[sub] if a mod feels the need to move this, sorry[/mod]
People have been talking a bit about Steven Spielberg’s other alien movies in light of the recent Taken mini-series, and I now wonder if a favorite toy I had as a toddler might have been related to the Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.
I got the toy sometime in 1978 or 1979 (at least one memory connected to it is from mid-79, but the memory wasn’t of getting it) which was a bit after the movie came out. It was a UFO made of hard plastic and about the size of a frisbee. I believe that the top of it was either white or light gray, and that the under side may have been a darker color. It spun around and had lights, and I think I remember it making a strange whirring sound rather than music. Unfortunately I don’t remember if it spun on its own through the battery power, or if I had to spin it. I’m fairly sure the letters “UFO” were printed on the top side of it, though I probably didn’t know what they said back then (I lost this toy before my 4th birthday, so please forgive the fuzzy description)
Does this sound like something sold based on the movie? Or have any idea what else it could have been? I’d love to look for one on the internet, but would need the name of it to do so.
At the time of “Close Encounters”, merchandising from movies was not near the level of sophistication that it is now. For example, while there were eventually Star Wars related toys, they were not even available by Christmas of 1977, fully seven months after that movie’s release. That would be inconceivable in today’s world. OK, my point is your toy was probably just a flying saucer top of some kind. Unless you specifically remember it playing the “Close Encounters” theme song, I doubt that it was associated with the movie in any way.
It was a suppressed memory of your abduction by aliens.
:eek:
I am an amateur hypnotist, friend. Not only will my hypnosis help you remember so you can appear on Jerry Springer & Unsolved Mysteries, but it will also:
A) make you bark like a dog.
And
B) Get you to take your clothes off in bars for money. (All money involved will be handled by me, of course. Don’t worry–after a few more hypnotic sessions, you won’t even remember I mean think about the money.)
Do you remember if the toy had a plunger on top of it that you pressed down to make it spin? If so, it may have been a plunger top. I remember having one that hummed and flashed lights when it spun. Tho IIRC, mine was zoo-related.
Now that I think about it, I did have a bendy figure of a “Close Encounters”-esque alien, but I think it was an unofficial tie-in.
It had nothing to do with CEOTTK. It was a novelty frisbee. By today’s standards, a shitty novelty frisbee. IIRC, it used 2 ‘D’ sized batteries, so it didn’t fly real well, and it hurt to catch. But the reaction back then, was “holy shit! can you beleive they can make the effects small enough to fit in a frisbee!?!?!” Mine lasted about a week. An errant throw sent it into an oak, and the electronics liberated themselves from the frisbee’s grasp.
btw, the top was mostly white, but had a kind of rounded corner aerodynamic looking parallelogram that housed the electronics that was a darker grey.
