Archive for the 'Battlestar Galactica' Category



Christmas Morning, 1978: Battlestar Galactica and the Old Chair

Christmas 1978 2W2N

Yours truly, aged six, holding the triple-missile-firing Colonial Scarab. I had the original Viper and Cylon Raider too, before they were reissued with non-firing missiles.

The weird thing about the BSG line is that the vehicles came with 2-inch figures that fit into the cockpits, so you couldn’t actually use—not without awkwardness, anyway—the official 3¾” figures with the vehicles.

BSG Scarab 1978

BSG Scarab 1978-2

There’s a race track on my left, possibly the Hot Wheels Double Scare Speedway. Wish I knew what was in those other presents. I’m assuming Star Wars. The green one right in front of me looks tasty, right? Is that a Micronaut next to my right knee? A jigsaw puzzle next to my left knee?

Let me tell you about that chair. It rocked and swiveled, and when my parents weren’t around I beat the everliving crap out of it. I flung myself into it at full speed, rode it like a bucking bronco, rolled off the top when it bent all the way back and slammed against the ground. I put one knee on it and spun myself around like it was a cheap playground merry-go-round. I hid unwanted food items in its crevices.

It was Tatooine, G.I. Joe Headquarters, an obstacle in the Danger Room, a rock that hid me from the Ringwraiths, a starfighter.

I curled up on it every morning and watched cartoons on the only TV in the house.

That damn chair was hideous-looking, dirtier than a dump, and dangerous as a box of rattlers.

How I miss it.

* * *

One more post on Monday, and that’s it for me until 2014. I’ve got a nasty cold, and my plan this weekend is to stay in bed and watch Christmas movies. It’s time for the kid to meet Santa and the Three Bears

Battlestar Galactica Sheet Set (1978)

BSG Sheet-1

BSG Sheet-3

BSG Sheet-2

BSG Sheet-4

BSG Sheet-5

BSG Sheet-6

(Via eBay and Etsy)

Birthday Party, 1979: ‘Pin the Tail on the Daggit’

Birthday Daggit 1979

I envy Devlin Thompson, who writes of his 11th birthday:

My father… made the game out of white and mustard-yellow poster board (do they even make that color anymore?), and did a bang-up job of it, if I do say so myself. There was also a cake with a Colonial Viper airbrushed on top, and I seem to remember loaning the baker one of the toys as a reference, though it may have just been a comic book or an issue of Starlog.

It was a hell of a thing when the Cylons attacked Caprica and Boxey’s daggit Muffie got killed. I guess all those people dying was sad too, but seeing Muffie’s little paw sticking out of the rubble was the worst.

It was pretty awesome when Boxey got a robot daggit for a replacement, though. I wish my cat made rad robotic daggit noises.

Top Trumps Spacecraft Cards

titlecard

backcard

combatcraftcylon

combatcraftstardestroyer

fightercolonial

planetarylunar

spacecolonycolumbus

spacecolonydeathstar

Fascinating West German cards from about 1980. I’ve seen them on eBay/UK before, and I’m assuming they were big with the Star Wars kids across the pond. The spacecraft represented are an odd mix of sci-fi and sci-almost-fact, and the descriptions are priceless.

The speed of the Yavin Interceptor, to be in service by the year 4000, is 25 km/sec, but the speed of the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle, in service as of 1972 (how about 1969, when it actually landed on the moon), is “unknown.”

The Cyclon [sic] Raider is “super-fast,” the Colonial Viper can “change direction without turning around,” the Death Star “consists of metal that has been melted to weightlessness,” etc.

See the entire 32-card set at The Pointless Museum, where I grabbed the images above.

Christmas Morning, 1978: Everything! (Part One)

Mikey Christmas 1978

Are you serious? There’s an entire layer of toys that’s covered by other toys!

The Spider-Man comic on the right, underneath the Death Star, is Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #27, a Bronze Age key. It marks the first time Frank Miller drew Daredevil.

The ship on the left, above the Radio-Control Racer, is a Star Bird Avenger. Right next to it is the Star Bird Command Base, seen below via John Kenneth Muir.

Star Bird Command Base

The red box under the tree is Tin Can Alley, a shooting game from Ideal. The rifle emitted a light pulse that, if aimed correctly, would knock over the cans on the “range.”

(First image via WEBmikey/Flickr)

(Video via tvdays/YouTube)

Mattel’s ‘Missile Toy’ Recall, 1979

March 17, 1979. (Lyn Atwels/The Denver Post)

The photo caption reads:

Tom Rosinski holds in his left hand the toy part that went down his windpipe. Surgeons removed the Battlestar Galactica space toy from his lung during a 30-minute operation.

The toy part is a missile from the Colonial Stellar Probe. The missiles were spring-loaded into the nose of the ship and released by pressing that little white button on top of the nose.

A few days after Christmas, 1978, another boy, 4-year-old Robert Jeffrey Warren, died from complications after choking on a missile from the Cylon Raider. I found a pretty comprehensive story about the incident and the resulting fallout in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune (story begins mid-page).

Mattel initiated a recall of the missiles shortly after Warren’s death and offered a free Hot Wheels car to everyone who returned them. Read about the recall and Mattel’s mail-in offer at the Palm Beach Post.

In March of 1979, Jeffrey’s parents sued Mattel. An excerpt from what appears to be a different legal suit is below, courtesy of the Star Wars Collectors Archive.

It’s certainly true that the firing mechanism should not have been so close to the loading area, but I don’t understand how the toy being “shaped… very similar to a penis… almost beckons small children to put the toy in their mouth.” Were penises that readily available when we were kids, just dangling from crotches like bananas on a tree? And, if so, were we encouraged to put them in our mouths?

The bottom line: Even though I had many hours of fun shooting these missiles around, they were a terrible idea and should never have been allowed.

(First image source: Big Ole Photos)

Cybernetic Lifeform Seeks Human Representation

Via Kropserkel.

I Survived the Original Colonial Viper

Speaking of BSG, I had the Viper before that kid choked on the red missile and they were recalled and reissued with a missile that popped out only about half an inch, like a sad, tiny boner. The original Cylon Raider was even cooler because it had two shooting missiles. That was the last time we saw shooting parts on anything, which really sucked when we finally received our emasculated Boba Fetts in the mail.

Read more about the Battlestar Galactica toy death at the Star Wars Collectors Archive.

See also: Mattel’s ‘Missile Toy’ Recall.

Battlestar Galactica Smells Like Fresh Bread

To this day, walking down the bread aisle in the supermarket makes me happy. Back then we ate Weber’s, but my mom switched to Wonder so I could get my hands on these sweet BSG cards. It was 1978, and I was space crazy. Star Wars had come out the year before (I was 5) and changed my world. I missed The Star Wars/Wonder Bread promotion (somehow), but I did collect the Topps Star Wars (and Empire Strikes Back) cards.

A few months ago, as I was very nervously waiting for my wife to deliver our first child (a beautiful girl, 15 weeks tomorrow), I bought some cards on eBay, including a full box of unopened The Black Hole packs. (Sorry, but I love that movie.) The gum inside was pretty gross, naturally, but it smelled just fine, and it was a hell of a lot of fun opening those packs and putting together a complete set.


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