Can you tell me your name and a little bit about yourself? But first...we drank Tranya! Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!
HaHa, yes! “I hope you relish it, as much as I !”
Charles Schultz, 51 & lucky to be living in beautiful Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, with my lovely wife and 3 young daughters (who enjoy me right now, but will soon outgrow me as I reached peak cognitive development at age twelve). Thirty-nine years later, I still enjoy comics, toys, and any movie Ray Harryhausen worked on.
Clint Howard's alien in Star Trek is such an obscure name for your blog, I am actually very jealous of that! What made you choose that name for your blog/Instagram?
Thanks Tim! Clint Howard’s performance as Balok still stands out, doesn’t it? He’s one of those characters that hypnotizes kids with sheer weirdness…my own kids still react to the show in good ways that remind me that creative thinking (even low budget) can still beat CGI. The actor also seems humble, fun and clearly has a good relationship with brother Ron. During our annual family watch of ‘The Grinch’ (movie) my kids always say: “Hey Dad, there’s Balok!” In a nutshell, Balok makes me smile!
How long have you been doing your blog?
Started when I got this iPad…going on 3+ years now?
What was the first toy that just left a huge impression with you as a child?
In the early 70’s an older neighbor-boy’s Mom donated a huge box of his Mattel Major Matt Mason toys to my younger brother and I. I still know this fellow today and he hasn’t gotten over it, lol. The rubber-bendy figures were worn out, but everything else was top-quality and unique to anything at the time; soon the whole house became ‘outer space’ to us. The enormous 3-level Space Station was the very definition of PLAYSET. Over the years, the Space Station became the headquarters of various Fisher-Price Adventure People and… the Micronauts (mix in some Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and other 3&3/4” figures of the time).
What got you into toy collecting?
Never stopped. I guess I’m old enough to title my toy-buying habit a collection. The truth for me reads better as: ‘continued acquisition with the intent to play’. The dream of a glorious day when I set it all up on the living room floor and have the most epic play-time (as my younger self regularly did), is still with me. Also, I am like many middle-aged collectors who see toys as an artifact-link to happy, simpler times. We are all eager archeologists when it comes to our own pasts, be that through picture albums, cars, toys, etc.
Do you have a favorite toy company when you were a kid? How about now?
MEGO Corp. brought Micronauts toys to kids in North America, so that’s the big one in my memory (also enjoyed their pocket Super Heroes, Black Hole, Buck Rogers, etc. lines too). Today its Takara-Tomy who brings us Diaclone and not to bore anyone with the well-known historical link between Micronauts and Takara’s Microman, but there’s that lineage, it’s pretty cool.
Do you have a favorite Independent toy company that you would like to see get more publicity?
Onell Design https://onelldesign.blogspot.
.
Do you have a Holy Grail piece or are you still eagerly looking for it out there?
Many Grail pieces have passed through my hands over the years; I just can’t stay focused, haha! Some of the original 1980 Dialcone items qualify (based on the regret I have for selling or trading them off, years ago); let’s say the original Diaclone playset: a boxed, clean, complete version of GREAT ROBOT BASE is the Grail item for me.
Did you have a favorite sci-fi movie as a kid? As an adult? Do you still feel like those things that were important to you then are still things you care about?
‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ (It’s partly SciFi, right?) was on TV often enough during childhood to really become a staple for me; still enjoy this movie today. A modern-day film I revisit often is ‘The Fifth Element’. Probably like yourself and most other SciFi fans, I could go on…for days, but to spare you, these two came to mind first. Themes and stories that held my attention as a child often still do today; hence a favorite quote from Forrest J. Ackerman: “You can grow older, just don’t grow up.”
What are your favorite top 5 toys when you were younger?
Only five!?!? …(sulks)…ok
Late 1970’s/early 80’s had some big hits with me:
1) MEGO Micronauts (Baron Karza ruled) and that Ken Kelly card-art for the Aliens!
2) Mattel Battlestar Galactica (Viper & Cylon Raider)
3) Mattel Space 1999 Eagle-1 Playset (often stood-in for the Galactica while playing with #2, otherwise it was piloted by Micronauts, of course)
4) MEGO Black Hole Maximillian Robot, my first and only experience with cereal box-top mail-away figure, both a joy and disappointment (no articulation).
5) LJN Advanced Dungeons & Dragons showed up without warning (if ran across a fully stocked toy isle when these guys came out, you’d remember).
With Sectaurs getting a revival, do you have a toy line that you would love to see get a second chance?
Sectaurs were awesome! Part of that whole He-Man & Black-Star genre that I admired from afar. Well, since Micronauts had a reboot (bless you Palisades Toys) and now seems forever locked in Hasbro’s vault of indecision, I’d root for a STARCOM comeback.
This short-lived COLECO (later Mattel in the UK) line was ahead of its time with brilliant features at a tiny scale that allowed for epic SciFi play (by epic, I mean how a tiny 2-inch, articulated figure transforms a kids room into a huge landscape in a way that larger scale figures cannot). The magnetic feet used on STARCOM figures were done just a few years earlier by a TAKARA line that I feel shares many similarities with STARCOM, that being Diaclone. I often mix STARCOM vehicles and accessories into Diaclone scenes because they are such similar lines. Diaclone figures at only half the size of STARCOM at 30 mm tall, still look good in many STARCOM rides.
You have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the Diaclone line. When did you become so enamored with that line?
What’s a Diaclone? LOL. Too much credit, in fact I kinda avoid knowing everything about Diaclone because a touch of mystery allows freedom to make up my own stories around these little guys. Take Star Wars toys for example, everything is cemented into a role, no room for a kid to speculate different stories for the figures; they never become a part of the kids own creative play-mythos if you will. I remember our first Storm Trooper figure (before seeing the movie 150 times) and assigning him all kinds of powers (like Iron Man’s armor); but knowing too much…he’s demoted, just another clone who can’t shoot straight. I think that’s why Boba Fett held power for so long…he was mysterious! Fett is diminished (in my opinion) by too much back-story.
Diaclone: Must have been 1980-81 when I chanced upon a tiny figure in red plastic & shiny metal in a schoolyard, trampled into the grass/dirt. He remained a mystery for years, but his chromed head reminded me of Micronauts (had no idea of the relationship); thought he was some kind of vending-machine trinket or candy-
prize.
prize.
The tiny scale and puzzle of what he was, stuck with me and he rolled around my belongings until getting lost (as I gather many of these tiny Diaclone pilot figures were lost). Within a couple of years, I acquired the remains of a Great Robot Base at a flea-market! This was it…still not knowing the name of the line, yet two of the (similar) tiny pilot figures were still manning their posts inside the main control room (a work of art among toys)…I had found his home! It was quite a thrill to stumble on this toy! Pretty sure I turned my early-teens room upside down searching for that schoolyard Dianaut, but he left behind the ability to spot his brothers, haha.
A long period followed before even the name Diaclone became known; they didn’t show up in Canadian stores to my knowledge.
Finally, the Internet! By the late 90’s via online trades and eBay, gathered a respectable Diaclone collection and foolishly sold it off (except my beat-up Great Robot Base) to help pay for a move.
Now... back in, and what a reboot this line is enjoying from Takara-Tomy! What a surprise to see this line reappear (found out on YouTube, thanks to Knerdout) and I think it was towards the end of 2015 that I dug-up my Great Robot Base to help celebrate and anticipate the arrival of Dia-Battles V2. Since then the line has blown up!
My advice on Diaclone collecting: Pace yourself and don’t buy every repaint, otherwise your spending could become more like military-spending ;)
Could you also give me links to websites and other places that you would like to advertise?
This website is in Japanese only, but it’s the best archive of original Diaclone toys I know of: www.diaclone.net/orid/list.
The Onell Design blog, a gateway site with links to everything Glyos: https://onelldesign.blogspot.
Here’s a link to Shapeways 3-D printing service, remarkably a good source for original Dianaut (and enemy Waruder) figures in the original 80’s style (search under INCHMAN): https://www.shapeways.com
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