Ray Gun

Toy ray guns conjure a wealth of meanings & associations. Their outlandish shapes & fanciful colors evoke fond childhood memories of Buck Rogers & Captain Video, of backyard spaceships that blasted off for the endless reaches of space. Toy ray guns are intended to protect us from our deepest fears of the dark unknown. The first toy ray guns were produced in the 1930s, part of the Buck Rogers craze that swept the U.S. This volume provides an intro. to the development of these toys, with vivid color photos of ray guns & their ephemera, such as ads, movie posters, comics, badges & buttons, up to the 1970s, when the toy space guns made in America, Europe & Japan were replaced by high-tech electronic ray guns made in China.Metcalf, Eugene W., Jr. is the author of 'Ray Gun', published 2005 under ISBN 9780756789237 and ISBN 0756789230.