The Merchandise GuideCommlocks and Stun Guns
Compiled by Martin Willey
The Merchandise Guide| Utility Belt |  |
Remco, USA 1976 |
| Space Belt | 
|
Remco-Burbank, UK £3.45 1976 |
| Utility Belt/Ceinture d'accessoires | 
|
Irwin, Canada 1976 |
Remco also produced a Stun Gun, and their parent company Ahi produced many Space:1999 toys. Remco produced utility belts for many licensed properties, including Star Trek, Batman, the Amazing Spider-Man and Mickey Mouse.
The belt appears in John Carpenter's film Halloween (1978)
The box is 37.5 x 20 x 5 cm with plastic window to show contents mounted in card braces. The US and UK interiors differed, because of the different box window size.
The playset consists of:
The belt is 74 cm long, 4 cm wide thick black plastic. Two loops provide holders for the 'gun' and 'detector'. The buckle is 10 x 6 cm oval plastic, showing silver series logo. The stun gun is hooked in by the base of the handle.
The stun gun is 9.5 x 10 x 3 cm grey plastic with black handle. The "buttons" on the handle are just coloured stickers. The left side has a black logo; the right side has the copyright notices. The trigger on the inside of the handle fires 2 cm diameter plastic discs from a spring loaded chamber. A bag of 8 discs provided (blue and red). It is thicker than most stun gun toys.
The compass watch is 19 cm long, 1.5 cm wide black plastic strap with a 3 x 2.5 cm oval buckle, again with silver logo. 'Watch' is 3.5 cm diameter grey plastic, with a blue and orange sticker showing dial face & 3 small dials within it. The same watch appears in the Superman and Buck Rogers utility belts.
The radiation detector is 5 x 11.5 x 3.5 cm hollow black plastic toy with a 3.5 cm long extendable yellow aerial. There is a 3.5 cm diameter silver dish set in the front. The only branding is a yellow oval sticker (2 x 1.5 cm) announces in red letters "Space 1999 Radiation Detector". It appears as a "radio"/Walkie-Talkie in the Batman, Captain America and Spider-Man sets.
Below: 1976 Remco catalogue shows a different "radiation detector". The pictured version looks like a commlock (upside down and stylized, but recognisable). In the released set it is actually the same as the Bat Walkie-Talkie from the Batman Utility Set.
The stun gun is a flashlight here, not a disc firing gun, and the compass watch is a different design too.
Thanks to Gordon Moriguchi
The box is identical to the US box, but with some French text and the Remco credit re-badged to Irwin Toy Ltd of Toronto. In Canada, Irwin was the largest distributor of toys, mostly from US companies who were blocked from the Canadian market because of tariffs (this changed after the 1987 Canada-US free trade agreement; by 2001 the struggling company was sold, then went bankrupt).
Burbank Toys were a UK toy company based in Wellingborough which made dolls, and also imported US brands into Britain, including Mego, Mattel and Remco. Unlike Canada's Irwin Toys, then retained the Remco brand but created their own box design.
Comparison with the Technical Notebook (1977). The shape and most details are distorted.
Copyright Martin Willey