Thursday, December 25, 2014

Coolest Toy Ever - Mattel SPACE: 1999 Eagle 1 (Holiday Re-Post)

This is the fifth in a series of special re-posts for the holidays, remembering the coolest sci-fi toys of the Space: 1970 era. Hope you enjoy these "reruns" and have a great holiday season. Merry Christmas!


On Christmas morning 1976, I received one of the greatest gifts of my entire childhood. Better even than my Star Trek and Planet of The Apes Mego figures. It was Mattel's two-foot long Eagle Transporter playset from Space: 1999.

This thing was a monster and came with small action figures of Moonbase Alpha's John Koenig, Helena Russell and Victor Bergman in their bright orange space suits. There were also tiny accessories like little laser guns, helmets and other bits of exploratory equipment. The cockpit opened and could hold two figures, and the passenger compartment was large enough to reach in and move them around. There was even a hatch in the bottom with a working winch!

The nose section and red engine section were detachable and could even be joined together to make a small reconnaissance craft. It was, without a doubt, the coolest spaceship toy ever.

Sadly, this is not a photo of my Eagle (I wish!) - all that remains of the one I received all those decades ago is the main chassis and nothing else; all the other parts having been lost or destroyed through years of dangerous space missions to the alien planets of my backyard. Oh, the perils I used to subject that tiny crew of Alphans to!

Obviously, I got an awful lot of fun out of that thing, and if my fortunes ever turn around, I'd love to hunt down an intact one one day.

Of course, I later had the Eagle (and Hawk fighter) model kits, and they were cool, too, but once built, there really wasn't much you could do with the ships other than display them. That didn't actually stop me from playing with mine, though... which is why they no longer survive!

14 comments:

  1. YES! I totally got one too and loved it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'd have to agree. This is/was one super-awesome spaceship toy.

    Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas Chris!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Seeing these pics brought back such memories! I had two of these (my younger brother quickly tired of his, and I, um, appropriated it). LOTS of hours of fun with this great toy!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I was totally amazed when I got this as a gift from my parents, I did not even know it existed until I unwrapped it.
    For some odd reason the figure of the Doctor character had some odd deformity that looked like he had gout in his throat.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Looks like a made my Eagle 1 comment too soon on the Starbird entry! Yes, the coolest toy I had ever had.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Didn't get one, always wanted one. The closest I ever got was the Eagle on a wire with a prop, battery-powered.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dang enter key. The one that had the two Alphas to pick up on a hook and move around. Maybe it was marketed as a game?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Still have mine proudly hanging from my ceiling.

    Dep1701

    ReplyDelete
  9. The toys today don't even compare to the coolness of these. Our kids are getting shafted and don't even understand that they are.

    Unfortunately I never got this but my cousin did and I remember vividly to this very moment the heartbreak I felt when I entered his house on Christmas day afternoon for dinner and saw it in its full glory parked under his tree on the shag carpeting. My parents had spent the entire car ride trying to break it to me gently that he had received one and I had not and it was because his parents felt guilty for not spending as much time with him and other B.S. excuses. They knew that they had messed up and to this day I am not sure if it was because of the cost of the toy or of its lack of availability. Anyway, I agree that this was the most awesome of toys and over the years, as I visited my cousin and saw his in ever worse condition, I realized how unfair life is in a very deep way.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Very cool, my friend had a diecast version of this, he used to call it battle star gallatica

    ReplyDelete