Bibelots on Thi's things

80s >beep boop<: Playmospace bots

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

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I randomly found out about Playmospace a while ago when browsing for retro toys content on YouTube. One of those reviews showed a little blue Robot, old-school looking, almost with a retro-futurist look. Of course I instantly fell in love.

Little I knew what rabbit hole I just stepped in.

A bit of history

I’ve been a LEGO guy for the last 30 years, and every time I’m looking at another toy brand I’m thankful of websites like Brickset, Bricklink and the various LEGO wikis. They all are goldmines of information and almost every piece of media is documented.

Unfortunately here, Playmobil are not that documented, at all (at least from my short experience). Few sites were helpful, linked in the last part of this blogpost.

Playmospace

Playmospace is Playmobil’s space theme (who could have guessed), released in 1980 (only one year after LEGO classic space!). It portray a bunch of coloured spacemen exploring space with their Robotic friends and crazy moonbases.

The first robot I’ve come across is this little chap, who appears to have first gone on sale in 1981 in set 3591 Astronaut/Robot

This “not R2D2 with arms” is very simple to say the least, yet very charming. He will be released in multiple sets, sometimes with different labels (XY-6 or GE5P) and tools.

Playmobil being released in many places, and each one having its own factories, it’s very hard to keep track of sets, releases, dates and such.

This little dude was in stores for three years, being replaced in 1984 by a more sophisticated counterpart, less obviously inspired by world’s most recognised Astromech droid.

Now on wheels

GE5P’s older brother, or at least Playmobil’s new standard issued Robot companion is commonly referred to as “3318”, which is in fact the set number of which it first appears.

Blue variant (3318) is the most common, released in 1984. The black and blue variant (3908) was released in 1985, while the red and yellow (30.18.01) seem to be the rarest. Released only in Brazil in 1983 according to this collector blogspot.

I’m not gonna lie, this robot triggered a wild collecting urge in me. Unfortunately, Playmospace ended somewhere around 1985 (84 or even 83 according to some sources), marking the end of those Robots. Three color variants in two to three years is not that bad.

Modern days

But that’s not it! Playmobil kept the design in their attic (maybe even the original factory molds) and decided, three decades later, that this robot was quite cool and could be reused in new sets.

As such, in 2015, our good friend came back in a huge space set, aka “6195 space rocket with launch site” under the “City Action” line.

Now white and silver, GEO15/16 (what a name!) the trashcan bot has not been modernised a bit. Mine even has a 1983 copyright mark, amongst new CE marking, required on toys since 1990 if wikipedia is to be trusted on that.

One year later, in 2016, a black and orange version released. To my knowledge, it was only released as a “polybag” in the “PLAYMOBIL PLUS” line. This line aims (or used to) at releasing accessories and add-ons for actual Playmobil sets. As such, with a limited run and fewer places to purchase it, set 6511 Space Robots is very expensive and hard to get.

The plastic robot factory then took a break for three years, waiting 2019 to release two new variants.

First one is very close to Geo15/16. Released in set “70110 Mars Mission Play Box”

Still white and silver, this new canbot has more lime green printings and features the 2019 mars mission logo on its head.

The same year, set a second set with the same name but number 70307 is released, featuring exactly the same content but trading our vintage-looking robot for a lame humanoid-looking one. Literally a “you vs the robot she told you not to worry about” situation.

2019 is also the release year of Playmobil: The Movie. And as Benny was the cool blue retro space-age character in The Lego Movie, Playmobil has Robotitron, a return of the first blue wheeled robot (3318) from 1984.

Robotitron was made widely available as part of the mystery / blind bag figures line dedicated to the movie (set 70069).

Wile not being an exact remake of the 1984 robot (silver instead of light grey face, new parts sculpts), the wide release of this figure allows for a very low price and great abundance on second hand market.

A hard to complete collection

To sum up, we have 7 main variants of the wheeled robot. Two of which are either expensive or totally unobtainable (looking at you, red one!)

I’m pretty sure there is a lot of minor variations between factories and releases dates, but my knowledge on those is quite limited at the moment. I enjoyed collecting the ones I have, looking at second-hand lots and digging for a good deal.

I managed to get duplicates of Robotitron, so a custom painted robot is likely to arrive on this blog one day.

Sources

Impressive collection of WBOBAFETT on variantvillan.com, with interesting background knowledge about GE5P
- https://www.variantvillain.com/gallery/playmospace-gallery/
Les Archives de Joe about Playmospace
- https://www.les-archives-de-joe.net/article-58-playmobil-playmospace-presentation.html
walkie who is heavily nerding around the domed bots on imperialgunneryforum.com
- https://www.imperialgunneryforum.com/t7027-playmospace-not-the-droid-your-looking-for (archive.org)

Kinder's Mars Task force

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve always loved getting nice Kinder Surprise figures from time to time. That would be in flea markets, second hand shops or even second hand websites.

I’ve been browsing online catalogues of released surprises for a while, looking at the different art styles, sculpts and universes created by Kinder’s talented designers. I’ll very probably make other posts in this “bibelots” series because, of course, I have a lot of nostalgia and love for them.

Imagine my surprise when I randomly found out about a very cool set I’ve never seen before.

Einsatztruppe Mars

Translated to “Task Force Mars”

From my researches, this (very much undocumented) set of three robots was released in 2002, exclusively in Germany.

Fortunately for me, because these are so obscures and not sought after, I managed to get all three of those in a single listing for ~4€ inc. shipping. Only two listings were available, one on eBay and the second one on Vinted.

My seller was a very nice one. All three bots arrived in a well protected package with very clean BPZs (Beipackzettel, German for notice/instruction).

Every egg contains all the pieces required to build one of three bots. If that wasn’t for Robot 1 and 3 sharing their arms and shoulders, each bot has unique pieces. The capsule/egg itself is also part of the build, used as the main body piece.

The Task Force

Note: I have no clue if the following names are official or not (I doubt it), but that’s the only thing I could find online about them!

610 050 Roboter mit Propeller (Robot with a propeller)

Made of 14 pieces (including two half of the egg), this propeller bot is - in my opinion - the most iconic of the three. With its two little orange antennas and big eyes, it would be a perfect mechanical Minion, if that wasn’t made 8 years before the movie released.

610 047 Halbkapselroboter (Semi-capsule robot)

This… Well, half egg robot is my least favourite. Mainly because it’s the single one of the three that does not uses all the parts it came with, leaving behind the top half of the egg. Made of 11 pieces, this astromech-looking bot feels more like a side-kick than a real “task force heroes”.

The legs can be extended to look a bit less like R2.

640 043 Roboter mit großem Rotor (Robot with a large rotor)

Made of 13 pieces, this bot is very similar to the first one, sharing, as I said previously, both its arms and shoulder pieces. I think the backpack is a really nice addition, with the little antenna and transparent yellow piece. Rotor top is also lovely, reminding me of Inspector Gadget’s iconic helicopter hat.

Thoughts

Overall this is a very solid team of little cartoonish robots, ready to explore Mars and live many adventures. I love the clever use of the egg piece itself as part of the design. This is something Kinder’s designer have done multiple times since, and each time this stands out to me.

During my time collecting various Kinder Surprise toys, I’ve always found captivating the “alternative” versions. Most of the time they are the exact same toy, but in a different colour, and not shown as much on the packaging/BPZ. (More on that in a later post!)

Unfortunately for me (or fortunately for my bank account and storage space), none seem to have been made for these, being only available in this very sweet candy blue.

However, I played a bit with my editing software to imagine what alternative colours of those robots would look like.

While not all looking spectacular, I would totally see myself collecting these… :)

With this blogpost I hope to get them known a bit more, for the love of retro-futuristic cute robot designs.