case" copy.

The 26mm LP figures best known around this neck of the woods as the figures from novelty company Blue Shield's marvelously absurd Apollo Capsule Party Favor playsets. Each with an eggshell fragile miniature Lunar Module and seven 26mm LP astronauts.

The Lunar Module toys in the sets (as well as ALL of the Lunar Module toys of such size I've seen) has a rectangular hatch for a front door, a design change NASA implemented in or around January 1969. Prior to December 1968 the LM had a round docking hatch as a front door, which was changed to the rectangular pressure hatch as a weight saving measure. No Lunar Module with a round hatch ever flew, and the first LM flown by astronauts on Apollo 9 had the rectangular door, as did every LM thereafter.

Point being that if the Lunar Module toy has a rectangular door it had to have been made after January 1969. If it was made before then it should have the round docking hatch. Since all of the Blue Shield and LP fabricated LMs have rectangular hatches the earliest they could have been made was 1969.

Multiple Toymakers "Space Set" bling with simplified Thunderbird 5 space station and twelve figures based on the 26mm figures germane to the Blue Shield sets.

Not My Collection - The figures and Thunderbird 5 again in a "Space Case" folding playset, dated 1969.

The MT figures are very soft, blobby, waxy looking and crude. But most interestingly they have no weapons. One even has no hand.

... Must have been a long day at the plant.

With yellow Blue Shield strain, who is not only taller and more sharply defined but has his pistol. I would never be so crass as to suggest that MT simply used a Blue Shield variety figure as a positive for a cheap little ripoff mold and then wiped out the gun. But it sort of looks like that's exactly what happened. The only question would be what the extent of LP's involvement may have been, if any.

In case you blew off my video at top, an iteresting side note in how the removal of the guns matched was a change Multiple Toymakers (or Miner Industries, their parent company) implemented for their own flagship spaceman figures as well. For whatever reason, in 1968 some executive at Miner or MT decided their spacemen were no longer to be armed.

Two items come to mind, first the Peace Power anti war sentiment seeped into the popular consciousness. Second is that the Space Race and prospect of actually having men set foot on the moon ceased being science fiction. Our astronauts would bring cameras and sample bags not firearms or explosives, primarily because there was no one there to go out and exchange hostilities with. We were not invading or conquering the moon, a change in sentiment quite at odds with the more militaristic minded 1950s.

Space Rifle changed to Walkie Talkie

QUICK! - How would that work in a vacuum?? 

Pencils down! It wouldn't.

Pistol Lunchbox changed to Pistol Grabbber Stick

QUICK! - Would a metallic cartridge pistol work in a vacuum?

Pencils down! Yes, but the effect of recoil could be hazardous.

The spindly arm of Rope & Sextant Guy was also lowered and his body mass increased for better stability. Which strain is more common would be an interesting topic to pursue, with my best guess being the original sculpting. The figures first went on sale in or by 1963, so they'd had six years to churn them out by the time the casting change was implemented. The figures were a phenomenal hit, millions were pressed. By 1970 there was enough competition in the plastic space toy market to dampen further market dominance, including from companies like Payton who ripped off MPC's designs.

1967 bagged set with the weapons.

1968 bagged set with NO weapons. 

I have only seen bagged sets which are either/or, never mixed, and all bagged sets I have seen dated 1969 or later have the updated weaponless figures.

Funny thing. I started using the space figures as a way to help get around the goofy awkwardness of my human figure skills. And now I have all these little astronauts to paint but they're so poorly formed they look like my goofy spaceman drawings. Checkmate.

LP Toys Gumdrop Alien Robot Special! with "Heavy Rescue 411: Ganymede Station" Update

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. 

Click here to open video in a new window for fullscreen view options.

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

Breaking a Vintage LP Toys 50mm Plastic Astronaut Figure, and Other Such Fun

 

Ugh.

You know, of all the confounded luck. Space Karma biting back for making fun of the Rescue 411 guys maybe. Have had this problem before with the figures. Pressed in a soft chalky plastic that will go brittle if left to sunlight + air, which this one's yellowed hue suggests may have been its fate.

Could have been repaired, but I have four or five more and sensed an opportunity ...

Lost in the Space Swamp, a recurring motif in these works.

Additional cheering news is that I get to paint him now - I only mess with the ones which are broken, playworn, or inexpensive copies I have multiples of. And I have some other blank white plastic LP 1/36 Pistol & Lunch Box guys, my name for the pose. If interested the Triang Spacex Golden Astronaut website has a handy guide to the LP astronauts which you can visit by clicking all that linked text. and below is the setup I was preparing for when the mishap took place.

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For more information on LP Toys' myriad of space plastics be sure to visit this page here at the Triang Spacex Toys website, with links to pages for both the human and alien figures. They have been of unique inspiration! as much as the Marx or Lido forms. There is something about how they and the other varieties I've featured get at the meat of what I was after with my own space character imagery. 

Point was to try and match the scale of the smaller astronaut to the aliens relative to the matched scales of the figures at top. More soon.

Unpainted LP Toys ~30mm Astronauts, Same Size as the Golden Astronaut Figures, without the Gold

Scored these from ToySoldierHQ (not just a reference site, it's an active online store which functions via email & it works) expecting to have landed a batch of reduced size ~25mm (1/64) LP Toys style spacemen as found in the delightful Blue Shield Apollo Capsule Party Favor cake decoration sets. And was startled to find they were instead ~30mm LP made spacemen in the same size as their Golden Astronaut figures.

Here's a page at the Triang Spacex Golden Astronaut Toys site detailing LP Toys' astronaut figures.

Not sure what the story is on them, all marked LP on their base undersides. They appear to have significant playwear and I seriously doubt they were Golden Astronauts scrubbed clean of their chrome layer.

Comparisons with the Blue Shield size copies. One thing that I noticed while doing the pix is that of all the Blue Shield size copies I've amassed there are only the four poses demonstrated above in orange and white.

LPs be the darker shaded figures, the Blue Shield size copies in white. Those obtained with some LP type miniature space vehicles a couple summers ago and of better quality than others in my stash.

Interesting re-sculp. His grenade (?) got bigger, he put on 25lbs and the space suit stylings are very different.

Pistol & Lunch Box Guy. Story behind that name is that I like to poke fun at serious stuff and from a kid's perspective the box he's carrying would be about the same size as a lunchbox. Maybe decorated with Star Trek, GI Joe or Six Million Dollar Man graphics. Will have to pursue that idea when painting one next.