Pyro Plastics "Pyromatic Rocket Ship" 1950s Hard Plastic Space Car, with Special Guests from "Star Base Zeus" & the Golden Astronaut Crew

The Dust of Ages, accumulated over decades of missions traversing the Sands of Time. They have survived, and so can we.

Click here to open video in a new window for fullscreen playback option.

US quarter for scale, measures about four inches bow to stern. Believed to have been on sale by late 1952 (?) No info on when production ceased but Pyro themselves were likely done making them by 1960, others may have continued. Sturdy design, well made and difficult to destroy without putting effort into it. Most vintage hard plastic space bling will crack if looked at too quickly. These look right back at you.

No mistake here: This sweetheart is for my collection and won't be fixed into some silly box artwork. But I will utilize it as a photography subject for 2d works to be printed or traced. Say with some in-scale figures and other apparatus depicting an absurd situation. Like a futuristic used car lot specializing in rockets.

Seats two in combat configuration (pilot and navigator/weapons officer) or four when converted for transport, where they have been known to do the famed Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs.

The accumulation of dust etc a hallmark of authenticity - Vehicle was almost surely an estate item which had sat waiting in storage for decades. Will give her a very respectful and gentle cleaning with a drop of dish detergent in warm water. Small sponge, no bristles.

That's what we're talking about. Waited three years to see one of those on my desk.

Image courtesy "Blast Off!", 2001

Not My Collection - One of the gold mine finds for vintage space toy collectors: Pyro's famed boxed space fleet, later 1950s. Obtaining my own far beyond current means, am content to merely gaze in awe. Our more modest rocket cars are about the size of the smaller scout ship at left. 

Image courtesy "Blast Off!", 2001

Gotta show the box too. Not My Collection.

I had previously scored another version of the Pyromatic in candy apple red, this an unmarked vehicle prepared using the otherwise identica mold elements. Possibly manufactured in either Australia by Moldex or in the UK by Kleeware, both of whom (if my understanding is correct) were granted access to Pyro's tooling via a licensing arrangement exclusive to those markets. For discussion purposes I refer to it as the Kleeware ship though its maker remains unknown and it ain't talking.

Identical other than the lack of the maker's mark on the Pyro vehicle.

"Octopus Hunt" from 2019 and an example of how I use toy forms like the rocket car as photographic subjects to be printed, projected or traced. Some of the pix right here on this blog could be used for all sorts of such artworks. Above result is an 11x8 laserprint with pastel and acrylics, and it sold. Setup elements are photographed and carefully put away for another time. Those are my tools.

No Vintage Space Toys Are Harmed In The Creation Of My Artwork

Special guests for this week on Space.Trucks include the spacecraft from my incomplete but carefully hoarded stash of Tootsie Toy's "Starbase Zeus" playset from 1978. With the ridiculous but endearing "Major Mars" figure and ZOLTAN TEH HORRIBLE (my name for him) in green. A crazed android galactic villain run amok, and I am all over that dude. Only truly weak element is that the figures are out of scale for the vehicles.

Image nicked from a post on Zeus by our fearless leaders at the Moonbase Central blog.

Shrewdly assembled for release to cash in on the sudden success of Star Wars (1977) and the billions of dollars which would be generated by its subsequent toy empire. Tootsie Toy's set tanked once Kenner's more modern designs hit the shelves and is thus a collector's item in its own right. Not many survived and complete boxed sets will set you back a few weeks of lunch money. Have amassed my collection one or two pieces at a time. Missing yet is minimalist plastiform "Star Base" where they stand around in their static poses looking odd. No girl either. No wonder Kenner prevailed.

Also joining us today are a group of Golden Astronauts and other related figures by Multiple Toymakers (MT) and LP Toys of Hong Kong. First encountered them in early 2019 when first looking for space figures roughly in scale with the diecast Matchbox and Hot Wheels vehicles I was then focused on. The Golden Astronauts made for MT' space fleet toy range of the same name c.1968. The others by LP Toys' Lik Be Plastic and Metals factory, whom unless I be mistaken also fabricated the golden figures for MT.

The Saturday action at Honest Al's Used Rockets & RVs - Just west of Ganymede Station, right off the expressway by the Aerodrome. Look for the big refinery tanks, you can't miss em.

New models every Saturday -- At Honest Al's You Can Really Get Out & Kick The Landing Gear

Just happened to have the red Pyromatic out next to the Star Base Zeus ship with the figures and realized they were in the same scale, with similar design elements.

The Star Base Zeus design always remind me of Space: 1999's Eagle ships, especially the operator cabin. Which makes sense as that show was on the air when Tootsie Toys' designers would have been working on the Star Base Zeus collection. They probably watched it at their workshop.

Mattel's 2019 Hot Wheels Dream Mobile always sells.

Used rocket car salesman in grey trying to fast-talk a young couple into splurging on the Kleeware ship, which is far more powerful than their routine commuting needs call for. Some things never change.

Closing the deal. Grey dude's gonna fly it right off the lot, dust and everything. Some guys have all the luck.

UPDATE! More on my problematic interactions with Gilmark's gorgeous line of highly fragile space vehicles produced at about the same time. Click here to open in a new window for fullscreen viewing option.

UPDATE 2! Early version of the Honest Al's gag from 2021, with space truck by Archer Plastics, same era. Original idea for the used car lot name was Honest Bob's, but we have a well known watering hole here in Syracuse called Awful Al's, or it used to be. Another social satire opportunity - All manner of fun to be had with the used car lot trope.

Landing the USCSS Nostromo Short Subject Media Lab Experiment - Multimedia ALIEN (1979) Homage/Parody

 

Project originated in November of 2021 "reviewing" a Galoob Micro Machines diecast miniature of the USCSS Nostromo from Ridley Scott's ALIEN (1979). Without even meaning to I made a primitive stop motion photography montage of still images using some cotton wadding from an aspirin bottle to replicate exhaust/dust as the ship settles onto the planetoid. Backdrop painting and terrain are both all acrylics on wood from 2020, the painting especially seen in several other images & video segments. Below is the current edit running 2 minutes with booming stereo sound.

Click here to open video in a new window for fullscreen view options. What I've done here is to edit the Soft Landing sequence from this upload from November 2021 with a 3.75" designer action figure of Mr. Ash from Science Division. The new edit significantly enhances transitions, adjust the color to heighten image contrast and remixed audio.

Here's the Nostromo review video with original edit of the landing:

Galoob Micro Machines' exquisite diecast Derelict miniature. Go find one! so glad I did.

UFO: TOP SECRET (1978) Blathering Pseudo Documentary Flying Saucer Pop Culture Ephemera, and Masterwork of the Absurd

 

"UFO: TOP SECRET" 1978, 80 minutes. Regarded as one of the best movies ever to have on while doing other things, like reading blogs.

Like bad movies? At one point I aspired to be a scholar of bad movies, though not the kind you're thinking of. I admire and enjoy the Ed Wood films, the EEAGHHs, groovy "Reefer Madness", rate TROG very highly as a childhood rite of passage experience, have MANOS: HANDS OF FATE on a rare Something Weird VHS, and shelves of those "250 Crappy Looking Movies for $9.99" public domain DVD collections in drink coaster boxes. 

All starter material. Call back when you've at least seen OPEN SEASON (1974) with Peter Fonda. A film whose badness approaches a study in applied trash which transcends its grindhouse gutter. My favorite bad movie of them all is WEB OF THE SPIDER, a 1970 Italian made supernatural soap opera that even Klaus Kinski could not save. Studying its layering of missed opportunities and baffling non-sequitors could be a decent subject for a PHd.

Another wretched favorite, known better as The Curse of Demon Mountain.

The UFO movie we're on about here is an entirely different strain of awful, blending several genres and positing itself as something important. We are not here to laugh at it (well ...) but to marvel that it manages to exist at all. I have an acquired taste for "paranormal interest programming", but again not the kind you'd think. I have no patience for the Skinwalkers, almost feel Ancient Aliens should be banned (regulated?), am pretty sure the US Navy has better things to do with their time but love the balloon stories, and regard the alien abduction phenomenon as a massive cultural fraud. People know better and they still do it.

"The Face On Mars" revealed. What a disappointment.

As long as you regard such things as an alternative form of reality entertainment some of the mayhem can be engrossing when in the right frame of mind. But we've been there and back on Roswell, Rendlesham Forest, Area 51, the promising sounding RB-47 encounter, the always creep-inducing Tehran F-4 incident. Even silly Gulf Breeze with that clown in the cowboy hat, Travis Walton in his more subdued Village People hard hat. Ridiculous Erich Von Daniken with that pathetic Ancient Aliens theme park, the jerk. Seriously.

"Twin and Earth" 2017 acrylics and pastel on wood, 8 x 22 inches.

Because people actually believe some of it, for which I have compassion. Whatever event one cares to suggest as evidence UFOs are alien spacecraft that have come here to take our cattle etc, has likely already been considered by my own eyes and found wanting. Sorry, but no. At present I regard myself as a reformed open-minded agnostic who very much wanted to believe in such items as a younger man. But as an older one have grown to accept that the verifiable data proving alien visitation just isn't there, anywhere.

That would have been cool - US Army Avrocar scout vehicles, from a 1950s Popular Mechanics article.

Then there are issues like how it is far too distant to the average nearest "habitable region" exoplanet for their routine exploration of our galactic nook; There are too many other star systems to make ours significant to external explorers without signals from us (which only travel at the speed of light) they would need luck in finding; The expense of mounting a mission to our little Sol would not be cost-efficient for grandly superior alien species crossing 20+ light years (at sublight speeds, mind you) looking for things to explore; And there is probably little here for them to do except enjoy our food, women and cultural forms like music or visual arts. Then leave us to our wars, our germs, and our History Channel programming.

"Pickup Truck Found Floating In Space" 1991 acrylics on canvas, 20 x 48 inches.

But gosh, do I love wallowing in the stupidly relaxing warm bath of a half baked, inept, yet sincerely made flying saucer documentary. The older, more outdated its information, and difficult to clearly understand what its point is the better. Throw in music or video content worth retaining or adding to one's own media projects and I am there.

Filmmaker Wheeler Dixon did all that and so much more in 1978, riding the coattails of both CLOSE ENCOUNTERS and STAR WARS simultaneously to secure financing for the film humanity was destined to see, and he was destined to make. UFO: TOP SECRET. I'm so impressed I uploaded a public domain copy to my Space Trucks YouTube channel, which is there for certain intellectual content I don't want potentially compromising my professional channel. Translation - Stuff not worth getting banned over, but still fascinating enough to write blogs about and not wish rely on someone else's upload for readers to follow along at home.

Click here to open the video in a new window, though quite frankly it looks great on a small screen i.e. phone and I actually keep a copy on mine with other entertainments for moments when something completely ridiculous is called for.

Below is a paste in of my brief review of the film from IMDb.com, which to this day has generated one interaction - A thumbs down, likely from the same flying saucer enthusiast who down voted all of my UFO reviews one day. Yeah I noticed.

Alien Bar Patron, 2016 acrylics and pastel on wood shingle, 6 x 20 inches.

Come For The UFOs, Stay For The Music?

UFO: TOP SECRET (1978)

28 February 2022

Brainless stream of consciousness "UFO documentary" seemingly written by a flying saucer enthusiast completely lit on potent St. John's Wort who had just tripped out to a book on astronomy. The film is literally 80 minutes of an enthusiastic narrator babbling utterly jumbled up saucer speak or future shock pep talk nonstop while endearingly low-tech space visuals play out. 

Lots of abstract space art scenes, shoebox diorama model shots, and NASA clips hurtle by while the narrator continues on and on. Most of the visuals have nothing to do with the narration, amounting to a bizarre form of retro-futurist science fiction without any narrative. In fact the movie might have worked better without the narration, which serves to only devolve the effort into space kitsch.

I have a taste for such things, yet can remember no individual moment, claim, fact or insight in the whole proceedings that stood out as memorable. My conclusion at the time was that it is a perfect movie to have on while you are doing other things. Any given stretch of it is as good as any other so you can drift in and out while doing the dishes, working on your taxes, playing Quake II, avoiding social media, or just binge-dowloading brain dead crap like it off Archive.Org. 

Yes the documentary sucks, and whatever color the film had is sadly washed out on mighty Interglobal Video's surviving VHS print. But in my opinion is still more enjoyable to have on than the news, Dr. Pol, Storage Wars, Ancient Aliens twaddle, or Snoop Dog & Martha Stewart making sandwiches. What *do* people watch these days, and why??

By choosing this you will learn nothing about UFOs, government conspiracies, secretive alien activities or insight into life in the future. Viewers with a taste for cinematic kitsch will at least enjoy the musical score which concludes with a soaring Beatles-like instrumental that made me wonder if it's that band Klaatu (nope: Jim Cookman is the credited unknown composer, wish we could hear more). 

I'll concede that the music alone is not strong enough to carry the film, but is odd enough to make sections of the film more enjoyable for those who despise contemporary commercialized pop entertainment forms. A good application for the film might be as a visual projection during a DJ party. Just turn the sound off, jam the music mix and let the shifting images roll by. Even people who aren't stoned will dig that.

The movie one more time - try playing all three embeds at once for a real head trip. Or just start one and leave it on as background chatter, while painting. It's miraculous.

"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.

Click here to open video in a new window for full screen view option.

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.

YouTube Channel Trailer for May 2023 - The Zarathrusta Box Media Lab Experiment from November 2020

This was good. I try to update a trailer for my main YouTube channel and had forgotten about this one. Digital movie project from November 2020. Runs 1 minute 45 seconds. Will dig out pix on the project and do a nice looksee. Have used the diorama box for other projects but keep the toy pieces shown stashed inside, good to go when the display opportunity is right.

Intro thumbnail for the blog, its link should open the video as well or use the playback options below. The first few moments are very soft by the way. Uses a public domain LP recording of the Stravinsky theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kinds of builds up from peaceful calm, you know? and the entire video project is an homage to both 2001 and ALIEN, with people finding something unexpected someplace they were drawn to by signals detected in space.

Click here to open video in a new window for fullscreen playback option.

Materials used were a "Lost in Space" diecast Lunar Module vehicle by Johnny Lightning, LP Toys & Giant Plastics figure copies made in Hong Kong by unknowns. Acrylics by Golden Artist Colors, crater sculpted using "Great Stuff" foam insulation, modeling clay for the Space Sentinel. Housing box randomly saved from the recycle heap; 10x20x8 inches overall.

Music source unknown vinyl rip from LP. Short subject made using iMovie at my home basement media arts lab. Feel welcome to peruse my channel's other videos & public playlists for more, bookmark and subscribe. Content dating back to 2009! wow.