Vintage Spy Toys

I’ve written here before about the joys of virtually “thumbing through” old Christmas catalogs on the Wishbookweb.com site, and while the holidays are behind us for a while, there’s still plenty of time-traveling fun to be had from perusing those pages.

For instance, a review of the 1966 JC Penney Wishbook takes us back to the height of the Spy Craze with a plethora of delightful, kid-oriented playthings themed around shadowy figures who kill people for a living: secret agents.

Starting things off we have an U.N.C.L.E. transmitter/receiver for all your pretend adventures as TV’s then-reigning superspy Napoleon Solo. With this state-of-the-art communications device you can transmit secret messages to a fellow agent holding a receiver on the other end of a 20 foot-long cord.  Then again since you’re a spy, maybe it would attract less attention to just walk those few steps over to Illya and talk to him like a normal person.

Actually I can’t believe they missed such an obvious marketing hook: “Want to deliver the last word in superspy adventure? Just say ‘UNCLE’!”

Meanwhile, there’s this famous assortment of Corgi die-cast cars, including one that outdoes the transmitter/receiver in its disregard for secrecy, with a gigantic “U.N.C.L.E.” logo emblazoned across the hood for all to see. And hey, even if you’re not so “cute” in the eyes of the girls at school, maybe they’ll be dazzled by that handsome Robert Vaughan headshot on your bonus ring. I’m guessing this combo probably sold very well in ’66, but I’m not sure it had much of a shelf life beyond that. However, the James Bond Aston Martin DB5 pictured with it was a perennial moneymaker for Corgi well into the 1970s.

Crashing this otherwise spies-only party is the TV Batmobile, the only model that could match and maybe exceed the DB5’s sales.

And no, I have no idea why the Aston Martin is painted gold when James Bond’s was silver. I do know there are many, many examples of the gold version in the hands of collectors around the world.  Maybe the gold color scheme is to reinforce the connection to Goldfinger, the film that put 007 on the map for many filmgoers? If so, it was a miscalculation, as kids tend to favor toys that are “screen accurate.” If I’d been making my Christmas list, I’d have ruled it out just for this reason and asked for the Batmobile instead.

I actually got my (silver) Corgi DB5 before I saw Goldfinger, so at first I was confused as to why exactly a driver would want to leave his vehicle via ejector seat.  Was anyone ever really in that much of a hurry? Then I finally realized the steering wheel was on the right side of the car, so the guy you launched with the ejector seat was a passenger.  In my defense, a Korean henchman and a Scottish superspy looked pretty much the same at that scale, especially with what passed for “paint applications” on a Corgi figure, but even in grade school I should’ve known 007 wouldn’t be caught dead in blue coveralls.  I still have the car, but that little blue bad guy disappeared ages ago.

The big red bats on the Batmobile’s wheels mark this as the earliest of many iterations of the toy, and Robin is painted with the same shiny gold cape I remember on the one I owned.  Robin could be removed but Batman was pretty well wedged in behind the steering wheel, so the Caped Crusader remains at the controls of my Batmobile, while the Boy Wonder long ago joined “Korean Henchman” in the Land of Lost Toys.  I wonder if I ever tried to fire Robin out of Bond’s ejector seat?  He’s probably just lucky Batman never thought to install one.

Next we have an assortment of family board games organized in ascending order based (more or less) on their importance to American culture in 1966: Zorro, UNCLE, Bond, God.

I love that the Bible game is themed around the Ten Commandments.  I just wish I could read the little squares:  “You deliver the Isrealites.  Advance 5 spaces.”  “You covet your neighbor’s wife. Lose a turn.“

There’s another full page devoted to U.N.C.L.E. and 007 goodness.  I can’t do it justice at reduced size, so please check it out here to get the full effect.  

Finally there are options for the more “generic” spies in the crowd (and wouldn’t that be the best kind, really?). Penney’s offers a virtual plastic arsenal to protect you from enemy agents in the service of Communism and criminal consortiums with cryptic acronyms:

You know you’re visiting yesteryear’s toy department if you hear the heartwarming sound that once brought such joy to innocent young children everywhere: “Rat-Tat-Tat!” Still, the camouflage design on that machine gun makes me suspect this “spy toy” is just a cynically repurposed “Army toy” that didn’t sell the previous year.

Otherwise, though, perusing this page is like browsing the work benches in Q-Branch. That’s a harmless portable radio, right? No! Presto-change-o, it’s a gun! Rat-tat-tat! Hey Sis, let me take your picture with this harmless little movie camera. Just kidding, it’s a gun, too! Rat-tat-tat! Poor Jimmy, he showed up at this gun fight with nothing but a pocket knife. No, wait, it’s a gun, too! Rat-tat-tat! Do I detect a bit of a trend, here?

Anyway, I wish I’d been old enough to enjoy this period, which let’s face it is unlikely to ever be repeated. Of course the beauty of playing “secret agent” is that you don’t even need to buy special items if you have any imagination at all (“This just LOOKS like a Hello Kitty umbrella…”) but still, it must have been awesome to have so many toy companies toiling away to make your backyard spy missions as thrilling as possible.