Sunday 26 May 2013

PIIIIIIIGS IN SPAAAAAAAAACE---1969

Not THOSE pigs!....



THESE pigs.....



The Lay's Pigs.  It seems that, in 1969, to tie in with the actual Lunar Landing, the Lay's company put out a few of these as a promotion.  How many were actually distributed, I don't know.  But I could only find one for sale and GEEEEEZ LEEEEWWWWWEEEEEZZZZZ at the asking price on that baby!

I got my little mitts on this one as a kid.  One of the local high schools always had a barbeque supper to support it's booster club.  My entry ticket won me this beauty at the tender age of about 8.  I knew it was old then...and that's what I loved about it!


It's a super cool game!  The instructions read as follows:

THE OBJECT OF THE GAME is to be the first player to make a Lunar Landing on the moon.  A Lay's Three Little Pigs Astronaut Team mans each spacecraft in the race to the moon.  Up to four craft may enter the race at one time.


TO BEGIN THE GAME
1.  Each player should choose his spacecraft.  [I was always red!]

 

2.  Shuffle the stack of 32 cards [would you  believe they're all still there??]
3.  Decide who shall play first by spinning the Space Dial.  The player who spins the highest number of "Move Forward" spaces plays first.


4.  The space race begins at the Blast Off area on the Lunar Landing Board.

 

TO PLAY
1.  A player spins the Space Dial and does whatever it instructs him to do.  This will be one of three things:
     a.  Move Forward a certain number of spaces OR
     b.  Move Back a certain number of spaces OR
     c.  Draw a Card
 (IMPORTANT:  From BLAST OFF through JETTISON STAGE 3, a player accepts only FORWARD spins because the space craft has to go fast to free itself from the pull of the Earth's gravity.  [see what they did there?  A little bit of rocket science thrown right atcha!]  The player is to ignore orders to MOVE BACK and number of spaces or to DRAW A CARD until JETTISON STAGE 3 is completed.)

2.Directions on a CARD are to be followed immediately, except in the case of a LAYSer BEAM CARD. ["LAYSer Beam!  Oh, the clever word play!!]  All CARDS should be placed face up in a separate stack after they are played.  



3.  Five of the CARDS are LAYSer BEAM CARDS.  A LAYSer BEAM CARD can be used at any time.  It allows a player to ignore any instruction that might delay his lunar landing.  However, a LAYSer BEAM CARD can be used only once.  The player should keep his LAYSer BEAM CARD by his place at the Lunar Landing Board until he wants to use it.  A used LAYSer BEAM CARD is placed face up on the used deck of CARDS.



4.  When all the CARDS have been drawn, reshuffle the stack, place face down by the Lunar Landing Board and continue playing.
5.  Players should follow the directions on the Lunar Landing Board as indicated.

 


6.  Once his spacecraft has gone into orbit around the moon, a player continues in orbit until he gets a spin that stops him right on MOON PATH, the only space that permits a landing. (For example, if he is 2 spaces away, and he spins a "Forward 3 Spaces," he must "fly by".)

7.  When his craft stops on MOON PATH, the player must stay there until he spins a "Forward 1 Space."  He ignores all other instructions on he has landed on MOON PATH.

8.  The first one to land on the moon is the winner.




 I can tell ya that this is one of those games that, while it seems simple enough, can eat into an entire summer afternoon!  It is a LOOOONG game to play!  But it's super fun and was always one of my favourites!

I leave you with The Muppets....and Luke Skywalker....

Sunday 12 May 2013

Ad of the Day--A Whitman's Sampler for Mother's Day, 1952


Mothers are like a Box of Chocolates.  You never know what you're gonna get.

How Rockwell-ish is this ad????  Frankly, I've always hated Whitman's chocolates.  They're crap.  If I got my mother a Whitman's sampler for Mother's Day, she'd likely disown me.  We're more of a "See's" family, thanks.

My Sweet Embraceable Dakko-chan

A couple of weeks ago, I was flipping though an issue of Life Magazine from 1960 when I saw a semi-familiar face.  No, not her....


....although she's what caught my eye first!  I mean, how fab is that outfit?!  Truly?  But no, the face that caught my eye was the little cutey at her ankle.  To be fair, it was the skirt that sparked the recognition in me.  Didn't I used to have a toy that resembled that???

Yes.  YES!  I was sure of it!  It was a hand-me-down from my mother's own childhood.   And it did indeed latch on to your arm...or a lamp...or a bedpost....or anything really.  I eagerly read the story about the Dakko-chan.


It seems it was the 'fad of the year' in 1960.  Created that year by the Takara toy company (yep, the one who later created Transformers), these clingy little babies were all the rage in Japan and the popularity had spread to America.  Their name means 'embraceable' or 'embrace me' and that's just what they did!




Every 'with it' young girl wanted one, from Tokyo to New York...and even to Baileyton, Tennessee it would seem!

 




 


 


 

 

The toy went out of production in 1988 because of claims that it was racist....uh, yeah...ya think?!  I must admit though, as politically incorrect as the doll is, it's darn cute!  And who doesn't love a toy that grabs onto things?  Especially if it's your arm or leg?  Remember those weird monkey puppets with velcro hands and feet that everyone had in the '80s?
Anyway, the more I read about the Dakko-chan, the more I doubted that my memory was correct.  The toy I remembered was sort of a brownish gray.  And it was plush, not inflatable.  And, while I remembered it wearing a skirt, mine also wore a beret and didn't have a curl in the middle of it's forehead.  Perhaps I didn't have a Dakko-chan after all?  And just where on earth had that thing...whatever the hell it was...got to anyway???
My questions....well some of them....were answered just the other day!  I brought home several bins from my parents' house.  They were full of, well, my childhood basically.  About mid-way through the first bin, guess who's little eyes peered out and winked at me for the first time in years?.....




Yup.  My (well, my MOTHER'S really!) Dakko-chan!!  Isn't it the bee's?
I asked mom about his history and how she'd come by him.  She said that a boy had won the Dakko-chan for her at the fair when she was in her early teens....around 1960 or '61.  She said they were all the rage and were marketed as 'bedpost dolls' and that this little bit of sweetness hung on her bedpost until after high school.  She said it was originally an aqua colour...you can kind of see it in the joints at it's head and legs!  

I've searched all over and can't find any reference anywhere to a plush, blue version of the Dakko-chan.  His only marking is his teeny tiny 'Made in Japan' tag.  Surely this isn't the only one out there?  Any of you seen one of these little moppets?  Do you have any hand-me-down toys from your parents?