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Post by GUYx1 on Apr 14, 2006 23:30:34 GMT -5
Denys Fisher had a few cool Toylines in the 1970's, but were they all compatible?    |
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Post by johnnyhaggis on Apr 15, 2006 12:17:41 GMT -5
Wow - who's that blob of jello with warts? Very walder compatible if you ask me!
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Post by cyborgbushcricket on Apr 15, 2006 21:25:59 GMT -5
Johnny, i have to answer that for you. Its the PURPLE PEOPLE EATER, guy can correct me on any details but basically it was a game from the 70's in which you removed little red (if i remember rightly) 'people' from the mouth of the monster, the vinyl? head was over some kind of cup/frame in which the people were caught, i think it lit up if you touched sensors at the mouth edges (probably part of the frame) anyway there was one hidden in my mums for an xmas gift and I had a great time with it BEFORE xmas but alas it never materialised on the day......maybe its still in her house somewhere. I told guy the best thing to do with it was stretch the thing over your face and stick your tongue through the mouth (my friend had one and thats what we did with it, very cool), er hmm, it all sounds rather rude now  CBC. |
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Post by xyborg7 on Apr 18, 2006 0:44:01 GMT -5
PURPLE PEOPLE EATER! what is it about toys that look like poop being so dang cool. hedorah was always my fave. maaan, im gonna try to hunt one of those down when im in london in 2 weeks.
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Post by johnnyhaggis on Apr 18, 2006 6:36:57 GMT -5
Hedorah? Another toy that looks like poop? I didn't realize this was a genre! Definitely something I should start colelcting!
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Post by xyborg7 on Apr 18, 2006 8:41:39 GMT -5
hedorah is the smog monster. as in godzilla vs the smog monster. and yeah, hes modeled after poop. poop with girl thingy eyes to boot! the psychedelic 70s japaneese, AMAZING!!!!!!!!!! will there be a cooler era for toys? doubtful. macfarlane can eat a hedorah!
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Post by hypnotator on Apr 18, 2006 8:48:50 GMT -5
Lovely pics, Guy. Those are your own Dr. Who figures, aren’t they? How do you afford it? (Don’t answer that.) These fetch even more than Denys Fisher Cyborg figures! I’d like a Giant Robot but the last loose one I saw was £200 (nearly $400)! For those who don’t know, he has the same brain as Cyborg in a little window in his forehead. The Denys Fisher Dr. Who range are fairly unremarkable but worth stupid money because they are Dr. Who toys, of course.
I remember the Purple People Eater. Denys Fisher made far more board games than action figures. The Cyborg and Dr. Who lines are the only boy orientated action figures I remember. When I was an adolescent, I went to a party and there was a Purple People Eater game getting mucked around with. I think you put the figures in, rather than took them out, otherwise he wouldn’t exactly be eating them. A bit like Mousetrap, the game doesn’t get played properly very often but the gimmick parts get mucked around with, and somebody did stretch it over his head and stick his tongue out.
What even Guy may not realise is that the Purple People Eater is also a song. I collect trashy music and “exotica”, including records by celebrities with limited vocal talent. You guys outside the UK may not have heard of Mike Reid, who started out as a lovable cockney DJ in the 1970s and then became a children’s TV presenter and, more recently, a soap star. His catchphrase was “Triffic”. He did a gruesome version of Danny Kaye’s The Ugly Duckling which charted back in the 70s and a few years ago I found the LP in a junk shop. Of course I snapped it up. It consists mostly of lovable cockney classics and old music hall songs like Knocked ‘Em Down the Old Kent Road, but my jaw dropped to hear an Edith Piaf song (translated of course; Mike Reid singing in French would be too much to hope for) and there is a rather jolly little number called Purple People Eater. I would guess that the song inspired the board game, but maybe, just maybe, someone was so impressed by Denys Fisher’s weird, blobby gimmick game that they wrote the song about it.
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Post by johnnyhaggis on Apr 18, 2006 12:31:33 GMT -5
"He was a one-eyed, one-horned, purple people eater,
one-eyed, one-horned, purple people eater,
one-eyed, one-horned, purple people eater,
sure looked strange to me...."
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Post by thebigr on Apr 18, 2006 16:44:20 GMT -5
hypnotator:
way off topic here, but...
check out Spain's flamenco giant El Principe Gitano and his version of the classic elvis song "In The Ghetto", if you're into the whole-broken-language singing. classic. it should be available on any file sharing network...
Not a DR. WHO fan (my uncle is the only non-brit i've ever met who was REAAAAALLLLY into it) but i've always LOVED that GIANT ROBOT figure, and of course the garbage can Dalek robots too. My uncle had a set of the Denys Fisher DR. WHO figs when i was growing up, i remember being quite young and him just losing it because i had opened GIANT ROBOT and was playing on the floor with him; his distress being that this was the mid-80s and any Denys stuff was just out-of-the-question rare and expensive (not like it's cheap now...) and forgetaboutit if you were into Dr. Who- besides reruns on PBS we had nothing.
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Post by GUYx1 on Apr 19, 2006 8:15:31 GMT -5
Hypno, Actually the real trick to obtaining DR.WHO toys is to go back in time 15-20 years. Granted finding the toys was even more painfully difficult then, but the prices were marginally better. Cyborgs were Worthless at the time. This was wonderful and frustrating all at the same time. Not Cheap and Plentiful, but cheap and obscure as hell. Toy dealers thought I was crazy asking them to look for this toyline. The "WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME, I only sell Sci-FI toys like Dr.Who and Star wars" sort of thing kept coming up. I had to BEG dealers to keep an eye open. Most of you should know by now how frustrating British Toy dealers are to work with if they don't see any profit in something. Many only want to sell what is hot at the moment and be done with it.  Did any of you ever obtain toys out of those newsprint mags MODEL MART (uk) or TOYSHOP (USA) in the old days? That is how we did it before the internet. Place ads and cross our fingers. Respond to ads for Action Man outfit lots and pray to God that they all were not knitted by the child's grand mother. ("What do you mean you don't want it?!? - That's 100% Scottish Wool that is!")  Cyborgs were cheap yet impossible to find until the day A Nottingham Dealer named JIM STEVENSON caught ahold of a Japanese buyer. Then suddenly the market changed and the UK dealers would ONLY sell cyborgs to Foreigners at really high prices. (Not that they weren't guilty of that already)   The Dr WHO "MEGO" style figures were always more popular in the UK, but that is how I discovered Cyborg. I was a Megohead. In the late 1980's, I collected the Space 1999 Palitoy dolls, the Palitoy COMMANDER POWER, the Denysfisher Dr Who figures. Commander Power, Dr WHo and Cyborg all had VERY similar packaging and artwork. Being produced from the same companies probably had something to do with it. The British 1970's toys really thrill me in a way no modern toy ever could. |
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Post by bryanarchy on Apr 19, 2006 10:13:13 GMT -5
What even Guy may not realise is that the Purple People Eater is also a song. I collect trashy music and “exotica”, including records by celebrities with limited vocal talent. collecting exotica eh? i knew there was a reason i liked you... I'm a huge esquivel-head and take a lot of pleasure in the sound of congas and bird whistles. And the lilting tones of shatner and nimoy....  I'm also willing to bet that 90% of the people (over 30) in north america have heard of the purple people eater via the Muppet Show |
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Post by GUYx1 on Apr 19, 2006 12:39:33 GMT -5
In trying to obtain the Purple People eater game, I ended up with a couple STUFFED, motion activated animated monsters that sing the late 50's Sheb Wooley tune.  Click here and the song should play: www.shebwooley.com/ppe.htmActually I grew up listening to the song as a child, well before the muppet show, but I'm sure anyone who has ever been to a halloween party in North America has probably heard it at one time or another. |
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Post by xyborg7 on Apr 20, 2006 7:18:26 GMT -5
i had that song on my MONSTER MASH lp.
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Post by hypnotator on Apr 20, 2006 14:17:18 GMT -5
Yes, I used to get Model Mart every month and use it as an essential tool, indeed the only tool I knew of in those pre-internet days, for hunting toys. As you say, Guy, Cyborg went straight from being too small an interest for people to stock, to too damn expensive. And “Mr. Star Wars” was always ready to advertise a Cyborg toy for far more than anyone except a celebrity would pay, and it would sit on his list for a couple of years, helping to push prices everywhere up. I made some essential contacts through Model Mart, including a couple of Japanese ones.
Sorry that your post is veering way off topic, Guy, and I’m embarrassed that the Purple People Eater song was known to everybody (I’d never heard it before I bought that record), but It’s great to hear that some of my fellow Cyborg collectors are also fellow tacky music collectors. I haven’t heard of El Principe Gitano, but I’ll look out for him. I recently acquired a various artists album called Songs in the Key of Z which features one Eliert Pilarm doing a wonderful broken English rendition of Yailhouse Rock. The line “if you can’t find a partner, use a wooden chair” becomes “if you find a part wood chair”. If anyone wants to fileshare exotica, PM me.
Xyborg, is that Monster Mash LP by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt Kickers? I have the single, but I never Knew there was an album. The Bonzo Dog Band do a great version of Monster Mash, too.
And Guy, that wall of Cyborg boxes as a casual backdrop is too much! I expect you already know that the Dr. Who doll had Gareth Hunt's head because they damaged the mould.
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Post by GUYx1 on Apr 20, 2006 17:17:10 GMT -5
Yeah I heard those stories anout the old Denys Fisher Factory. Hmm - looks like I've found the long lost Tom Baker Head actually a Silicone FAN MADE head...  Anyway, I like to please everybody so just to keep you happy I will admit here and now that I went through a BAD MUSIC phase myself. You are talking to someone who has Dance Mixes of Manchester United's 'Ooh, aah Cantona' Theme on CD. Just so I can stay all cryptic and mysterious - why don't you confuse the North Americans even more and tell them all about Peter Wyngarde and his MUSIC...   bad-music.empty-handed.com/bad-music.empty-handed.com/bmf/archive/000025.php |
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Post by cyborgbushcricket on Apr 20, 2006 21:42:44 GMT -5
christ, that tom baker sculpt is so realistic, downright scary, amazing!! it is just a sculpt yes and not an actual shot of him?
CBC.
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Post by hypnotator on Apr 21, 2006 13:46:36 GMT -5
Yeech! That Tom Baker face is scary! It's going to bite me! Give me Gareth Hunt any day!
Hey, i've got that Peter Wynegarde album. The reason it was recalled so quickly was the track called "Rape".
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Post by GUYx1 on Apr 21, 2006 17:22:49 GMT -5
Scary yet somehow TOO accurate. That head actually sold on ebay! 1:1 scale.
I'd hate to be Tom Baker and see that.
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Post by GUYx1 on Apr 21, 2006 17:31:22 GMT -5
Yeah that Wyngarde song was a tad "EDGY" for it's day. That's what happens when Celebrities go and try doing their own song writing... Best to let them just stick to COVER TUNES. Much safer for the rest of us. I was hopeing you would mention his TV work. Americans would know his voice immediately from the FLASH GORDON movie. As Klytus He wore the metal mask. A Very Micronaut sorta look.  No after watching FLASH, just imagine that fella singing bad music! |
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Post by bryanarchy on Apr 21, 2006 19:33:19 GMT -5
oh man, i haven't seen flash gordon since I was a kid... i'm scared to revisit that one.
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