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Welcome to Show #277!
Joining Tim, Summer and Jeremy this week are collector hounds Neil from Bowie and Alexander from Slovakia. Sadly, we open this week’s show in remembrance of Michael O’Hare, who passed away after several days in a coma following a heart attack.
Condolences for his family and fond memories of his time on Babylon 5 were prevalent across Facebook and Twitter.
Discussion: Oh, the humanity! This may be the longest non-interview episode we’ve ever done.
Even with Warner Bros being inconsistent with licensing terms, pulling licenses before items were completed or in some cases, had even gotten off the drawing boards, there’s still a LOT of stuff out there for a dedicated Babylon 5 fan to search for and immerse themselves in.
We try to cover the major and some of the minor items that might still be available in various corners of the web and collector shops, and marvel at how many small items slipped passed our notice over the years:
- Dolls and Action Figures
- Ships: models, toys and miniatures
- posters and prints
- trading cards & collectible card games & other RPG and video games
- stamps, calendars, specialty books, international versions of the books
- screensaver and soundtrack and episodic soundtrack CDs
Anyone want to test out creating 3D prints of B5 ships?
There’s probably more out there, so call or email us and let us know if we did miss anything cool!
Submitting your own Feedback: If you have any suggestions or comments, please let us know! Call, or just email us a comment you’ve recorded yourself!
Lurker’s Guide 2.0: Summer is expanding the documentation to be covered at Lurker’s Guide 2.0, the major change being converting the episode guide into a full Wiki with cross-referenced topics, tidbits and everything you’d want in a Wiki. She’s also still searching for pictures of rare collectibles, photos of magazine covers and toys, and all sorts of other B5 goodies that didn’t get included in the original guide during the years after Crusade. Let her know if you want to lend a hand.
More Parody/Filk Songs Wanted: If you know of any more B5-related fan songs out there, definitely let us know, so we can let other B5 fans know where to buy them! And if those CDs are out of print, let’s brainstorm on ways to get those songs back out there for fans!
Babylon Podcast Social Communities:
Twitter: @babylonpodcast
Babylon 5 Information Gathering: If you know of a dead or abandoned B5 related website that may be in need of a new home, let Summer know! Maybe we can mirror it here or house it on a sister site.
If you can, Please Donate to the funding of the show!
Promo: Slice of SciFi
This podcast episode did not come through iTunes.
It came through my iTunes subscription, and I see it listed in the iTunes Store under the show listing right now… how are you subscribed?
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-babylon-podcast/id118334327
Hi Summer.
Remember the 6 inch figures (I’m lucky enough to have a complete set) each have a vehicle included. That’s where you’ll find what you think is a larger Micro machine of the Minbari Cruiser and station. For my money, the figures (and ships within) had mediocre sculpting. Unappealing and not very good likenesses. (the Lyta doll was especially homely. I bet Pat hates it) They couldn’t even get the color scheme correct on the 6-inch Kosh. Most of the small figures had paint variations to get two ‘different’ figures out of one sculpt. Some, I presume are rarer than others. They never did a 12-inch Kosh, which would have probably been relatively easy to manufacture and look decent. Ah well. Or a big Shadow critter.
There is a series of lead gaming miniatures of many of the vehicles that is pretty good….but you have to build and paint the little things. The Micro-Machines are excellent, given the scale and I wish they did more like the Earth Force Destroyers, atmospheric Starfurys, B4 and Shadow ships (and ships from the spinoffs and movies). But we were probably lucky to get as many as we did. These MM sculpts and paint jobs were superior to the larger ones that came with the figures.
Hey Lance,
there are definitely larger Micro-Machine versions of the station and the Minbari cruiser… I’ve seen pictures of them still in their original packaging, and I believe it was Brad Bowyer who managed to find a single pack station that had been signed by JMS, just sitting in some random toy store.
They show up on ebay from time to time, ranging in price from $20-$40 whenever I’ve happened across them.
Here’s a photo of each:
http://www.finalfrontiertoys.com/other/other-movies-television/babylon-5/babylon-5-space-station-moc-c-9.html
http://www.finalfrontiertoys.com/other/other-movies-television/babylon-5/minbari-cruiser-moc-c-9.html
Wow. Thanks. i learned something. and I considered myself very through about the B5 toys. I wish there were something in those pics for scale.
Did you know about Hugh Fleming’s ‘Season 3 one-sheet’ poster? It’s gorgeous. Hugh is a very nice fellow from Australia who paints somewhat like movie poster God, Drew Struzan (trust me. You know Drew’s stuff). Anyway, he did a limited edition of this poster. Mine’s signed by him and jms and well-framed. IMHO, the best piece of B5-Related art this side of the Lightspeed prints.
Here’s a pic. It is as large as a standard movie one-sheet…
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=hugh+fleming+babylon+5&num=10&hl=en&tbo=d&biw=1743&bih=1008&tbm=isch&tbnid=Ia9grcwasM481M:&imgrefurl=http://fuckyeahb5.tumblr.com/post/27770296494&docid=IXAMn7M-6VZ2hM&imgurl=http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7esmbbIwK1r0a1buo1_500.jpg&w=500&h=711&ei=_GikUPazKJH1iQKuxYHADw&zoom=1&iact=hc&dur=2958&sig=107583593471600812551&page=1&tbnh=136&tbnw=110&start=0&ndsp=62&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:76&tx=105&ty=120&vpx=95&vpy=113&hovh=268&hovw=188
PS 1: Same base fail on both my metal Omega AND B5 station. Grrrr
PS 2: Damn! I need to know more about those larger Micro Machines! Sorry to ‘correct’ you about them. I should have known better.
There are two different color schemes for Kosh. The off color was a collectible edition. There are Ivanova and Delenn variants as well.
@Lance, I think those packages are about the same size as the 3-packs, maybe a teensy bit larger, just the size of the ship inside is different. I wish I could say for sure, but I’ve never seen one in person.
I also never delved too deeply into the posters, simply because there were too many to choose from! I used to own a rare German poster, but I resold that a few years ago (mostly because I didn’t have anywhere cool to hang it).
I don’t mind being corrected, especially when it’s on stuff I never knew existed and therefore never got to see, but most of the time, when I find something, I remember it!
If you dig up anything on those single Micro Machines, let us know… I couldn’t find out anything either, not when they were made, or why those two were the only ones made. I think a larger Vorlon ship would have been really sweet.
Another PS. I actually made pretty decent iTunes art for all (or almost all) of the B5 Episode soundtracks using the images on the discs. I’ll gladly send them to you to share with your listeners.
So, Bab Podcasters, Please private E-Mail me an address where I can upload them. You can make them available to your listeners however you want.
Cheers,
Lance
I was listening to this episode, all ready to e-mail in about 3D printers when the subject was brought up… I think I audibly shouted “YES” on the train at this point.
Here in the UK there are services that’ll 3D print stuff for you, although I don’t know how expensive they are. We have at least two 3D printers in my University, although the ones I know about have some limitations and are only so precise. The robotics lab nearby has some snazzier 3D printers.
If only I could get hold of some compatible station/ship model files and then convince somebody to let me use precious equipment for my whimsical B5 fan purposes…
Still, worth checking out the 3rd part services; there’ll be some in the US too – might be cost effective if done in the right way, with the right group of people pulling together.
when I had time and space to build model rockets, I caught wind that our engineering department was considering a demo of a 3D printer. I was lobbying hard to get some rocket parts made (specifically a nose for a scale Vostok model). Alas, the demo fell through and my dream of custom parts dashed upon the shoals of reality.