| OUTERSPACE MEN and THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE: COLORFORMS MEMORABLE ALIENS |
| Written by Steve Fink., Edited by J.A. Tomlinson | |
| Tuesday, 22 January 2008 | |
 Fast forward about ten years to 1989. This was the year I started collecting toys in earnest. I went to antique shows and flea-markets and scoured them for toys I’d known and loved in my youth and even somewhat later. On one of these excursions I stumbled upon a purple rubber figure with tentacle arms and an ovesized head. It sparked instant flashbacks to my childhood. But, it took me a bit to make the precise connection. When childhood and I finally reunited, it was like a bolt out of the blue — it was one of them! They were real! They did exist in the Third Dimension, outside the flat, two-dimensional world of that Colorforms box I first saw them on. I knew right then that I had to own all of these figures. Over the next couple of years, I learned more and more about the figures, and found out they are as rare as rare can be. The figures were made by Colorforms in 1968, and they were called "Outerspace Men." To put these in historical perspective, they were among the first figures to be sold in traditional action figure packaging, that is, individual blister cards. The line was developed by Colorforms to capitalize on the success of Mattel's Major Matt Mason and, in the cross-over, offered Major Matt more aliens and enemies to cavort with or conquer. The first series of Outerspace Men was comprised of seven figures (shown at right), Colossus Rex, Astro-Nautilus, Commander Comet, Xodiac, Orbitron, Electron+, and Alpha 7. Each character had a unique backstory relating to its home planet. 
My first carded figure purchase was made at the now famous Atlantique City collectibles show, in 1995. It was even more significant to me because I purchased it from the actual designer of the toy line, Mel Birnkrant. It was not until 2001 that I completed my set of Series 1 carded figures. Each of the figures are mint on the card, unopened. I counted this as my greatest coup — that was, until 2005. In the summer of 2005, I was contacted by someone who informed me that they posessed a full set of carded Series 2 figures. Up to this point this was a “fabled” series. You could count the number of people who’d either heard of it or maybe even seen it, on one hand. Mel Birnkrant himself told me a story about this legendary line-up. According to him, Colorforms was planning for success in 1968 with the first series of figures, so, they had developed a follow-up series of figures to introduce the following year, with a serious view toward meeting their development timelines. The second series was dubbed "The World of the Future," and featured six totally new characters. “Toy legend” has it that only five sets were manufactured, which were to serve as salesman samples (that's only five pieces made of each of the six figures!). In 2005, four sets had been unearthed (three in private collections, and one in Mr. Birnkrant’s possession). So, when I got the call, I was very skeptical. Nonetheless, I rolled the dice and invested in a trip to The World of the Future, if you will. I'll spare you all the lurid details of that trek, but it paid off big time — the guy had the figures he claimed to have. We made the deal, and I now possess my own personal holy grail of toy collecting - a complete set of 1st and 2nd series Colorforms alien figures!   Now, you might think the story is over for me, but it’s not. Is it ever really over for a true toy geek? Not likely. Indeed, the hunt goes ever on for me, and I continue to come across items somehow related to the bendy figure line; sometimes distantly related. These ancillary items include such things as "knock-off" Japanese vinyl figures from the early ‘70s, company catalogs, and gumball machine figures that are strikingly similar to the Colorforms bendie figures. The Colorforms Outerspace Men figures embody everything I love about toy collecting: childhood memories, awesome design, and the fevered quest for insanely rare items. [End] |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
