Early in the MMM collecting craze (meaning early 1990's and 2000's) there were several attempts at producing working Moon Suits for the Astrospace crew. Most of these entailed replacing the arms, which tend to dry-rot and disintegrate over time, with arms from other toy lines or even cutting off arms from astronauts or Callisto and gluing them onto the same holes that previously held the floppy bellows-driven arms. Here are a few images I've saved over the years:
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Tom Wentland's solution
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Patrick Storto's solution
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Grabbed from an online search
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Grabbed from an online search
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From a recent eBay Auction
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You probably get the gist of how these replacements work, there are many more than what I have pictured above and there's actually an advantage to using these types of arms - many can be positioned into poses that hold and some can do a great job at holding a tool or other MMM accessory. But for me, there's something magical in pumping that yellow bellows and having the arms spaz outward and upward...
Then along came Joe Sikora
I don't normally endorse
reproduction items on my site. There's just too much liability (I'm not talking
legal or monetary here but rather "good will"). If some replacement
part is unsatisfactory to the buyer, I would rather not be responsible for
endorsing it to a visitor to my site. Because of this, I make no guarantees
of any of these reproduction parts and provide a listing of what's available
as a service.
These Moon Suit replacement
arms, however, are an exception to my usual rule of non-committal. As of this
date, these are the finest replacement arms I have ever seen. Not only do
they approximate the original (Joe added on additional lobe to prevent them from being mistaken for original), but they also allow a fully functioning Moon Suit
to be restored to original floppy-arm play value.
I was skeptical at first
because of their high price (I won't go into pricing here except to say that
several sets have sold on eBay's auction at $50+ Joe actually mentioned to
me how much it cost to develop the custom aluminum molds ...the price immediately
became more reasonable!). When I received my set, however, I was completely
blown away! Joe even went to the trouble to create MMM style packaging for
the set. He also includes detailed instructions for the replacement.
My advice...if you want
a Moon Suit that works just like the one you had as a kid, find yourself a
nice shell (make sure that the original internal "piping" is still
in place, and if the original wires are there too, that's a boon). Clean it
up, and order a set from Joe. I think you'll be a happy camper!
I'll have pics of a fully
restored Moon Suit soon (I've been too busy to put them on except temporarily...I
want to fix one up nice for the pics).
Joe Sikora sells these on eBay (eBay ID: joey-s).
Also a similar set is sold by Canadian Christian De Grandpre as a kit that includes replacement wire (email: frenchboomer@hotmail.com or eBay ID: frenchboomer)
Unfortunately many of our past resources have run silent, through retiring or just quitting social media. If you know of anyone that's referenced and can drop them a line and then provide updated info, it would be really appreciated. Thanks!
Should anybody reading this have any similar information, additions or corrections, then we would very much appreciate hearing about them.
All Mattel images and captions are copyright Mattel and used without permission. All other content, including images and editorial, is Copyright © 1997-2023 John Eaton and/or contributors unless otherwise stated. If there are any comments or objections, please contact John Eaton.
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