BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Let me tell you something, Buzz Lightyear ain’t got nothin’ on my childhood.

The year was 1967… The date, December 25th…

I was right at two months shy of being 6 years old and just as important – especially to a wide-eyed child who had a fascination with the space program – the United States was less than two years away from safely landing two men on the Moon then returning them safely to Earth.

Of course, prior to Science Fact establishing a foothold, Science Fiction is what will capture our attentions…

Lost in Space was keeping kids entertained, me included. I even had a puppy love crush on Angela Cartwright who played the part of Penny on the series. Much to my chagrin I suspect my Kindergarten teacher, (Miss Flynn was her name at the time), probably still has an audio recording (on reel-to-reel tape, originally) of me saying, “Penny on Lost in Space is my girlfriend.”

Yeah… for real… Of course, Ms. Cartwright was several years older than me, and had absolutely no clue that I even existed, but hey, that was a minor obstacle to a 5-going-on-6 year old. So there… I preemptively embarrassed myself. Therefore, if I ever run for public office and the tape surfaces, nobody can claim I was suppressing it.

Star Trek, in its original incarnation complete with an overacting William Shatner and stoic Leonard Nimoy, was keeping adult minds occupied with thoughts of space travel and life beyond our solar system. And, some of us kids followed it as well. Although, I will readily admit that I didn’t have a proper appreciation for the women’s Starfleet uniforms until I hit puberty, but we won’t go there…

Instead, let’s get back around to December 1967… Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in particular… You see, even back then the toy industry was on board with current events marketing and media tie-ins. While I often tell my daughter that when I was her age I received a stick, a rock, and a cardboard box for Christmas if I was lucky, the truth is there were a few plastic items under the tree – although, they didn’t begin to harbor the electronics and technology of today. Back then, if “Santa” left you something that ran on batteries, it was considered the high-ticket item of the holiday.

So, 1967… There I was, an almost 6 year old with a crush on a gorgeous older woman “space babe” who happened to be a TV star coupled with an intense fascination with the U. S. Space Program. “Santa” had it pretty easy that year…

The toy of choice for boys (yes, I realize that is sexist, but we are talking about 1967 here so please just suck it up and deal with the fact that our society hadn’t pulled its collective head out of its collective ass just yet… I was only 5. I had no influence on attitudes just yet, not that I do now either)… Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah… The toy of choice for boys that year was an astronaut action figure known as Major Matt Mason. (He was originally introduced in 1966 and gained steam by the following Christmas)… Yeah. WAYYY before Buzz Lightyear came onto the scene…

Click Here For 1966 Major Matt Mason TV Commercial

Major Matt Mason was cool. He was a military astronaut, he was bendable, had a removable helmet to go along with his molded on pressure suit, and he came with bitchin’ accessories like a Jet Pack and Space Sled. The Sled involved flying it around by hand while making your own whooshing noises, however the Jet Pack was another story. You hooked a string to a point above you such as a doorframe, then pulled the string on the bottom of the pack – a whirr of the flywheel gear would ensue, the spiraly decorated spindle in the back would turn, and Matt Mason would zoom upward. Of course, when you released the tension on the string he would plummet back to the ground, but that was just a minor technicality, because on the Moon there would be far less gravity to deal with. Besides, Major Matt Mason was a Major… And an Astronaut.  The perils of space were many, but he was tough and he could take it…

And, those were just the accessories that came with him on the blister card packaging – (therefore, you tended to collect extra Jet Packs and Sleds each time you bought a figure to replace the damaged Major. You see, the wires in his arms and legs didn’t hold up to the friction of bending and unbending for very long… The perils of space he could handle. The perils of being bent into a pretzel by little kids were a different story…) – But, back to other accessories. He even had himself an oddly barrel-shaped suit for excursions on the Moon’s surface, sold separately or even with a figure in the package (after all, those appendage wires would soon be breaking). The corrugated arms of the suit moved by the use of an ultra-high tech mechanism, that being an air bellows. Squeeze – the arms splayed open. Release – the arms folded back toward the shell. See, I told you we didn’t need no stinkin’ batteries…

Well, almost… The Major did have a few powered accessories – the most notable of these being the Space Crawler. A bizarre contraption with offset spoked legs that thumped and wobbled across the floor with him in the driver’s seat. Let me tell you, on hardwood you could definitely hear him coming… The round humps that have little, molded turbine-looking tops were where you put the two D-Cell batteries required to power the motor. One of the really cool things about the Space Crawler is that it was designed so that you could turn it on its side, attach it to the top of the multi-level moon station (something I received from the red-suited elf the following Christmas) and it would spin around like a big radar antenna.

In addition to receiving the Moon Base/Station, I also picked up a few of the Major’s crew, an alien or two, as well as the FireBolt Laser Cannon. After all, if you are the Earth’s first line of defense against alien invasions, you definitely need a Laser Cannon.

Alas, as with most childrens toys, the Major, his crew, and all of their accessories disappeared from my toy box as they broke, fell from favor, or just plain ended up lost. Unfortunate, because they were discontinued in the early 70’s and are now a toy collector’s dream, garnering some serious cash.

And so, what has made me relive this here for you now? Well, obviously Christmas Eve is tomorrow. I’m Forty-Odd years older than that kid who played with a bendy astronaut doll and had a crush on Angela Cartwright, but even after all this time I remember Major Matt Mason, and the fact that it was one of my favorite toys of all time.

I understand that Tom Hanks is currently developing a film based on the toy. Given how close he and I are in age, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a Major Matt Mason too.

You know, of course, it will be a moral imperative that I go see this movie if it ever comes to fruition…

And, lest you think I only dreamed this childhood memory…

Christmas Eve… After the fat elf visited. I was down the hall in my room, of course, fast asleep…

A little closer look at what the dude in the red suit left under the tree…

Yes, that’s me on Christmas Morning…

No, I’m not pulling his head off. Just his helmet…

And what of my crush? What of Angela Cartwright / Penny Robinson and Lost in Space? Well, as you can see in the first Black & White picture, 1966 was a good year Space Toys. I was able to defend our home against alien invasion with an official Lost in Space laser rifle (that broke down into three laser pistols)… And, those spinning things it shot off the end? Hurt like hell. True story…

More to come…

Murv

(Color images of Major Matt Mason toys and accessories borrowed from various nostalgia and antique toy sites around the web. Black and white photos from the Sellars family photo archive.)

I can remember, as a kid, sitting betwixt a pair of wood cabinets that housed a Marantz Hi-Fi – for all you age challenged folks out there, that’s a stereo.

There weren’t any MP3’s back then. Hell, there weren’t even any MP1’s.

The closest thing we had was an LP, since L obviously comes before M. We did have some MP’s, but they were Military Police and you only managed to get music out of them if they happened to be in the United States Army Chorus. The LP, however, was from whence sound and music emanated. BTW, the picture above is of the actual Marantz  stereo of which I speak. I managed to find it in the corner of a black & white Polaroid taken in our living room Christmas morning 1967, hence the mess and boxes sitting about.

At any rate, these richly stylish hunks of audio furniture… Well, they were richly stylish in their day – that being the early through late 60’s – contained 4 things:

1. Amplifier
2. Speakers
3. Tuner
4. Turntable

That’s it. Nothing more. And, in my youth that turntable got quite the workout. Another bit of nostalgia here for you young’ns – A turntable was a spinny thing with an arm that contained a stylus. Back then we called it a needle. Anyway, it would zip round and round while the needle would elicit sound from grooves that had been pressed into flat disks. Those flat disks were the aforementioned LP’s.

But, back to sitting between those cabinets… Besides listening to Sinatra, Elvis (Presley, not Costello), Trini Lopez, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, Jan and Dean… Well, I could go on and on, but let me jump ahead to the “besides”… In addition to those many musical wonders, there were also the comedy albums. Most notably, Bill Cosby. As kids, listening to Bill Cosby comedy records was one of those guilty pleasures because while he certainly wasn’t foul mouthed by any stretch of the imagination, he did in fact say “Hell.”

I know. Pretty innocuous, eh? But, when I was growing up, “H E double hockey sticks” was a “bad word.” That’s probably why I cuss so much now. I wasn’t allowed to do so when I was a kid. But, I digress…

One of the classic bits from Bill Cosby back in that day was titled “Driving in San Francisco.” Primarily he went on about the hills and the world’s most crooked street. But, he also poked fun at morons getting behind the wheel as well.

And that, my friends, is a large part of my reason for this particular blog entry. Now that the nostalgia portion is over, I would like to move on to something I deem fairly important.

The above were both taken from the Missouri DOR Driver’s Test Study Booklet. Study these two rules in detail. Learn them. Commit them to memory. Keep them with you at all times, and OBEY them.

Do not make me tell you again…

And do NOT get me started on driving in school zones – including the friggin’ school parking lot people. Those particular infractions will just get you thumped in the head. Just ask the guy who is still trying to get a dent  that is shaped exactly like my hand out of the hood of his car. Maybe he will pay attention from here on out…

If you need further instruction on the rules and regulations for safely and legally operating a motor vehicle, you can download the entire booklet here:

http://dor.mo.gov/mvdl/drivers/dlguide/dlguide.pdf

That is all.

More to come…

Murv