Ha - it's just a disguised Pepper's Ghost effect, with an added sound effect! Very clever. Did some digging, and it cost $8.88 in 1966, which is equivalent to $69.42 in 2022 dollars.
I was watching the commercial for this and i thought this wasn't real. Until your channel was recommend about this toy. Keep up on what you do because I will not thought all this was made up.
Enjoy watching you bring these vintage toys back to life. As a young boy I was good at taking things apart to see how they worked. As an adult I spent a lot of time fixing the kids toys when they were broken. Nothing this complex though! Thank you!
Yes, I find my adult attraction is to the complex toys. My biggest challenge, which I set aside years ago and will eventually take up again, is trying to get my Hubley Jungle Hunt working again. That thing is a crazy contraption of plastic conveyor cogs, a plastic and metal gun with a hard snap--and you know how metal wearing against plastic is never a good thing. And that gun is glued together and when you try to separate it, chunks break off. Soft plastic where it should be something else, pieces that break off just by looking at them, a real nightmare!
Great video, you have again shown us something that may never have been seen before by viewers. I can see how a young child would of loved this toy, when it worked.
Thank you Michael. I remember my dad had it out and was fiddling with the triggers and the batteries, and at one point it flashed and blipped--but never did again.. At 6 years old, I still didn't "get" what it was supposed to do, but I knew it made noise and flashed something. When it did it, I jumped! So, obviously, as I showed in the video, that front contact was simply not working. I would suppose that they simply jiggled out of tolerance by shipping, or were not rigorously tested before packing, or both. This toy was not cheap when it came out, so I would think that is why my dad did not attempt to fix it! My guess is, since we tried two different ones and neither worked, that this was a major issue for Multiple Toy Makers and they received a ton of returns. I never saw them in the stores again. I remember the GEM store had a huge stack of them. The next time I was in there they were all gone.
This explains everything. My neighbor got one for Christmas. It was so cool but broke soon after he got it. I was honored to shoot it one time. It was mesmerizing.
Saw a recording of the commercial for this thing floating around, instantly reminded me of some of those man-portable anti-drone lasers coming out nowadays.
For the comments on the laser sound, yes, it is a bit high pitched and irritating. Keep in mind that I am using an auto-gain built-in camera mic on this, and the camera mic is right next to the output speaker when I am showing the inside view. I watched this with headphones on last night on about 65% volume and the noise was WAY more than it is in real life!
@@TheLakabanzaichrg obviously it’s edited to be annoying so people in comment will complain, but since it’s an interesting toy people will probably still watch it. Ffs how hard is it to fix audio on your own videos?
@@michaelh.1262 I don't know, how hard is it to pull your head out of your ass? It must be a real bitch to be you, getting your panties in a wad over the audio in a free video. Oh, and how typical, just checked out your channel and absolutely no content.
I don't know what age you are, but in my experience, the older I get, the faster time flies. Last year, I got my 1970 Corvette back on the road, it had suffered from fuel issues for a while and I garaged it. I removed the carb, which had become troublesome, and sent it to a specialty house that does not rebuild them, but remanufactures them. They sent it back fixed and I put it on a parts shelf, knowing I needed to replace the fuel tank, pump, and a few other things. Finally I got around to it, my son got me a great fuel tank kit for Christmas, and I replaced the tank, fuel sending unit, lines, pump, and put on that sassy new carb. It now runs great. I looked at the mailing label of the carb when it was sent back to me, and that was 2013. I was having issues with the car a good year before that. So, it was almost 9 years since I took that car off the road before getting it going again. It seems like three years. Astonishing.
My grandfather is a plazer war veteran 😊 he remembers how these guns lead to the " a - googoo- gaagaa " massacre. It all started when a group of Soviet toddlers accidentally shot down a German ' ice cream truck hunting sattelite ' using these guns. As a consequence 90,000 pampers filled with poop were dropped on the unarmed toddlerian population of Moscow . My grandfather personally shat 17 times a day to save the bio weapon for retaliation.
Fascinating toy. Real cool video you made. I have no idea why i am so intrigued by this, but that is a compliment to your video reporting skills. Well done 👍👍
I remember a door flip up after the explosion, to block your view, as if the whole thing expoded and is gone. Also, after I saved up the $8 to buy it, and showed it to my mother, she informed me that I wasted my money on a piece of junk. I was really expecting better visuals, as the commercial made the effect look better than it actually was.
It would be amazing if a new, more durable version of this was made. I wonder what kinds up upgrades could be made with the new technology available. You know, rebuild it... but don't spend too much. Different sound effects/Lazer effects with each color selection (you change the color filters to include patterns... Need to experiment with it.) You could probably 3-D print a new body out of more durable plastic. Maybe a low grade night vision mode? Even just a new LED bulb would really kick that device way up a notch. Super bright. Actually, smart phone integration and Altered Reality would be the logical evolution this toy would have if it had stayed on the market to the current day.
Oh you are right. Light technology has advanced so much. I get these inexpensive flash lights, brand name "Defiant", that are are rubberized, durable, and $25. I have a bunch of them. I have lit up the transformers on my electric pole from the ground, and I swear it is bright enough that someone could work on them in the middle of the night. Imagine that mechanism inside a new style gun. And as you mentioned, you could have great sound effects, a shaker effect, all sorts of things.
The only real shame is that newer versions of this would likely not include the "cap gun" function. It's an effective way to generate the explosion sound _and_ it has the bonus of that scent that lingers. I haven't seen caps even sold in stores since I was in High School. They have many electronic replacements for explosion sounds. It could even be tied to "weapon selection" if the color selector had those modified filters to alter the weapon FX. Or, for real complexity, the light filter would change the laser sound with it's appearance, but a separate selector would list the target type and generate a sound based on that... Buildings, ground vehicles, aircraft could all have different explosion sounds. Depending on how demented you want the toy to be, it could have a variety of human screams, animal noises... Or on the lighter side monster noises and ghost sounds. A frequency modulator could be used to account for distance, size, and... Comedy. I suppose if you were going to give an energy weapon a scent to create, Ozone would be the most realistic. Can that be replicated with an air ionizer? Of course, you could alternatively create some sort of aroma therapy function in the toy. If the toy still used an incandescent bulb for the laser, theoretically that could act as a heat source for warming up scent oils... Sorta like Easy Bake Oven meets Essential Oils. The smells could be industrial like train steam they could be humorous, like fart gas they could be silly fun like popcorn or cherry... Or they could be mildly disturbing, like cooked bacon. I wonder if bacon grease could be used to fuel the scent generator... Or would that be terribly messy? Lots of room to work with there. And, with each function you add, you have an excuse for adding more futuristic looking controls... _With function_
@@TyPhenirW0LF These are all really excellent ideas. How about this....a built in effects generator, driven by a small computerized circuit. Anything you aimed at would become an animated image that really does explode......it would be fine to be a little cheesy, that would be the fun of it.
Yes...when I got the first one (years ago!) it was like turning time back. I had not seen the item since I was a very young child. And of course, figuring out what it was supposed to do and getting it working was very satisfying.
There is a CZcams home movie that you might be interested in seeing titled...Christmas 1966. In it, some kid gets a Plazer for Christmas. There are several vids with the same title, but this one is 6:39 in length, and you can see the Plazer on the thumbnail in the lower right corner, underneath the time code.
Bad Ass!!! The toys back in our day, the 60’s 70’s and 80’s were awesome , and sure, with an element of danger. But we were tough back then and it added to the coolness and unpredictability of it all.
@@phoenixfireclusterbomb 🤣😂🤣As a child I can remember being the only one out of my cousins that had common sense. They at times pulled those out and rear end headed for shelter
You know, you hit on a very good point. I am actually quite excited about the future of 3D printing. From toy parts to things like plastic automobile exterior trim and interior bits, especially for models that aren't popular cars like the Mustang/Mopar/Corvettes out there--the 3D printing world is quite interesting. I bought a small one two years ago and have yet to set it up! I have no idea what kind of capacity it has to create anything I need, however, I see a new type of cottage industry springing up, where people specialize in certain areas and make brand new parts.
What you call the "lens"--the 45 degree angled, tinted plastic window--is a beamsplitter. It is tinted so that the brightness of a daytime target seen through it be not be so bright that it overwhelms the 'laser' beam. Your polycarbonate sheet is vastly superior to the original thin sheet, because its flatness--compared to the undulations in the original, flexible material--renders a much straighter 'laser' line. I would have liked a closer examination of the Fresnel (pronounced, FreNELL, by the way ;) ) lens/reflector. It appeared to be a section of a circular lens, with arcuate steps. This would necessitate a reasonably careful centering, so that the 'laser' line is oriented perpendicularly (pointing straight upward) and not have a bit of a curve to boot. The upper hood, being of a light toned plastic, lets a fair amount of light through. A really nice refinement would be an opaque blackening of the whole interior, resulting in a black 'cave' one is looking into. This would make for a better view through the tinted beamsitter. The rear lamp, lit for the explosion effect, is not brighter due to its being nearer to the beamsplitter. Rather, it's mostly because its light is not filtered and hence dimmed. A filter which induces a notable color purity of hue necessarily reduces the total brightness a fair bit. Especially for a primary color, like red, green or blue. And most *especially* blue for a tungsten filament lamp, as here. I really enjoyed this deep dive into the innards of this neat toy. I had already guessed the basic design before that look inside, but the Fresnel lens element was a surprise. I had imagined a slit the light shone through, gradually revealed by the moving light blocker. The Fresnel is more elegant, in that there is no requirement to fully illuminate a physical slit with a collimating lens, which can be trickier to achieve consistent alignment for. Thanks!
Thanks for the input and the technical observations, I totally enjoyed reading them. I am glad you appreciate the design of this! You might enjoy my Ideal Fighter Jet as well.
Could be completely wrong, but apparently the guy who invented the plazer was a physicist who also designed a laser for the U.S Military around the same time. This is according to a commenter claiming to be the child of the inventor on a different Plazer vid.
@@Capo321 I saw her comment too but didn't see the part about what he did as a career or the US Military...the post I saw was just that her did invented it. I saw her remark on the commercial for the Plazer. Unfortunately, youtube no longer lets. you reach out and send a message to another user, they took that capability away. I have no idea why. I do hope she reaches out to me via my website.
I’m confused who asked but this is just a cap gun with a plastic casing, they’d sell you literally anything back then. There is no crazy/impressive technology inside of this toy, when I originally saw it I thought it did more than make an annoying noise then go bang.
Looking at that molded slot on the sides I am betting the original concept had a crossbow type form factor with cosmetic wings on each side until the bean counters trimmed off manufacturing costs possibly at the horror of the original designer. This sort of designer/development wrangling has been an historical issue particularly in the toy industry often resulting in an end product that goes to market that no one is happy with. Crazy stuff but I think the design esthetic of the plazer is pretty solid with or without what ever was meant to be in those side slots.
I’M NOT INTO CONSPIRACY THEORIES, BUT!…. This super seems like a fantastic idea to get a new generation of a civilization (that may very well face conflict with tank/technicals in the near future) accustomed to the function/application/effects of a man portable Anti-Armor missile system. Pretty freaking dark, yet absolutely brilliant toy. I love Cold War Americana. This toy looks VERY preserved too! Love it brother!
Is always a pleasure watch your videos old about american toys. In this footage, besides the memorable Plazer gun I could see some of your other pieces. Do you have a site where I can see pictures of your all entire collection?
I don't have pictures of the entire collection; I have things in a number of places. Please keep your eyes out here, and I am slowly building a website with pictures, just google toykingwonder and you will find it. My email is there for further correspondences if you wish.
I just spent $200 on one. I really appreciate the repair info! I'm good at repair, but this will save me a ton of time! I bought one because as a kid I saw a TV advert where a kid blew away what looked like NYC and tossed away his cap gun lol. Willing to sell a piece of the polycarbonate?
Elliott, if I knew where the remaining piece was I would just give it to you....not sure I might have tossed it. What a GRIND to cut that. Ugh. I believe I just got that off Amazon. I will see if I can look up my past purchases for what that was.
It's not Howdy Doody you have to watch out for, it's that damn Charlie McCarthy.....he one time used his monocle as a magnifier with sunlight on some packing paper I had on my crafts table and nearly burned the place down. I kept him locked in his case for weeks for that stunt.
One thing I waited through every obnoxious firing of the gun to hear you explain- How did the cap fire, was it mechanical through a complete trigger pull, did something rotate and pop it or was it electrical? Fascinating toy and video.
Yes, the front trigger does two things. The first is that it re-routes the current from the front bulb for the "laser" and the electronic sound board, to the rear bulb for the "explosion". Also, if you load the cap cartridge, it will also push the snap hammer inside the cap cartridge to fire the cap. If you don't have the cartridge installed, the rod that pushes the snap hammer simply moves into the empty space.
Ah, I know what you are looking at. That is actually quite a lovely item. It is, interestingly enough, right from the same time period as my this toy, it is a vase believe it or not. It was made for artificial flowers, or colorful long decorations that you would group together into it, and place in a corner, or a very tall bookshelf. Or just leave it as is. In our house back then, we had a built-in bookshelf, that had some tall open spaces in-between the shelves for the books. My mom placed it in there as a decoration. Totally 60s!
For those complaining about the sound for me that would only matter if I gave it to some little kid and he kept shooting me with it but if it's mine hell yeah that's what I call immersion.
Really cool toy and impressively engineered, but that laser sound is super-obnoxious.
You have to become one with the laser sound.
@@ToyKingWonder laser guru
This toy would get you arrested nowadays.
@@ToyKingWonder lol
@@somerandomguy4560 Yes my son.
Ha - it's just a disguised Pepper's Ghost effect, with an added sound effect! Very clever. Did some digging, and it cost $8.88 in 1966, which is equivalent to $69.42 in 2022 dollars.
Hah nice
Yeah that's what I thought too- Pepper's Ghost.
In 6 more months, the "equivalent" cost will be $1000.69........
A red dot tactical sight uses the same effect.
I was watching the commercial for this and i thought this wasn't real. Until your channel was recommend about this toy. Keep up on what you do because I will not thought all this was made up.
If you are in the mood for things that, if described sound like they are made up, get a load of my Astro Scope by Ohio Art video. Far out.
Based on that irritating "laser" sound, I can understand why it stopped working. I expect is was "fixed" by Dad.
Enjoy watching you bring these vintage toys back to life. As a young boy I was good at taking things apart to see how they worked. As an adult I spent a lot of time fixing the kids toys when they were broken. Nothing this complex though!
Thank you!
Yes, I find my adult attraction is to the complex toys. My biggest challenge, which I set aside years ago and will eventually take up again, is trying to get my Hubley Jungle Hunt working again. That thing is a crazy contraption of plastic conveyor cogs, a plastic and metal gun with a hard snap--and you know how metal wearing against plastic is never a good thing. And that gun is glued together and when you try to separate it, chunks break off. Soft plastic where it should be something else, pieces that break off just by looking at them, a real nightmare!
@@ToyKingWonder You have the patience and talent to do it. You’re so good at it you make it look easy but I know it’s not! Thanks.
I bet parents loved when all the boys got one of these. This was definitely a Take It Outside
Great video, you have again shown us something that may never have been seen before by viewers.
I can see how a young child would of loved this toy, when it worked.
Thank you Michael. I remember my dad had it out and was fiddling with the triggers and the batteries, and at one point it flashed and blipped--but never did again.. At 6 years old, I still didn't "get" what it was supposed to do, but I knew it made noise and flashed something. When it did it, I jumped! So, obviously, as I showed in the video, that front contact was simply not working. I would suppose that they simply jiggled out of tolerance by shipping, or were not rigorously tested before packing, or both. This toy was not cheap when it came out, so I would think that is why my dad did not attempt to fix it!
My guess is, since we tried two different ones and neither worked, that this was a major issue for Multiple Toy Makers and they received a ton of returns. I never saw them in the stores again. I remember the GEM store had a huge stack of them. The next time I was in there they were all gone.
@@ToyKingWonder It sounds like a scarce item and a real collectors piece.
This explains everything. My neighbor got one for Christmas. It was so cool but broke soon after he got it. I was honored to shoot it one time. It was mesmerizing.
Jesus Christ, when the cap went off it made me jump. Such a horrifying screech for the laser 😂
"Dad.......my playzer isn't working !!!".
" Yea , son , .....i know ".
You mean a cap going off made you jump ?.
Made by the irritating toy sound toy company.
The screeching sound makes the enemy cringe , like chalk screeching on a chalk board.
This takes "keep your head on a swivel" to a new level
Saw a recording of the commercial for this thing floating around, instantly reminded me of some of those man-portable anti-drone lasers coming out nowadays.
For the comments on the laser sound, yes, it is a bit high pitched and irritating. Keep in mind that I am using an auto-gain built-in camera mic on this, and the camera mic is right next to the output speaker when I am showing the inside view.
I watched this with headphones on last night on about 65% volume and the noise was WAY more than it is in real life!
What about the cap?
@@TheLakabanzaichrg obviously it’s edited to be annoying so people in comment will complain, but since it’s an interesting toy people will probably still watch it.
Ffs how hard is it to fix audio on your own videos?
@@michaelh.1262 I don't know, how hard is it to pull your head out of your ass? It must be a real bitch to be you, getting your panties in a wad over the audio in a free video. Oh, and how typical, just checked out your channel and absolutely no content.
@@michaelh.1262 No answer f-face?
dude even at 27 years old i would have a little bit to much fun with this toy :') where was this when i was younger
Don't worry about age. I have never really grown up. Get yourself a Milton Bradley Big Trak, you'll be busy for hours.
Outstanding!!!!!!!!!
Hey it's ScoutCrafter !
Ten years in the making, judging from your comment on another video! Good stuff
I don't know what age you are, but in my experience, the older I get, the faster time flies. Last year, I got my 1970 Corvette back on the road, it had suffered from fuel issues for a while and I garaged it. I removed the carb, which had become troublesome, and sent it to a specialty house that does not rebuild them, but remanufactures them. They sent it back fixed and I put it on a parts shelf, knowing I needed to replace the fuel tank, pump, and a few other things. Finally I got around to it, my son got me a great fuel tank kit for Christmas, and I replaced the tank, fuel sending unit, lines, pump, and put on that sassy new carb. It now runs great. I looked at the mailing label of the carb when it was sent back to me, and that was 2013. I was having issues with the car a good year before that. So, it was almost 9 years since I took that car off the road before getting it going again. It seems like three years. Astonishing.
My grandfather is a plazer war veteran 😊 he remembers how these guns lead to the " a - googoo- gaagaa " massacre. It all started when a group of Soviet toddlers accidentally shot down a German ' ice cream truck hunting sattelite ' using these guns. As a consequence 90,000 pampers filled with poop were dropped on the unarmed toddlerian population of Moscow . My grandfather personally shat 17 times a day to save the bio weapon for retaliation.
I am glad he was on the giving end of that versus the receiving end.
One of the best toy if the time. What a lucky guy to own one. Dont destroy the city
That toy makes me smile. You arm, get tone and fire. It's like a modern manpad.
I am glad!
After the first 5 secs of the phazer sound mom would have broken it over my head..😆
Congrats on getting your hands on such an amazing piece of history and thanks for sharing your video!
Thank you sir!
A great toy, and a very detailed look inside. Thank you. The shape reminds me of the head of K-9, the robot dog from Doctor Who.
Man I bet the young Space Cadets loved this!
The vintage commercial brought us here...
Fascinating toy. Real cool video you made. I have no idea why i am so intrigued by this, but that is a compliment to your video reporting skills. Well done 👍👍
Thank you! Yes, the thing truly is intriguing. Wondered my whole life what it was as when I got it I was too young to remember the name.
seems that ur channel is underrated...
you're doing a great job dude!
Thank you so much!
I loved how this guy has the time of his life blowing things up with the plazer gun
I had to come check this because I just found out it existed, and I thought it was a typo because my friend's dad is called Placer Rey.
I remember a door flip up after the explosion, to block your view, as if the whole thing expoded and is gone. Also, after I saved up the $8 to buy it, and showed it to my mother, she informed me that I wasted my money on a piece of junk. I was really expecting better visuals, as the commercial made the effect look better than it actually was.
I *just* saw your comment on the commercial from 10 years ago lol. What a payoff 😄
I told you it was going to be good!!!!!
It would be amazing if a new, more durable version of this was made. I wonder what kinds up upgrades could be made with the new technology available.
You know, rebuild it... but don't spend too much. Different sound effects/Lazer effects with each color selection (you change the color filters to include patterns... Need to experiment with it.) You could probably 3-D print a new body out of more durable plastic. Maybe a low grade night vision mode? Even just a new LED bulb would really kick that device way up a notch. Super bright.
Actually, smart phone integration and Altered Reality would be the logical evolution this toy would have if it had stayed on the market to the current day.
Oh you are right. Light technology has advanced so much. I get these inexpensive flash lights, brand name "Defiant", that are are rubberized, durable, and $25. I have a bunch of them. I have lit up the transformers on my electric pole from the ground, and I swear it is bright enough that someone could work on them in the middle of the night. Imagine that mechanism inside a new style gun. And as you mentioned, you could have great sound effects, a shaker effect, all sorts of things.
The only real shame is that newer versions of this would likely not include the "cap gun" function. It's an effective way to generate the explosion sound _and_ it has the bonus of that scent that lingers. I haven't seen caps even sold in stores since I was in High School.
They have many electronic replacements for explosion sounds. It could even be tied to "weapon selection" if the color selector had those modified filters to alter the weapon FX. Or, for real complexity, the light filter would change the laser sound with it's appearance, but a separate selector would list the target type and generate a sound based on that... Buildings, ground vehicles, aircraft could all have different explosion sounds. Depending on how demented you want the toy to be, it could have a variety of human screams, animal noises... Or on the lighter side monster noises and ghost sounds. A frequency modulator could be used to account for distance, size, and... Comedy.
I suppose if you were going to give an energy weapon a scent to create, Ozone would be the most realistic. Can that be replicated with an air ionizer?
Of course, you could alternatively create some sort of aroma therapy function in the toy. If the toy still used an incandescent bulb for the laser, theoretically that could act as a heat source for warming up scent oils... Sorta like Easy Bake Oven meets Essential Oils.
The smells could be industrial like train steam
they could be humorous, like fart gas
they could be silly fun like popcorn or cherry...
Or they could be mildly disturbing, like cooked bacon. I wonder if bacon grease could be used to fuel the scent generator... Or would that be terribly messy?
Lots of room to work with there. And, with each function you add, you have an excuse for adding more futuristic looking controls... _With function_
You could use modern weapon optic projectors. Some are very cheap and could be very easily integrated.
@@Atvsrawsome Excellent idea.
@@TyPhenirW0LF These are all really excellent ideas. How about this....a built in effects generator, driven by a small computerized circuit. Anything you aimed at would become an animated image that really does explode......it would be fine to be a little cheesy, that would be the fun of it.
Excellent job toy king wonder
Thank you sir
Amazing toy. The commercial is equally as impressive too.
My brother had one, got it for Christmas.
I bet you have felt the child version of you whilst making this video 😍
Yes...when I got the first one (years ago!) it was like turning time back. I had not seen the item since I was a very young child. And of course, figuring out what it was supposed to do and getting it working was very satisfying.
Coming here from a trailer of this toy & your comment 11 years ago
Amazing, the first transistorized ray gun
I found one on a bazar in Beirut on 4th August 2020 and I tried it out.
It worked very well 💥
That is amazing that they sold them out that way! Very cool.
There is a CZcams home movie that you might be interested in seeing titled...Christmas 1966. In it, some kid gets a Plazer for Christmas. There are several vids with the same title, but this one is 6:39 in length, and you can see the Plazer on the thumbnail in the lower right corner, underneath the time code.
Dude that sound just ran my pitbull off lol
I could imagine that the annoying sound drove parents nuts.
" Billy , quit menacing your sister with that damn screeching toy OK ?."
@@johnbockelie3899
Regular kid: **beep beep**
German kid: **DAS! DAS! JAAA! JAAA!**
This seems to be a really powerful weapon to give a 6 year old.
Bad Ass!!! The toys back in our day, the 60’s 70’s and 80’s were awesome , and sure, with an element of danger. But we were tough back then and it added to the coolness and unpredictability of it all.
They sure were. I always liked the element of danger in Estes rockets, which I was crazy over.
@@ToyKingWonder heck ya!!! Those were cool! I’ll still buy them if they were readily available… 😊
Worst toy made, lawn darts.
@@phoenixfireclusterbomb 🤣😂🤣As a child I can remember being the only one out of my cousins that had common sense. They at times pulled those out and rear end headed for shelter
Minus 100 Citizen Credits for not showing the scope view of the Plazer. Pretty sure that's what we're all here for.
Can you define what the "scope view" is?
I felt good by watching this video , subbed ! 🌸
Thank you Mohammed.
The missing pieces is nothing a 3D printer can’t fix.
You know, you hit on a very good point.
I am actually quite excited about the future of 3D printing. From toy parts to things like plastic automobile exterior trim and interior bits, especially for models that aren't popular cars like the Mustang/Mopar/Corvettes out there--the 3D printing world is quite interesting. I bought a small one two years ago and have yet to set it up! I have no idea what kind of capacity it has to create anything I need, however, I see a new type of cottage industry springing up, where people specialize in certain areas and make brand new parts.
GREAT WORK
of COURSE you have a slot car track.i remember the smell of those motors to this day
I have a bunch of sets now, all Eldon. Check my videos. Groovy.
This thing is a fever dream in physical toy form..
...which haunted me for decades....
I'm sure if they did a new version of this toy today it would sell like a hot cake, amazing toy.
Leftists would have its production shut down before the first one is ever released. They’d say it encourages violence and white supremacy or something
Thanks for sharing. That was pretty cool.
I imagine there were hundreds of annoyed parents after that thing came out. 😆
Nice. Just like a red dot sight.
It's one of those annoyingly noisy (to adults) toys, that one gives to the kids of a disliked family member, for Christmas.
*If you hate someone get their kid this.....TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE BANG!!!*
The boom sounds like a bomb
What you call the "lens"--the 45 degree angled, tinted plastic window--is a beamsplitter. It is tinted so that the brightness of a daytime target seen through it be not be so bright that it overwhelms the 'laser' beam. Your polycarbonate sheet is vastly superior to the original thin sheet, because its flatness--compared to the undulations in the original, flexible material--renders a much straighter 'laser' line.
I would have liked a closer examination of the Fresnel (pronounced, FreNELL, by the way ;) ) lens/reflector. It appeared to be a section of a circular lens, with arcuate steps. This would necessitate a reasonably careful centering, so that the 'laser' line is oriented perpendicularly (pointing straight upward) and not have a bit of a curve to boot.
The upper hood, being of a light toned plastic, lets a fair amount of light through. A really nice refinement would be an opaque blackening of the whole interior, resulting in a black 'cave' one is looking into. This would make for a better view through the tinted beamsitter.
The rear lamp, lit for the explosion effect, is not brighter due to its being nearer to the beamsplitter. Rather, it's mostly because its light is not filtered and hence dimmed. A filter which induces a notable color purity of hue necessarily reduces the total brightness a fair bit. Especially for a primary color, like red, green or blue. And most *especially* blue for a tungsten filament lamp, as here.
I really enjoyed this deep dive into the innards of this neat toy. I had already guessed the basic design before that look inside, but the Fresnel lens element was a surprise. I had imagined a slit the light shone through, gradually revealed by the moving light blocker. The Fresnel is more elegant, in that there is no requirement to fully illuminate a physical slit with a collimating lens, which can be trickier to achieve consistent alignment for.
Thanks!
Thanks for the input and the technical observations, I totally enjoyed reading them. I am glad you appreciate the design of this! You might enjoy my Ideal Fighter Jet as well.
@@ToyKingWonder Having worked in the optics field, I appreciate and get a kick out of toys which incorporate optical elements and principles.
Could be completely wrong, but apparently the guy who invented the plazer was a physicist who also designed a laser for the U.S Military around the same time. This is according to a commenter claiming to be the child of the inventor on a different Plazer vid.
@@Capo321 I saw her comment too but didn't see the part about what he did as a career or the US Military...the post I saw was just that her did invented it. I saw her remark on the commercial for the Plazer. Unfortunately, youtube no longer lets. you reach out and send a message to another user, they took that capability away. I have no idea why. I do hope she reaches out to me via my website.
I’m confused who asked but this is just a cap gun with a plastic casing, they’d sell you literally anything back then.
There is no crazy/impressive technology inside of this toy, when I originally saw it I thought it did more than make an annoying noise then go bang.
Looking at that molded slot on the sides I am betting the original concept had a crossbow type form factor with cosmetic wings on each side until the bean counters trimmed off manufacturing costs possibly at the horror of the original designer.
This sort of designer/development wrangling has been an historical issue particularly in the toy industry often resulting in an end product that goes to market that no one is happy with. Crazy stuff but I think the design esthetic of the plazer is pretty solid with or without what ever was meant to be in those side slots.
I like old toys good quality
That's rad as hell
Nice toy to get people in to fear or noise
Those people envisioned the SOFLAM 50 years in advance
So it's basically a reflex sight.
It literally looks like it was a toy boat before it was ever a laser gun
Great video love the passion for it! cheers.
Thank you Sir!
Very cool man never seen one before
I’M NOT INTO CONSPIRACY THEORIES, BUT!…. This super seems like a fantastic idea to get a new generation of a civilization (that may very well face conflict with tank/technicals in the near future) accustomed to the function/application/effects of a man portable Anti-Armor missile system. Pretty freaking dark, yet absolutely brilliant toy. I love Cold War Americana. This toy looks VERY preserved too! Love it brother!
If you want the ultimate in Cold War toy savagery, look up Remco's ICBM toy.
A toy that you could hear parents yell, "TAKE THAT D###N THING OUTSIDE, IT'S ANNOYING!!"
We had the best freaking toys ever
Is always a pleasure watch your videos old about american toys. In this footage, besides the memorable Plazer gun I could see some of your other pieces. Do you have a site where I can see pictures of your all entire collection?
I don't have pictures of the entire collection; I have things in a number of places. Please keep your eyes out here, and I am slowly building a website with pictures, just google toykingwonder and you will find it. My email is there for further correspondences if you wish.
Ah, that hollow, squeaky, stressed, sound of cheap plastic.... fired me straight back to my childhood like an out-of-body experience.
Honestly,,woww!!!😯
Back then it was a "cool summer kid's toy" and every kids surround him want to try playing it
You are right. In fact, my birthday is in July, which is when my parents got it for me. Os it was a cool summer toy!
I’m a 90s kid, this would have been the number one toy for cap gun fights like why was this discontinued
Got one of these out of the mystery box once. I killed alot of zombies with this thing.
not funny didn't laugh
@@User56538 ok. Go do some knitting.
I want to jump completely into that mystery box of yours....
I found your channel through that comment, was hoping she had of contacted you but it’s a cool story behind watching a video nevertheless :)
I hope she does Kaiser. If so, I will post the results of our discussion above.
That’s kinda cool, not gonna lie. Way before my time but I’m a little jealous lol.
Seek out the vintage toys Dave, they are amazing.
You could just you know, point a cap gun at whatever you wanted and have the same effect.
Do you still answer questions? Because this is amazing.
Yes I do when I have time. Fire away!
I just spent $200 on one. I really appreciate the repair info! I'm good at repair, but this will save me a ton of time! I bought one because as a kid I saw a TV advert where a kid blew away what looked like NYC and tossed away his cap gun lol. Willing to sell a piece of the polycarbonate?
Elliott, if I knew where the remaining piece was I would just give it to you....not sure I might have tossed it. What a GRIND to cut that. Ugh. I believe I just got that off Amazon. I will see if I can look up my past purchases for what that was.
Elliott I found it: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R931FV6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Not gonna lie, that explosion sound kinda scared me
Well at least you are honest about your reaction, nothing wrong with that!
How many supervillains have this thing in their origin story?
Nice toy roo!m
Thank you Sir!
3d printed switch with better contacts. Problem fixed.
Based off when it came out it looks like they are looking to simulate a nuclear bomb going off. That's the experience.
Why did you destroy that missile base?
Existential reasons.
Algum Br aqui por causa da sugestão do YT?
If Howdy Doody gets his wooden hands on this, we're all fucked!
It's not Howdy Doody you have to watch out for, it's that damn Charlie McCarthy.....he one time used his monocle as a magnifier with sunlight on some packing paper I had on my crafts table and nearly burned the place down. I kept him locked in his case for weeks for that stunt.
cool!
Hell, it's just a break and throwaway toy with irritating laser sound.
At first i thought it was a house boat
basically the player Ray gun is an imaginative way to play to plaster Ray on things to see in the view finder correct?
One thing I waited through every obnoxious firing of the gun to hear you explain- How did the cap fire, was it mechanical through a complete trigger pull, did something rotate and pop it or was it electrical? Fascinating toy and video.
Yes, the front trigger does two things. The first is that it re-routes the current from the front bulb for the "laser" and the electronic sound board, to the rear bulb for the "explosion". Also, if you load the cap cartridge, it will also push the snap hammer inside the cap cartridge to fire the cap. If you don't have the cartridge installed, the rod that pushes the snap hammer simply moves into the empty space.
Why did I not have one of these
There’s a bong in the beginning of the video lol
Ah, I know what you are looking at. That is actually quite a lovely item. It is, interestingly enough, right from the same time period as my this toy, it is a vase believe it or not. It was made for artificial flowers, or colorful long decorations that you would group together into it, and place in a corner, or a very tall bookshelf. Or just leave it as is. In our house back then, we had a built-in bookshelf, that had some tall open spaces in-between the shelves for the books. My mom placed it in there as a decoration. Totally 60s!
I need this
This is pretty much a Javelin missile trainer for kids. 🤣🤣
when imagination was a requirement
Sounds more like a fax machine than a lazer.
Hey, what's the size of the Plazer Ray Gun?
For those complaining about the sound for me that would only matter if I gave it to some little kid and he kept shooting me with it but if it's mine hell yeah that's what I call immersion.
Can someone explain to me what this does?
Did you watch the video?