One and All,

Viewmaster stereo-viewing discs featuring the legendary soldier G.I. Joe were produced back in the early seventies. Click here (http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze34fnk/pages/gijoe-viewmaster/gijoe-viewmaster-reel2.htm#5) to see what happens when Joe and his slightly less butch comrade Greg dive in search of uranium ore, and find a giant squid instead.

The early seventies iteration of Joe bore a striking resemblance to Burt Reynolds. The squid has sort of a Histioteuthis look.

Clem

Cool stuff...I had those viewmaster things...fun, fun!
Love the shark too...brings back a lot of memories!
Greg

Greg (not Joe's hapless friend),

Of course, the next vignette in the squid sequence would have read: "Their ear-drums ruptured by the underwater blast, Joe and Greg panicked and made a too-rapid ascent." :twisted:

The Viewmaster reels I remember were a cool dinosaur narrative (great volcano) and one derived from the old TV series "UFO."

When we were kids, we had 3-D toys. Pity we've devolved into 2-D.

Clem

Oh, now you've done it! Some retro friends of mine had a "UFO" party...all the episodes on DVD...turned into a great MST3K bash of sorts...more fun than I have had in a long time!
I had one of the metal Corgi toys of the green Interceptor (the weird looking ski-flying jet with one big honking missile in the nose) when I was a rugrat...always wanted the submarine, but could never seem to scrape up enough pennies to get one...I wonder where that thing is???
Do you remember "Action Jim" in the 60's? He was kind of a pacifistic GI Joe (scuba gear, hangglider, etc)
Cool memories! :D
Greg

I had one of the metal Corgi toys of the green Interceptor (the weird looking ski-flying jet with one big honking missile in the nose) when I was a rugrat...

You mean the missile that went missing after several days? I shared your pain. I miss that toy, and my Dinky "Space 1999" Eagle. And my Dinky "Thunderbirds" Transporter. And...

Clem and Greg,

Here's a couple of pictures of the Dinky UFO Interceptor, Eagle Transporter and Thunderbird 2. These are all mine and as you can see are all a bit battered and played with. Nonetheless, I bet you have a few happy memories with them. Why, oh why, did Dinky have to change the colour of these vehicles? The Interceptor and Eagle were white and TB2 a leaf green.

UFO was a class series, especially the purple hair on the moonbase personnel and the dreadful costumes. I always loved that series, I even met Ed Bishop (Cmdr. Straker) once and have his autograph somewhere. I've got the Viewmaster 3D reel in the attic of the episode 'Close Up', it's probably quite collectable these days.

Before anyone starts complaining this has nothing to do with cephs, I also have another 3D Viewmaster reel I was given as a kid called 'Underwater Life' and one of the pictures is of an octopus. I'd utterly forgotten about it until this thread, maybe I should dig it out.

Here's a couple of pictures of the Dinky UFO Interceptor, Eagle Transporter and Thunderbird 2.
Oh my G--

These are all mine and as you can see are all a bit battered and played with.
Oh my dear sweet Jes--

Why, oh why, did Dinky have to change the colour of these vehicles? The Interceptor and Eagle were white and TB2 a leaf green.
Yes, the color changes threw me when I first got those toys, but I confess to liking the Eagle scheme. Non-afficionadoes of these toys will still appreciate that the payload module on the Eagle transporter can be detached from the main body by pressing a BUTTON! And the little red plastic door on the payload module OPENS! It is, as we used to say, wicked. And I'm heartened to see that the red decals adhered as poorly to your example's corrugated surface as they did to my own.

As for the charges of non-ceph digression, I hasten to point out that Moonbase Alpha of "Space 1999" was indeed stricken by a man-eating cephalopod monster.

:cthulhu:

I've got the Viewmaster 3D reel in the attic of the episode 'Close Up', it's probably quite collectable these days.
Well now you're just being mean.

:heee:

Clem

As for the charges of non-ceph digression, I hasten to point out that Moonbase Alpha of "Space 1999" was indeed stricken by a man-eating cephalopod monster.



Yeah, that episode was called Dragon's Domain and featured a horrible cephalopod-like monster that materialised inside a spaceship graveyard. One member of Moonbase Alpha had nightmares about it and went to confront it when the Moon drifted through the graveyard. It scared the life out of me as a kid, the noise it made is still creepy, at least I thought so when I rewatched it last year.

Here's a link to a picture but you will have to scroll down a bit:

http://www.fanderson.org.uk/epguides/spaceyr1eg6.html#Episode%20Twenty%20Thre e

(No-one has mentioned Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons yet. Hmm....)

I have no idea what either of you three are talking about, lousy new millenium society with no regard for classic 50's-70's pop-culture :evil:.

Those pics take me back a ways...I tried to paint the orange plastic skis on my interceptor, but the paint wouldn't adhere (could also be that I was playing outside in the dirt, sand, and grass I suppose...)
My favorite character in the UFO series was the lanky blond guy...always upset about something I couldn't understand at the time (I was just a kid, and sexual tension was a mile away) On watching the series again, I was horrified to see that a lot of the people have camel-toe to the 9th degree...yikes! :shock: :lol: :shock: :shock:
I never saw the ceph/graveyard episode...bummer.

Yeah, those eagle toys were the best...actually a pretty darn good idea, very versatile !
Greg

Yeah, that episode was called Dragon's Domain and featured a horrible cephalopod-like monster that materialised inside a spaceship graveyard...It scared the life out of me as a kid, the noise it made is still creepy, at least I thought so when I rewatched it last year.
Yeah, that one. People went in, skeletons came out. Awful.

Can I get it on DVD? I need to face my fears.

I never saw the ceph/graveyard episode...bummer.

Oh, no, Greg. If you'd seen it, you'd now hate cephalopods as much as we do.

:heee:

Clem

I had one of the metal Corgi toys of the green Interceptor (the weird looking ski-flying jet with one big honking missile in the nose) when I was a rugrat...

You mean the missile that went missing after several days? I shared your pain. I miss that toy, and my Dinky "Space 1999" Eagle. And my Dinky "Thunderbirds" Transporter. And...

I have to brag !!! I still have my Eagle transporter and my Eagle passenger in their original (slightly battered boxes)!!!!!! No I didn't collect dinkies but I was (am) a science fiction buff and I never missed an episode of Space 1999!!!!

J

Jean,

The list of wonderful toys I've let go of and/or abused is long and depressing. I salute your canny hoarding.

Vis the "Dragon's Domain" ceph-monster, I've run a a search for the thing and come across a number of Space 1999 forums and nostalgia sites. The consensus opinion is that "Dragon's Domain" was easily one of the best episodes, if not the best. Further, the response people had to that monster seems to have been one of generalized terror. "That thing scared the crap/****/bejeezus/hell/**** out of me when I was five" is the common claim. My well-meaning parents tried to reassure me that the Dragon was only a special effect, produced by the artful manipulation of "blankets." I went to bed, frightened of monsters and bed sheets.

:goofysca:

Clem

I picked up the whole first year of Space 1999 on DVD last year in a bargain bin and sat there watching the whole lot over a month or so in order. There was a real creepy atmosphere to many of those stories and some really quite advanced special effects for the time. It's a bit of a pity that most of the characters lacked any sense of humour and just grimly faced whatever space brain/clouds of foam the episode presented the moon flying into, but there was a real sense of hostility and weirdness that Star Trek never had. At least the series did not resort to men-in-rubber-suits aliens running around in its first year and tried to present real very and very psychedelic alien menaces. The second year was pretty dreadful though, I've seen a couple of those recently and they just degenerated into a runaround about Alpha chased by extras with rubber heads on set to funky guitar music. Pity Barry Morse disappeared for no good reason too.

The ceph-monster really did stand out as being frightening, even rewatching it at my age I felt a sense of impending doom before the thing materialised, and given the constraints of a TV 1973 budget worked really well. And that eerie sound it made as it appeared is unforgettable. The use of the classical music in the Ultra-Probe sequences certainly added a certain 2001-style class. Top-stuff, pity the series did not ever reach that height again.

And I too have a Dinky Eagle freighter in my attic in a very battered box too Jean. Wonder how much these things go for these days?

"memories..."
I started to think about how many cool toys I had , how hard I worked to get them (whining, working, etc) and now I have not a one of them...very foolish of me!
:at one time, the entire collection (5) of 3' tall robot warriors (the names somewhat escape my 39 year old beer fogged brain...Mai-Zinga (?) and others)
: all the Corgi UFO and Space 1999 toys...as well as a lot of James Bond stuff...do you remember the submarine with the spaceship in the nose???
:Toy Godzilla and Ghidra figures, from 5" to 5' tall...gone, gone, gone....
All I can hope is that they are out there somewhere, making some rugrat as happy as they made me then!!!!!

Cool thread...
Greg

do you remember the submarine with the spaceship in the nose???

It was called SkyDiver. The sub used to rotate to 45 degrees to launch the Sky One interceptor. Never could work out how the thing landed and reattached itself though.

I should get out more.

:at one time, the entire collection (5) of 3' tall robot warriors (the names somewhat escape my 39 year old beer fogged brain...Mai-Zinga (?) and others)
Greg,

Those were Mattel's Shogun Warriors, re-packaged Japanese mecha. In addition to Mai-Zinga, there were Raydeen, Combatra(?) and Dragun...the fifth escapes me.

My loss list includes the 1979 Kenner "Alien" figure, faithfully reproduced from the eponymous movie. It survived in battered form until 1996, when one too many tumbles from the bookshelf caught up with it.

As for the Micronauts, that's a loss too massive for words.

:x

Clem

bummer about the micronaughts...

I still have one of these...

Jean,

The list of wonderful toys I've let go of and/or abused is long and depressing. I salute your canny hoarding.

Vis the "Dragon's Domain" ceph-monster, I've run a a search for the thing and come across a number of Space 1999 forums and nostalgia sites. The consensus opinion is that "Dragon's Domain" was easily one of the best episodes, if not the best. Further, the response people had to that monster seems to have been one of generalized terror. "That thing scared the crap/****/bejeezus/hell/**** out of me when I was five" is the common claim. My well-meaning parents tried to reassure me that the Dragon was only a special effect, produced by the artful manipulation of "blankets." I went to bed, frightened of monsters and bed sheets.

:goofysca:

Clem


Me too, Whenever I think of that series that is one of the first things that pops into my head!!!


I picked up the whole first year of Space 1999 on DVD last year in a bargain bin and sat there watching the whole lot over a month or so in order. There was a real creepy atmosphere to many of those stories and some really quite advanced special effects for the time. It's a bit of a pity that most of the characters lacked any sense of humour and just grimly faced whatever space brain/clouds of foam the episode presented the moon flying into, but there was a real sense of hostility and weirdness that Star Trek never had. At least the series did not resort to men-in-rubber-suits aliens running around in its first year and tried to present real very and very psychedelic alien menaces. The second year was pretty dreadful though, I've seen a couple of those recently and they just degenerated into a runaround about Alpha chased by extras with rubber heads on set to funky guitar music. Pity Barry Morse disappeared for no good reason too.

The ceph-monster really did stand out as being frightening, even rewatching it at my age I felt a sense of impending doom before the thing materialised, and given the constraints of a TV 1973 budget worked really well. And that eerie sound it made as it appeared is unforgettable. The use of the classical music in the Ultra-Probe sequences certainly added a certain 2001-style class. Top-stuff, pity the series did not ever reach that height again.

And I too have a Dinky Eagle freighter in my attic in a very battered box too Jean. Wonder how much these things go for these days?



I'm so Jealous, I'd like to revisit the ol' Moonbase! And yeah I wonder what happened to Barry Morse too. I thought the worst cliche was the black hole episode no one even got squished in the immense gravity!


No Idea how much the dinkies go for but I was offered about NZ$100 each around 15 years ago.........not a chance!!!!

J

GI JOE,...never liked the cartoon show, I vote for squid! :notworth: :madsci:

Thanks to the magic of YouTube, those who wondered what we were all going on about can experience the monster that traumatized a generation: the squid monster from Space:1999, "Dragon's Domain."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tbXhu09m5s

The comments left at YouTube about "Dragon's Domain" are rather remarkable. Everyone who saw that thing back in the mid-70's remembers it. I hope the show's creators know just how successful that episode was. Thirty years older and carrying a weight of disbelief ever more difficult to suspend, I'm still bothered by it.

Clem

Thank you for that, I will never sleep again :shock:

Oh you've found the horrible lurker at the threshold of my mind. That monster was simply ghastly, and traumatised me as a kid.

You know I saw the episode a few months ago and it is one of the few Space:1999 episodes that still works. The screams of the victims sucked underneath it, the eerie noise, the wind blowing, classical music and utter atmosphere really depicted a classy production. Star Trek never even remotely approached anything this graphic.

It's a pity that most of the rest of the monsters in the other episodes were just man-in-a-suit runarounds, but this was something else entirely.

Thanks for my restless night ahead Clem.