Saturday 15 December 2018

Crooked Dice Games UFO Aliens 01

Of all the Gerry Anderson TV series produced in the 1960's and 1970's my favourite, by far, was UFO. Made in 1970, the series lasted for 26 episodes. The series' premise is that in 1980 (a date indicated in the opening credits), Earth is being visited by aliens from a dying planet, who are abducting humans and harvesting their organs for their own bodies. The alien incursions may also be a prelude to a possible full-scale invasion. The series' main cast of characters are the staff of a secret, high-technology international military agency called SHADO (an acronym for Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defence Organisation) established to defend Earth and humanity against the mysterious aliens and learn more about them, while at the same time keeping the threat of an alien invasion hidden from the public.
Crooked Dice games have recently released three of the UFO aliens, which I was most pleased to see. I like these a lot!
The three figures each come with a choice of two heads - bare-headed or helmeted. For this alien who is abducting a young female, I chose the bare-headed version. Note that his green skin is an effect of the life-sustaining fluid that fills his suit. A similar concept was used in James Cameron's film, The Abyss for the deep-sea divers, but that didn't have the green staining.
The other two aliens are wearing their helmets. Their rifles are ballistic weapons with scope-sight.
It has long been an ambition of mine to recreate UFO on the gaming table. I do hope that with the release of these aliens that CDG will release more figures from the show. They already have a figure for Commander Ed Straker, the commander in chief of SHADO. I want to see more SHADO personnel, the other named heroes, the SHADO troopers and most especially, the Moonbase personnel.
The alien carrying the female hostage costs £6.00 and the other two cost £4.00 each. Rather peculiarly, CDG offer a "deal" where you can buy all three for the price of £14.00, which is exactly the same price as buying each one individually. I don't see how that is a deal!
If you're interested in what the actual UFO from the series looks like, here's mine, along with a SHADO Interceptor, which operates from Moonbase. These 28mm scale die-cast models were produced by Product Enterprises and are exceedingly rare. They came together as a boxed set and I bought mine from a model shop in Newcastle that closed down quite a few years ago. There is a set currently available for sale on Amazon UK for the staggering amount of £325.00! I paid nowhere near that for my set. That said, they are incredibly detailed models made and painted to a very high standard.

32 comments:

  1. I don't even remember this show Bryan! mind you I was born in '73. Still the concept is cool and these minis are excellent

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    1. Thanks, Andy. You certainly missed a treat. "UFO" was a really great series.

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  2. Ah... Great childhood memories Bryan, I still own my "UFO" Dinky Toys SHADO 2 Mobile Tank - which I played to death with as a youngster. Clearly a forerunner for my fave Anderson show "Space 1999" too :-)

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    1. Happy memories indeed, Simon. I always wanted that Dinky SHADO mobile but never got it. A few years ago I was able to buy three variants of the SHADO mobile made by Product Enterprises.
      Incidentally, many of the sets used in "UFO" were also used in "Space 1999".

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  3. Ah Gabrielle Drake and Dolores Mantez were some of my childhood crushes. Great TV series.

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    1. I had a massive crush on Gabrielle Drake, Phil. She was smoking hot!

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  4. Great looking figures Bryan, more of Gerry Anderson's fantastic vehicles, I remember the Matchbox version of the SHADO Interceptor which for some reason was sold in green not white

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    1. Many thanks, Dave. You are right about the old SHADO Interceptor. For some odd reason it was metallic green. I still don't know why!

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    2. They did the same with the Space 1999 Eagle transporter, most bizarre ! LOL

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    3. That's right - they did! Perhaps they ran out of white paint and had a surplus of metallic green they wanted to use up, LOL!

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    4. And yet Thunderbird 2 was metallic blue not Green!

      Perhaps they only had a black and white telly at Dinky headquarters?

      Roger.

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    5. I'd forgotten all about Thunderbird 2, Roger. You're right - they did get its colours totally wrong!

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  5. Awesome figures Bryan! I remember watching UFO when I was a kid. I loved all the cool vehicles from the show and even managed to get my hands on a Dinky S.H.A.D.O. Interceptor and a S.H.A.D.O. Mobile, which back in the 70's were fairly expensive toys in the United States. Wish that I still had them.

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    1. Many thanks, Major. I was going to say that "UFO" had lots of cool vehicles in it (Skydiver was one of my favourites) but the same can be said about any Gerry Anderson show. You can still get the Dinky SHADO Mobile and Interceptor on eBay, but prices and conditions do vary.

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  6. Hi Bryan, these are nice figures that look like they come from the TV time period in question. The vehicles look pretty amazing as well.

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    1. Cheers, John. The figures are good but the vehicles are amazing!

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  7. That brings back memories Bryan :) the figures really look the part.

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    1. Much appreciated, Frank. For those of us of a certain age, these do invoke such happy memories.

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  8. Lovely work on the Aliens Bryan, and beautiful UFO vehicles, I think I saw the Eagle Transporter and Skydiver Sub by them a few years ago but the prices even then were out of my range!

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Many thanks, Roger. The newer models of the Gerry Anderson vehicles, particularly those made by Product Enterprises, are very expensive and now that they are out of production they'll only increase in price. I'm glad I bought mine when I did.

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  9. Oh nice! I especially like the one carrying the cargo. ;)

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  10. Very cool especially those diecasts Bryan. It might take some digging but you could probably kitbash similar vehicles from aircraft models if you want some more. The beauty of sci fi shows is that they are usually building their production models from the same materials. I never saw this but my favorite PC game of all time, XCOM is derivative of the series. Neat stuff!

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    1. Much appreciated, HP. That's a good point you make.

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  11. They look great Bryan. These aren't produced directly by CD though. So the 3 deal I think is intended as a way of purchasing all of them rather adding them individually.

    Tarv models is tha actual manufacturer. CD just carry some of the range for them

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    1. Thanks for that info, Simon. Greatly appreciated as I wasn't aware of that.

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    2. No problem. They were sculpted by Ian Mountain so obviously mix in with a lot of the older sculpts done by him.

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    3. Once again, you are a fount of knowledge, my friend! :-)

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  12. Here's a reminder (just in case anyone is interested) that card vehicles from UFO are freely available here: http://davesdesigns.ca/cutandfold/html/spacestarcarz_.html . There's a SHADO mobile and Commander Straker's car...

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    1. Many thanks for that link, Hugh. It looks very useful. I've bookmarked the page for future reference.

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