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.

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.

"The Engineer" - Space Art Found Object Brainstorm, with MPC Astronaut Copy and Hing Fat Rocket

"The Engineer", March 2021

Brainstorm session on a long unrealized space box creation for a larger 5.5 inch figure I painted during quarantine, named "David" after the Engineer from Prometheus. 

Finally got somewhere -- Video below outlining the project.

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Please don't count the number of times "Or something like that ..." is spoken, it is performance and am honing a new vocal mannerism. Long unfinished business with this one, have been wanting to create a very special housing artwork for this particular figure. All here is subject to change given how the project comes together or not. Will blog it up live as things evolve.

Our structure, cheese basket gift crate from the Late Great Uncle Michael several Christmases back. His eternal soul will be pleased I found something cool to do with it.

My standard 4 x 4 inch box forms, here arranged in what I call a Brady Bunch group shot; The boxes are meant to be displayed individually, at least for the time being. The found object arrangements are meant to tell absurd little narratives, like astronauts locking their keys in the spacecraft, the Space Turtle being infected by the Green Slime, or Porkins' Big Date with Space Barbie.

So this is a somewhat more challenging size with a larger figure painted special for someone back at the height of the pandemic. Have kept it safe until we can surrender him in appropriate display solution once this effort is complete. And we're going to cover the evolution of the work both here and on my Syracuse Art Freak blog, show how the materials used and decisions about found object elements and presentation solutions are arrived at. 

This particular box posing an additional issue with that edge running along the upper side. It would be awkward to let the interior artscaping spill out over onto the sides as my approach for the smaller unfinished plain craft store boxes has taken. So some form of reason to have an edge will have to be formulated, and am already thinking of how to use that textured side wall to advantage.

The two toy pieces selected with one of my painted Crackle Paste Reef Cups to help demonstrate the composition. Figure is a copy of a 5 1/2 inch astronaut designed by MPC (Multiple Products Company) for their parent company Multiple Toymakers in 1962 in soft supple plastic with snip-off accessories. Very clever and a very successful line which outlived its toymakers.

Reference site and web store https://ToySoldierHQ.com 's visual guide to the 5 inch MPC figures. In production 1962 - 1984 when their parent conglomerate dissolved. Molds resurfaced in Mexico soon after and may even still be in use.

NO VINTAGE SPACE TOYS ARE HARMED IN THE CREATION OF MY ARTWORK

Original MPC five inchers with some of their accessories. Cast in bright colors, white and silver, their plastics still supple some 60 years later. Still numerous, easy to find and relatively affordable ($6 - 12 each, cheaper in groups). There is absolutely no reason for collectors to bother with the flat grey recasts. I got a carton of 48 for less than fifty cents each just to paint without worrying about ruining vintage space bling.

The figure in my box project was recast from the original MPC molds in Mexico c.1991 using an unfortunate stiff plastic intended for use in filing cabinets, now gone bad with 30 years of age, The figures are objects of scorn for space toy collectors and their only useful purpose is for demonstrating industrial garbage shredders. 

Or as surfaces to paint and I took my time with this one to try and be representational for once. Paints included Golden Artist Colors' Quinocridone Crimson mixed with Iridescent Pearl fluid acrylics for a slightly metallic look. Then "shellacked" over with about eleven layers of a spray acrylic clear coat. Took about two months to completely dry, and am very pleased with how he turned out. Now for the rocket.

Not My Collection - Hing Fat mini space set with the same rocket and seated astronaut seen in the image of the smaller painted boxes. These sell today for about $4.99 in an airport gift shop, keep the kid occupied on the flight. 

The rocket was fabricated within the past 20 years in China by Hong Kong based plastic toy powerhouse Hing Fat for their inexpensive "Space Astronaut" bucket kit sets, one of which I had as a kid in the 1970s. And they are still making them 50 years later almost exactly like they were, which is what I would qualify as a successful toy line. Check prior blog posts for more of my enthusiasm for the Hing Fat Space Bucket sets.

Trade display of Hing Fat Space Astronaut sets, 1972(?) - now. Often found for sale at grocery stores, pharmacy toy racks, news kiosks and transport hub gift shops. Anywhere but toy stores, usually.

Collectors also react with misplaced scorn towards the line as there's little or no way to distinguish contemporary bucket sets hot off the injection mold from "vintage" collections fabricated during the early run of the toy line. In fact just when the line debuted is a subject of ongoing fascination for me as I know I had a bucket set as a kid in or around 1972 (age five). Destroyed by the time I was nine, what a great birthday present.

Original idea, with the reef cup just standing in for some as yet unforseen element that would raise the rocket so it would read as somewhat in the distance. But decided there's too much empty space at the top, though granted there's no space scene painted yet.

Tried a horizontal aspect and sadly the box is about an inch too narrow to accommodate the rocket comfortably. But I like the distance between the guy's head and the ceiling better.

There we go ... He's supposed to be an engineer, so now he's working on a broken rocket, maybe in a Space Garage or repair dock setting? Only four of my boxes have depicted urban or mechanized settings so this got me excited, even if he may end up working on some other futuristic contraption. There's quite a few to go and I'd had my heart set on having the rocket be a forced perspective element to suggest distance.

I always look at them from side angles, pretty sure that's how viewers would first be encountering them in gallery/display settings. So the figure is large & distinct enough to not get lost. This image also shows another issue with the decorative rim/edge, which will oblige the work to sit at a slight angle if placed on a shelf or table etc. I like the idea of having both wall and surface display being equally favorable, so a simple method of compensating for the rim will need to be arrived at.

Interesting ... But the Reef Cup has to go.

I call this pose The Engineer for that badass wrench. The original 1960s figures would come with a work belt with tool shapes, a pickaxe, little satellite dishes and a tool bag. I have a bagful of recast accessory pieces and will choose a few for authenticity. Though these stiff plastic recast figures should not be asked to hold anything in their empty hand - Thumb will snap right off.

All sorts of cool stuff in there. But sadly the tool belt plastic is too stiff and they snap after about six weeks strapped to the figure. Maybe one can be with his pile of devices on the floor. We'll give him a theodolite on a tripod too, so he can do some space surveying after finishing with the rocket.

Large tool case is a dental floss dispenser, various bits from ziplock bag runners or ointment dispenser caps. The welding torch is a damaged Empire Plastics atomic space cannon, and in the back corner a recent Made in China rock formation from a Dollar Store Dino-Land playset.

Yeah, good session. First step is to find a motif for the backdrop painting and figure out what to do with the floor. Check back soon for further updates.

Lido Toys "Captain Video" 35mm Beak Alien with Raygun, Kellogg's Premium "Satellite Men" Figure Names, and Other Startling Stories

I fell in love instantly with the classic Lido Toys space bling, it all rules. Most of their space production was oriented towards the "Captain Video and His Video Rangers" franchise including a massive Space Port playlet made in collaboration with T. Cohn. The Lido figures have a different intentionality then the precision of Marx plastics: There's a sort of rough-hewn hands on nature to the design, and their aliens are easily the most "cartoon like" of all the 1950s era space plastics. As in they'd be right at home in a twisted Chuck Jones cartoon frying each other with their rayguns while Bugs Bunny chews a carrot & makes wise cracks. Then drops a piano on them.

The fatalist in me is also drawn to how all of the Lido space molds were unceremoniously melted down in 1965 after the company had gone under. There will be no more, where the bulk of the Marx, MPC and Archer etc molds have likely survived. Preserving the lineage as it were, and it has finally sunk into my rather thick skull that Lido continued their space toy production beyond the demise of the "Captain Video" franchise they were probably originally designed for. I recently had the opportunity to land the marvelous 35mm "Beak Alien with Raygun/Pistol" shown above so let's take a look.

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In comparison with 50mm version, which if I understand my Lidonian cladistics would have been pressed later as he is a soft plastic figure.

Changes during the downsizing include removing the crest on the top of his beaky head & simplifying the blunderbuss end of his raygun. Since the green fellow likely pre-dates the yellow its stabilizing base was likely a later addition to the form.

NOT MY COLLECTION

In case you skipped the video, here's an as-yet undated Kellogg's Shredded Wheat box from someone else's collection. As originally packaged each would contain what are described as "Satellite Men" in soft bronze plastic on the order of 2 inches in height. Since there is no reference to "Captain Video" my conclusion is the promotion was put together after the show had gone off the air in 1955. The most remarkable part is the back panel (right) which describes names for the eight 50mm Lido space figures utilized.

Question would be, did Kellogg's cook those names up for the giveaway or was it Lido's intention all along? Hit us up in comments or use the message system if you know.

Turns out I do have one specimen of the described two inch soft bronze plastic variety in my stash, hot diggity dog. None of my other Lido figures are of a similar looking material.

Quick guide to the names using 50mm figures from my stash, some hard plastic some soft. And to be honest? The eight year old in me would have been unimpressed by the names as they are random letters which have no phonetic value. I used electronic filter effects in my video to simulate how they may have been pronounced on their home worlds, though something tells me Kellogg's instructed the illustrator of the box to give the spacemen gibberish names. Nice try.

Yes, it's Meet The Lido's!