If I think of the sixties in terms of space toys, besides the obvious, the main toys I think of would be Mattels Major Matt Mason and Marx Moon Grabbers. A regular feature in toy shop displays, these rugged little trucks were often seen charging about stores as the shops demonstrated their climbing ability. Along with the clapping monkeys, hopping rabbits and crawling soldiers, there was inevitably one of the Marx Hill Climbing range to be seen rolling happily about until it bumped into a parents' foot or was snatched up by an enthusiastic child and sent rolling off into another department.
The basis of the trucks was a heavy duty four wheel drive chassis which appeared as the drive for cement mixers, dumpers and jeeps through Marx production years, such was the success of the design. But for me, the attraction lay in the Moon Scout series or Moon Grabbers which were all adorned with cool articulated arms and massive chrome scanners. The three basic designs were inspired by NASA Molab concepts with large chunky bodies and big wheels. The series saw a variety of colour schemes, but the first ones were uniformly white. A large set appeared in the states which also added trailers to the vehicles carrying equipment and even a space helicopter. The Marx range also included an odd and apparently unrelated Moon Scout Nasa Helicopter, battery powered with flashing lights and bump and go actions.
Oddly, the large battery powered toys also saw production in small sets like the Apollo Moon Exploring, with a small vehicle, moon rocks and a handful of astronauts. Four sets were made, each one had a small handpainted model of the Moon Scouts and the fourth set had an unusual space tank. The box art has paintings of spaceships lifted directly out of the
Ladybird book 'Exploring Space' which has been in circulation since the mid sixties too.
The Moon Scouts were always a staple in the Marx catalogue leaflets along with other cool toys such as the Nike Missile Launcher and Amphibious Truck.
Over the years ive picked up one or two of these vehicles as they never quite made the xmas list for me as a boy, but each one is always uniformly missing the chrome radar scanners, which for me were always a fascinating part.
2 comments:
Good to see all this stuff. I had one of the sets, which were quite expensive. The small models were rather basic, in feexible polythene(?) with open underside, as I recall.
i almost got one at a grotto in Liverpool, but they were expensive and i was fobbed off with a cheap copy of thunderbird 3 in a bag with an SPV and a weird molab type thing. Still got the TB3. SPV and Molab were flexible vinyl and single piece castings.
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