Despite the fact that the toy line ended before I ever gulped oxygen, the Colorforms Outer Space Men are strong childhood memory for me. Not because I ever played with them but quite the contrary, I'm not even sure if I've ever held one.
You see around the time of Star Wars (perhaps you've heard of it) the good folks at Colorforms dusted off images of the OSM for a series of puzzles (pictured here)
These puzzles hit my radar when they showed up at Dominion Playworld in 1978 but the item below completely broke my young brain.
I've mentioned before that I wasn't a super bright child, so it's no surprise that I was convinced that all the figures were in this box. I wasn't sure how but it had to be right? I marched the set to the counter with my mum in tow. My mother mentioned to me " I don't think the figures are in there, it's just some sort of game", I replied "No, i'm sure they're in there" but the clerk deflated my balloon with "that's a colorforms set, there are no figures in there".
This drove me crazy, what kind of company would make these amazing toys then choose to not release them? Were they just torturing us? Don't they realize how awesome they are?
Fortunately as an adult, I got all the answers from the man himself, Mel Birnkrant whose annotated archive of the Outer Space Men is exhaustive and wonderful (and sometimes heart breaking). His website is really worth a visit, see you in a few hours.
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