Flash Gordon Returning Home

In the Republic serials of the 1930's, Flash Gordon always flew that one specific spaceship designed by Dr. Zarkov.

There were several other spaceship types that appeared in the serials as either Ming's forces or those that opposed him, but the designs were limited based on the budget needed to build props. However, the comic books were a different story. The artists could draw any design they felt like and over the decades there must have been hundreds of designs that appeared in the comic pages. I don't know if Premier Plastics ever based their Flash Gordon spaceships on any of those appearing in the comics when they released their iconic series of toys back in the '50s, but they look right for Flash!

Flash Gordon Escaping Mongo

 

Flash Gordon Lands on Mongo

Here's one I concocted ten years ago and it's been sitting on my computer until now. Using a Premier Plastic's spaceship and posing it on my diorama base, I imagined Flash and Dr. Zarkov landing just outside of Mingo City on a mission to rescue Dale Arden from the clutches of the evil  Ming. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Premier Plastics & Knock-off Flash Gordon Space Ships - Pt 21 CONCLUSION Pt 3

You understand that I never meant to have a 3-part conclusion to the Premier Plastics Flash Gordon series which ran from April until August but when a couple of new variations came my way it just couldn't be helped. Two weeks ago Toys & Stuff presented a 3" soft plastic Dart, well today we're featuring a 3" soft plastic Wide Body (Dart and Wide Body are my designations for the two basic body types). Both are the same mint green both have a tube or bushing underneath the fuselage which appears to me as if a rod of some kind was meant to attach there. Were they part of a set or display??? For now I'm content to just identify, and present to you, additional variations. Here's the basics:

3” Wide Body’s v.3

- Soft plastic

- Knock off

- 5 windows behind cockpit

- 3 tall struts in place of wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- No number underneath fuselage

- Hollow tube or bushing beneath roof 

Enjoy!

Premier Plastics & Knock-off Flash Gordon Space Ships - Pt 20 CONCLUSION Pt 2

For nineteen weeks beginning in April of this year Toys & Stuff ran a series on Premier Plastics Flash Gordon space ships and their knock-offs. I mentioned in the recap and conclusion, posted on Aug 10, that there was one variant I was missing, a 3" soft plastic Wide Body. Actually, there were TWO variants missing, the other being a 3" soft plastic Dart. As luck would have it I was able to get an example of both and both came from the same source. I guess that means that the 'Conclusion' was a little premature. So, for those of you who were keeping track of all of these, let's look at the next variant in the line:

3” Darts v.3

- Soft plastic

- Knock off

- 6 windows behind cockpit

- 3 tall struts in place of wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- No number underneath fuselage

- Hollow tube beneath roof 

Stay tuned to this station for further updates. Enjoy!

Although referred to as 3" it is actually 3 1/8" long

Both the 3" soft plastic Dart and Wide Body have a tube or bushing molded in to the underside of the roof. I'm guessing a rod would have been inserted in the tube, the other perhaps connected to a tower (?) around which they circled??? Pure speculation on my part but it would follow the example of other toys.

Premier Plastics & Knock-off Flash Gordon Space Ships - Pt 19 Recap CONCLUSION

Back in January a funny thing happened during one of my marathon picture taking sessions. Prior to me taking photos, I try to clean up the toys a little. I spritz a little 'Armor All' on them and use a 5/8" flat artists brush and rag to get the dirt and dust off and get it out of the nooks and crannies. It was during one of these pre-photography cleaning sessions that I noticed something peculiar; among the hard plastic and soft plastic ships (an obvious variant to notice) there seemed to be variations within variations. This piqued my interest and I began looking at all the toys in the box and kept discovering more differences. 

Over the course of several photo sessions I would identify seventeen variants which have been presented here on Toys & Stuff from April 20, 2013 until today. In addition I've given names to the two major body types. The ships with the longer, narrower fuselage I've coined as Darts while the shorter, fatter fuselages I've coined as Wide Body. The Dart designation comes from recollections of the F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet being referred to as a 'lawn dart' early in its operational life. When you look at these they do rather resemble a dart:

There is one variant I believe probably exists but I haven't yet seen an example of it - a 3" Wide Body soft plastic ship. So far I've only seen 3" hard plastic versions. Also, it was apparent by the somewhat not-so-stellar quality of the soft plastic toys that they were most probably knock-offs of Premier Plastics original hard plastic products.

So, for those of you who - like me - like lists, here's the master list of all known variants - Enjoy!

9” Variants

9” Darts v.1 (Posted 20 Apr 2013)

- Hard plastic

- Made by Premier Plastics

- 9 windows behind cockpit

- 3 free rolling wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- Backward #2 underneath fuselage

9” Dart v.2 (Posted 27 Apr 2013)

- Soft Plastic

- Knock-off

- 9 windows behind cockpit

- 3 struts instead of wheels

- Backward #2 underneath fuselage

9” Wide Body’s v.1 (Posted 4 May 2013)

- Hard plastic

- Made by Premier Plastics

- 8 windows behind cockpit

- 3 free rolling wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- #1 underneath fuselage

9” Wide Body’s v.2 (11 May 2013)

- Soft plastic

- Knock-off

- 8 windows behind cockpit

- 3 struts instead of wheels

- #1 underneath fuselage

5” Variants

5” Darts v.1 (Posted 18 May 2013)

- Hard plastic

- Made by Premier Plastics

- 7 windows behind cockpit

- 1 strut underneath nose and 2 free rolling wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- Backward #2 underneath fuselage

- Stiffening ribs between windows

- Platform molded above engine nacelles to accommodate spaceman

5” Darts v.1a (Not posted. Same as v. 1 above except there is no stiffening ribs and no number underneath fuselage))

- Hard plastic

- Made by Premier Plastics

- 7 windows behind cockpit

- 1 strut underneath nose and 2 free rolling wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- No number underneath fuselage

- No stiffening ribs between windows

- Platform molded above engine nacelles to accommodate spaceman

5” Darts v.2 (Posted 25 May 2013)

- Hard Plastic

- Made by Premier Plastics

- 7 windows behind cockpit

- 1 strut underneath nose and 2 free rolling wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- No platform molded above engine nacelles to accommodate spaceman

NOTE: All soft plastic variants appear to have platform over nacelles

5” Darts v.3 (Posted 1 Jun 2013)

- Soft plastic

- Knock-off

- 7 windows behind cockpit

- 3 tall struts in place of wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- No number underneath fuselage

- Platform molded above engine nacelles to accommodate spaceman

- Original exhaust

5” Darts v.4 (Posted 8 Jun 2013)

- Soft plastic

- Knock-off

- 7 windows behind cockpit

- 3 short struts (stumpy legs) in place of wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- No number underneath fuselage

- Stiffening ribs between windows

- Platform molded above engine nacelles to accommodate spaceman

- Original exhaust

5” Darts v.5 (Posted 15 Jun 2013)

- Soft plastic

- Knock-off

- 7 windows behind cockpit

- 3 short struts (stumpy legs) in place of wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- No number underneath fuselage

- Platform molded above engine nacelles to accommodate spaceman

- Whistle exhaust (aka ‘Whistle Butt’) – only appears on soft plastic variants

  

5” Darts v.6 (Posted 22 Jun 2013)

- Soft plastic

- Knock-off

- 6 windows behind cockpit

- 3 tall struts in place of wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- No number underneath fuselage

- No stiffening ribs between windows

- Platform molded above engine nacelles to accommodate spaceman

- Original exhaust

NOTE: 5” Wide Body’s actually measure 4 ½”

5” Wide Body’s v.1 (Posted 29 Jun 2013)

- Actually measures 4 ½”

- Hard plastic

- Made by Premier Plastics

- 6 windows behind cockpit

- 1 strut underneath nose and 2 free rolling wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- No number underneath fuselage

- Original exhaust

5” Wide Body’s v.2 (Posted 6 Jul 2013)

- Actually measures 4 ½”

- Soft plastic

- Knock-off

- 6 windows behind cockpit

- 3 tall struts in place of wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- No number underneath fuselage

- Stiffening ribs between windows

- Original exhaust

5” Wide Body’s v.3 (Posted 13 Jul 2013)

- Actually measures 4 ½”

- Soft plastic

- Knock-off

- 6 windows behind cockpit

- 3 short struts in place of wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- No number underneath fuselage

- Stiffening ribs between windows

- Whistle exhaust (aka ‘Whistle Butt’) – only appears on soft plastic variants

3” Variants

3” Darts v.1 (Posted 20 Jul 2013)

- Hard plastic

- Made by Premier Plastics

- 5 windows behind cockpit

- 3 tall struts in place of wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- No number underneath fuselage

- Stiffening ribs between windows

3” Darts v.2 (Posted 27 Jul 2013)

- Hard plastic

- Made by Premier Plastics (or….?)

- 6 windows behind cockpit (modification by Premier or knock-off?)

- 3 tall struts in place of wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- No number underneath fuselage

- Stiffening ribs between windows

3” Wide Body’s v.1 (Posted 3 Aug 2013)

- Hard plastic

- Made by Premier Plastics

- 4 windows behind cockpit

- 3 tall struts in place of wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- #3 underneath fuselage

- Stiffening ribs between windows

- Original exhaust

3” Wide Body’s v.2 (Posted 10 Aug 2013)

- Hard plastic

- Made by Premier Plastics

- 5 windows behind cockpit

- 3 tall struts in place of wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- Backward #4 underneath fuselage

- Stiffening ribs between windows

- Original exhaust

3” Wide Body’s v.3 ???

I have no 3” Soft Plastic Wide Body’s in my collection

Premier Plastics & Knock-off Flash Gordon Space Ships – Pt 18 3" Hard Plastic Wide Body v.2

Today we look at the last known variant of the Premier Plastics Flash Gordon Space Ships, the 3" Wide Body v.2. This differs from version 1 in that it has five windows behind the cockpit vs. four. Here are the particulars:

3” Wide Body’s v.2

- Hard plastic

- Made by Premier Plastics

- 5 windows behind cockpit

- 3 tall struts in place of wheels in tricycle landing gear arrangement

- Backward #4 underneath fuselage

- Stiffening ribs between windows

- Original exhaust

To-date I haven't yet found a 3in Wide Body soft plastic variant. That being said, I haven't looked real hard either. I don't haunt eBay or the Web every day just looking for these things, but rather tend to find them during random searches. It's hard to imagine there not being a soft plastic knock-off so when/if that day ever comes and I'm able to acquire one, it'll be posted here. Until then - Enjoy!

The long and the short of it - the 9" Wide Body shown with the 3" Wide Body