Multiple Toymakers No. 3054 Moon Base Playset 1977

It had been five years, 1972, since the last Moon walk. The Cold War Space Race was sort of winding down in favor of the Americans.: the Soviets talked a big talk but ultimately never sent a man to the Moon. In 1977 the Space Shuttle Enterprise rolls out. Flown uncrewed from the back of a modified 747 until August of that year but the first launch wouldn't be until 1981. The Voyager space probes were launched to the outer planets. And the look and feel of space toys were to change forever because in 1977...

...Star Wars was released!

And so too was this last gasp Moon Base Playset No. 3054 from Multiple Toymakers. Carry-all playsets had become the norm by the mid-'70s and Marx, MPC / Multiple Toymakers, Ideal all offered portable playsets. Some large, some small, some cardboard, some soft case, some tin-litho. Today's featured set was a cardboard carry-all. It had an unusual design with a compact playing field but the components were a re-hash of what MPC/Multiple had been spitting out for years. Mundane by now and certainly not in keeping with the changing times. Multiple Toymakers was a division of Miner Industries and by 1979 - a short two years after the release of this playset -  Miner had declared bankruptcy

This box really isn't as informative as other's from the same company. It says that it opens up into a 24" (60.96cm)  x 20" (50.8cm) Lunar Control Base. That's it. No list of what's included inside and I don't have original instructions which may have helped - or not. All I have to go by was what was included in my set and the pictures on the outside of the box. The 'diorama' base inside is a nicely done green, blue, and white Lunar surface with a vista backdrop of outer space. The exterior photos show what appear to be 14 or 15 Astronauts (is there 2 or 3 in the Command Center? - hard to tell). The Command Center itself is just a floor from the U.S. Orbital Lab playset put out seven years earlier in 1970. There's a rather cheap printed cardboard 'quasi-dome' held up by one of the ladders also reutilized from the Orbital Lab. Then there's the Mobile Missile Carrier and the Multi-Rocket Launcher: more re-runs (I had to fill these in with pieces from my collection as my set didn't have them any more). BUT...

...I noticed something quite interesting when looking at the box photos. Look at the Mobile Missile Carrier parked in the front of the base. You see where the tabs from the tracks protrude through the hull? It looks to me like the vehicle they used for the cover pic was painted and the paint has chipped off around the hole in the hull! I have yet to come across a white one of these and I speculate that they are quite hard to find. The white MG mounted on the top of the Missile Carrier did in fact come with my set. Anywho, this playset is an interesting example from the waning days of a company in peril and a holdover example from the days when the Space Race was hot and heavy. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Is that paint chipping from around the holes where the tabs protrude?

I do like the green - nice and colorful -  but geez, didn't the guys over at Multiple realize the Moon is gray? 

Nicely done backdrop

Multiple Toymakers No. 3013 Big Space Base

Here's another set from the Space Race Age, the Multiple Toymakers No. 3013 Big Space Base. It utilizes the same modular base as the No. 1505 Space Control Center playset featured the other day. This has a lot more action going for it than did the Space Control center set - with all those rocket and missile launch platforms these guys are ready to rumble. The 25 figures though are the typical offering of MPC astronauts in rather mundane poses

As a side note, in oreder to photograph a complete set I had to grab a Missile Carrier from the collection to place in the photo. I know it's not white like the box photo shows but not implausable as MPC / Multiple Toymakers put whatever color that came off the line into the boxes to make a set. BTW this set also did not come with the blue-base domes shown on the box cover - it came with the same white domes as the Space Control Center set. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

MPC / Multiple Toymakers Missile Carrier

Getting Spacey: Multiple Toymakers No. 1505 Space Control Center

I have a few Space sets from the gang over at MPC / Multiple Toymakers that I'm going to share. Last year I posted some Cold War era, somewhat Space themed playsets like Playset No. 3007 US Air Force Missile Rocket Command (Mar 2019 in multiple posts) and Playset No. 3004 Missiles To The Moon (May 2019 in multiple posts). While those sets concentrated on the action down here on Terra Firma, the next few sets will plant us squarely on the Moon or in orbit.

MPC / Multiple was the king of re-utilization, even more so than Marx or T. Cohn. They would take the same figures and vehicles, and accessories and use them in a maddening plethora of different sets, only changing the boxes to suit whatever marketing they had in mind at the time. It makes for fun collecting but at the same time it's frustrating. Unlike Marx, there doesn't appear to be a concise volume of cataloged sets available to the collector for reference and there may never be as they have become the underdog of the collecting world. For those of you out there copying the images on this blog - and who actively scour the Web for MPC / Multiple Toymaker images - we'll hopefully be able to fill in some of the gaps for your cataloging actions.

This set consists of modular Space Control Center consisting of two 'pods' connected to a central hub which can accomodate up to four control pods. There is Jet Sled and an Air Hopper, each accomodating one figure. And then there are the ubiquitous MPC 54mm Astronauts. 50 of them! In mundane, workaday poses. MPC had a field day with those guys and offered them up by the millions in playsets and header bags, and who knows what else. They literally pumped these out like there was no tomorrow! While MPC's Ringhand figures were available in action poses and had scores of individual weapons at their disposal, these guys were mostly either in 'peace' mode or in a somewhat guarded mode - carrying, but not aiming/firing weapons. 

I love this set as it brings alive Actual Moon activities, not just rocket launch pads and Cape Canaveral / Kennedy activities on Earth. It gets us there! Of course you can always flesh this out with other toys to make a bigger Moon base, which may have been Multiple's goal in doing all these sets

The Control Center has a nice modular design, a popular concept for extra-terrestrial habitation. It is of course a simplified design with no apparent access or egress from the pods other than to flip the cover up. But that's okay - it's a toy. Four pods can be connected to the central hub. Those pedestals or supports are often times lost or broken and can be a toughie to find.

The Jet Sled was included in several sets in Mmultiple colors.

My Air Hopper sample is broken - it only has three legs! It too was included in multiple sets in different colors

The seven different poses that came in my set. There were 50 individual figures in all