MOON EXPLORER - ALPS BANDAI - JAPAN

Grey/blue tin plastic battery operated robot. Advances with walking motion, moving arms and flashing head lights as his chest clock turns, color wheels spin and pistons move.

It is one of a group of Alps robots based on the same molds: Rocket Man (1963) Moon Explorer (1966) and Missile Robot. It bears a strong resemblance to the Alps Television Spaceman but the scale of the components is appreciably larger. The metal antenna, however, is the same. This robot has only been confirmed with the metal antenna - just like the box illustration.

The first sighting of the Moon Explorer is in Alden's Catalog for 1966.

Unlike its TV Spaceman cousin, there do not appear to be any significant variations of this robot, suggesting that it had a relatively short production run.

The Bandai reference is taken from the box: it appears that this robot was made by Bandai for Alps, but this connection hasn't been fully researched.