The Merchandise Guide
Mattel Eagle
by Martin Willey

MATTEL SPACE: 1999 EAGLE 1 SPACESHIP

by E. James Small

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Mattel's Space: 1999 Eagle 1 Spaceship is molded in white styrene plastic (main body and command module), red styrene (main engines and command module pilot seats), clear tinted styrene (top command module hatch, passenger pod windows, and engine/command module release triggers) and gun metal gray soft plastic (all engine bells, landing gear, shoulder pod thrusters, crane, two pod chairs, bottom hatch, weapons and weapons rack). The toy Eagle is 31.5 inches long by 13.5 inches wide.

The spine and side pipe work are molded all in one piece, with the structure mounted to the main body with push-on grommets from the inside. Removal of the spine section is impossible without breakage due to the fact that the toy was assembled before the main body halves were glued together. The main body and shoulder pods are all molded together in the form of two pieces, top and bottom.

Jim Small's daughter, Flori - one of the youngest Space: 1999
fans - is not much bigger than Mattel's Eagle.

All decals on this toy have been replaced with exact duplicates of the originals. I scanned in the original decals, repaired their flaws (such as cracks and dog-eared edges) in Photoshop, then had new ones laser printed onto label paper. They are indistinguishable from the originals (except for the "Alpha Moonbase" logos, which tend to look a bit too purple).

The yellowing you see on the seams of the toy is the glue that was used at the factory to fasten the toy together. The glue has yellowed the plastic over time. This is an original flaw common to all these toys, and cannot be removed without sanding and painting.

The black viewport notches in the command module were painted at some point, presumably by the toy's original owner. The toy originally came only with black die-cut stickers that went only on the top two notches. According to the instruction sheet, decals were not provided for the bottom set of windows. Original owner Paul Ettinger had done such a good job painting these areas, I decided not to strip the paint or replace the decals.

The three figures that came with the toy are, as far as I can tell, in every way complete and unaltered. The only seated figure is Professor Bergman. All the figures have movable hips and shoulders only; their heads do not turn. The figures appear to be cast in flesh-colored plastic with the spacesuit secondarily molded in orange over the flesh-colored armatures. The bodies of Commander Koenig and Dr. Russell are actually identical, with the exception of their faces!

There is no paint used anywhere on this toy (except the non-original command module windows, mentioned above). Except for the labels, parts were molded in the plastic of their respective colors.