I think I actually owned some of these...

I like the fact the announcer labels the Falcon a great, black superhero and the hulk a fantastic, green giant. He just can't resist pointing out the coloreds.

It's pretty amazing they were able to license Marvel and DC characters together. I used to have the Hulk. He was awesome. At some point his pants went missing and my mom sewed little blue jeans for him.

It's at least understandable that Conan might have had an afro in the 1976, but when did Mr. Fantastic develop invisibility?

I had damn near all of those as a kid. I think Tarzan, Supergirl and Wonder Woman were the only ones I never got around to buying. I also remember that commercial, vaguely. Or one very much like it. They also made Planet of the Apes characters. I had most of those, too. Christ, that brings back some very fond memories indeed.

Edited to add: I just remembered thay made old school,original Star Trek figures, too. I had a couple of those, too. Plastic phasers and tricorders. The Gorn and the Neptunian (I know, he was never actually in the show) were awesome.

I got damn near all of these - just scouring eBay for an affordable Lizard and I'm all set. My friend Jerry's collection dusts mine though - dude's got the whole Starsky and Hutch collection and ChiPs, as well as Planet of the Apes.

God, I miss Mego - those toys ROCKED.

Mego Museum - if anyone wants to flashback to when they were 5 again, check this site out.

That they did. I go into a Disney store with my wife - a diherd Disney addict if ever there was one - and I see how shitty, how really truly SHITTY, the "action figures" of today look, compared to the cool stuff we had. They don't bend, they're all weirdly proportioned and badly painted. . . just crap. The electronics of today may blow our Atari 2600's & Colecovisions away, but this is one area where old school trumps, no question.

I hear ya. I recently got back into collecting the Megos and completing my collection, plus I discovered the customizing community (needed a Luthor for my Superman - Mego only made Mxyzptlk, WTF?) so I was doomed. Some of my best memories when I was a kid was my parents and grandparents hooking me up with Megos for getting good grades in school (my grandparents hooked me up with the ENTIRE first run of Star Trek figures at one shot based on getting a good report card - fuck yeah, I towed the line!).

Apart from them, I've got a ton of the 5" scale Toy Biz Marvel figures (Marvel Legends just look... off to me, probably due to all the joints) I've been sitting on - time to either open 'em up and display 'em, or throw 'em on eBay (haven't decided yet).

When I was 10 going on 11, I went through a serious superhero phase, which overlapped an additionally serious Planet of the Apes phase. So, while I had all the Mego Planet of the Apes figures, I didn't have any of the superhero ones - I'm guessing because, if that commercial was from 1976, it means I was 12, which means I was getting out of both of those phases as well - the Planet of the Apes ones were earlier, because I had those when I was 10. I do remember that instead of the Superhero action figures, I had, when I was 10 or so, this cool as hell fold out Batcave - it had a handle at the top, and folded up flat so you could tote it around. All the figures inside were cardboard, but the really good, thick kind that didn't bend, and they each had their own flat plastic stand. And the coolest thing was that they just had figures of just about everyone in the Batman scenario - Batman, Robin, Batgirl, figures of all three of their secret identities, ALL the Batvillians, even the obscure ones, plus Alfred, Aunt Harriet, Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara. And part of the Batcave folded out into Wayne Manor. Good God, I loved that thing - I took it with me everywhere.

Is this the one you had, Lisa? I had the Spider-Man set - and the kid across the street had the Superman version.

I used to have the Mego Batcave and my brother had the Planet of the Apes Treehouse. Both, sadly, are LONG since gone (sniff) and go for pretty big bucks on eBay.

"Aquaman - The famous undersea crimefighter"
He fights against crime under the sea?

I think they re-released the Mego Star Trek figures, there was a ad for them in a recent issue of Starlog Magazine.

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Timothy225 again."

Holy shit... I haven't seen that since I was 12. See that center part that folds in? That was where it opened up into the Batcave. I'm gettin' all misty over here - that was absolutely one of my favorite toys when I was a kid.

Yeah, they're in three sets of two (Kirk and a Klingon, Spock and an Andorian, and McCoy and a Romulan). That's it. No Scotty or Uhura. No half black/half white guy. No Gorn. Drat.

According to that link, you can get it for about $100 (ahhh, you don't need to eat this week!). Oh, to have disposable income! :P

I must admit Slade, that definitely counts as a "Cool Mom Moment".

Naaah, not for those. The biggest fight I ever put up on ebay over a toy from my childhood was about eight years ago over this lady:



This is P.J., and she was Barbie's mod "hippie chick" friend. Her hair was always in two ponytails held in place by love beads, she had those lavendar sunglasses on top of her head, and depending on if you had regular P.J. or Talking P.J., she came in two "fun n' groovy" outfits - this is the one I have for her. Despite my superhero and Planet of the Apes phase, THIS was my absolute, hands down #1 favorite toy when I was little. I had her when I was eight or so. When I was 13, we packed up all my old toys and sent them to a children's hospital, and PJ went along. It wasn't until I was grown up that I thought, "Wow, I really wish I'd at least kept my PJ doll." So right before my 36th birthday, I found her on ebay - not mint, but in really good condition, with the full outfit except for her love-bead ponytail ties. I absolutely fought tooth and nail when the auction ended - I'd lost out on about four other PJ dolls prior to that, and I was bound and determined to not lose her. I didn't wind up paying as much as that Batcave is going for - I got her for about $48, which is really good for an original Barbie friend in as good of condition as she was. And she stands proudly on the bookcase behind me as we speak.

I, too had the Mego batcave. And the Batmobile & Batcycle, too. No batcopter, though. But I did have the 'Supervator", a sort of ski-lift like thing; attache fishing line to the base & somehting else some distance away, & put a hero in the chairlift like device & send him on his way.

And I forgot all about the 1/2 black/white Cheron Star Trek figure! He ROCKED!

Anyone remember a sort of Mego-scale GiJoe wannabe called Action Jackson? He had a helicopter pack accessory that I didn't realize was battery operated for a few weeks after my folks bought it. I damn near blew a gasket when Dad took it out of the room for a minute and returned, after having put a AA battery in it (read: working magic to my 5 yr old mind) that actually. . . made. .. the . . . rotor. . . SPIN!

Or how about that OTHER GI Joe ripoff, Super Joe Commander, with the armored vest that lit up? And the green skinned villain with the lightning bolt sword and the cheesy moustache, Daron, or Darklon, or something? And the big, walking 6 legged triceratops lookin' monster that Joe could stop in his tracks with a beam from his chest light? I recall them having a gigantic space ship that came apart & could be reassembled into several smaller craft as well. God, my folks were so good to me.

Lisa, I remember seeing that doll in the picture you posted n the Chewervision thread. Good for you, kid!

Iggy: I would've liked to have gotten the Wayne Foundation set also, but that never happened.

Never had any of the Batvehicles (would've liked a Batmobile), but I did have the Spider-Car. My brother had the Capt. Americacar, and we both had Supervators (we used to race our Megos I was always Spider-man, my brother Chris would be Capt. America).

Action Jackson - hell yeah. He was the forerunner to the Superheroes Mego made. I had his Rumble Cycle, a ton of clothes, and this scuba set where he had this blue and white torpedo thingie he used to ride on or get dragged behind.

I never had any of the SuperJoes (they were a spinoff of G.I. Joe; Hasbro was trying to tap into the Mego/Big Jim market), but they were cool looking. I was more into Big Jim by that point - we got his Kung-Fu Studio for next to nothing at a Going Out Of Business Sale at our local Two Guys. When another Two Guys went down, I scored a Kenner Alien figure.

Ah, the stuff I had when I was a kid - Major Matt Mason, G.I. Joe and his Adventure Team (Remember Bulletman? Mike Power, the Atomic Man? Remember that Arnold Schwarzenegger looking Intruder?), Micronauts, Star Wars, Star Trek, Colorforms, Six Million Dollar Man and Maskatron. Even had a Mego Fonzie with the movable thumbs!

Oh to be young and foolish again. And to have stores like Two Guys, Lionel Kiddie City, Consumers Distributing, Kresge's (K-Mart), and early Toys R' Us within driving distance.

Timothy, your memory is better than mine about stuff in my own apartment - you're right, you can see PJ in my Chewervision thread. I'm at job #2 right now, but I'll get a clearer picture of her later. I really need to get love beads for her ponytails - there are people on ebay who make and sell replacement ones specifically for the PJ dolls.

Iggy, I absolutely remember Action Jackson - he was popular when I was around 10, I think.

No Gorn? Damn, that sucks.

Here's a better shot of her here at home. The doll from ebay, the cat from the ASPCA - both my favorite rescues, I guess you could say.

Two Guys! God, does THAT take me back!

I also had a shitload of Star Wars toys (they became pretty much the be-all end all for the end of my toy buying career), and lots of Micronauts, too.
Never got into Big Jim, but I remember all the GI Joe pals you mention; I had a Bulletman, but couldn't figure out how to make his string flyaway action thing work. I had the OTHER intruder, the one w/ the beard. And who didn't love "The Atomic Man", with that peephole eye & rotating helicopter arm? The coolest GI Jow thing I had, though, was a jeep with a big silver footlocker in the back, loaded w/ grenades, a Colt .45 automatic, and MESS KITS, for God's sake! To say nothing of the .50 caliber MG mounted on the jeep itself. I am actually old enough to remember having the pre-kung fu grip guys, with their fingers permanently spread apart like spiderman shooting a web. Can any of you remember that?

And yeah, I had a Steve Austin & Maskatron, but they never really lit my fire (remember the suction cup arm? We in the 70's were so naive, we actually tho9ught that useless appendage was cool).

I had most of those Megos as well (wish I still did). I don't know if they were stolen, broken, or buried in the backyard. Most of the outfits/shoes/accessories went missing first. But I also had the rockin' Hulk van for them to cruise around in:



In the event you didn't know whose vehicle it was, just check out the giant decals featuring the Hulk's name and face, etc. Much like the old plastic bib Halloween costumes that came with the mask.

Two Guys! I just reread the post and caught that. Let me tell you, the bulk of toys I loved when I was a kid came from Two Guys, Bradlee's or Grant's.

I honestly think one of my most fun Christmases as a kid was what I refer to as my Planet of the Apes Christmas (I had just turned 11). Since I was so crazy for P.o.t.A that year, everyone just made it easier on themselves and got me all the stuff. That was when I got the Mego figures of the Verdon, Burke and Galen (the two astronauts and Roddy McDowell's chimp character, since they were based on the 1975 TV series), Planet of the Apes pajamas, bedroom slippers that were furry and shaped like ape feet and said "Planet of the Apes" on them, the Planet of the Apes board game (based on the movie), a plastic model kit of Cornelius (based on the movie), and a Planet of the Apes metal trashcan for my room. Earlier in the year, I'd also gotten a Planet of the Apes cereal bowl and mug set, and a tee shirt, plus aaaall the trading cards (which were based on the TV series). But Christmas was a total blow out for me, that was great stuff.

Bradlees and Grant's! Damn, that took me back - my family used to hit the local Jamesway as well. Fucking Wal-Mart....

Ig, the only GI Joe vehicle I had was this orange 6 wheeled thing that had this big grey computer looking thing in the back - you'd push a button and GI Joe would bark out an order or something. It also came with a black rubber vulture (?) fro GI Joe to wail on (why the hell did the bad guys for GI Joe wind up about half Joe's size? There was a gorilla, and Abominable Snowman (white gorilla!), a mummy, even the Intruders! Joe could've taken 'em out with a sharp kick in the face).

Lisa, this is for you...


Darkmite, did anyone ever explain WHY the Hulk needed a van? Or a copter? Or an equipment kit? Did Hulk have a lot of mad cash from his TV show royalty checks?

Monkey love! For me, ya shouldn't have!

Ahhh, Jamesway. I also had a job #2 back in the summer of '89 to help me save up to move to NY. It was plain clothes loss prevention at Jamesway - meaning, I spent the summer of '89 chasing shoplifters around our store.

Interesting note - back in the day, when the Apes stuff was in full swing, the local cinema (Director's Chair) did a matinee premiere of one of the Apes films (I think it was Battle for the Planet of the Apes). Some dude dressed up as Cornelius/Caesar rode in on a big, brown, horse at full gallop. He signed autographs, and even signed bananas that he threw out to the crowd. Fuckin' cool as shit! At least, to me since I was naught but a wee lad back then.

We had a Jamesway in the next town over (Lakewood), up until a few years ago. Used to get ALOT of toys there when I was a kid (thanks, Grandma and Grandpa! R.I.P.). From there, it was a short jaunt to Bricktown for Bradlee's, Two Guys, Grants, Kresge's/K-Mart, etc. Now they're ALL gone (sniff), done in by malls and Wal-Mart. What's more, all the stuff we mentioned usually ran around $3 - $5 or so. This was back when I had an allowance (remember allowances? Remember what you had to do for an allowance - good grades, chores, etc.? Remember when you'd agonize for WEEKS over a $1 or $2 purchase?).

God, being a kid rocked back then.

There was a kid lioved in the apartment upstairs from me that was like 7 or 8 yrs older than me,, and much of the GI Joe stuff I got was hand me downs from him when he outgrew toys. I had a 6 wheeled thing, too, and the vulture (but I don't recall mine talking). I think it came w/ the Mummy's tomb set, w/ a saecophagus w/ real mummy & a coiled rubber cobra.

This is what I had, Ig.

I bet you had this. In which case, I'm jealous!

Yep, that's the one. Sorry.

For what? The set you had totally rocks! Nothing to be sorry for. If anything, I probably should've re-phrased my earlier post (did sound kind of curt, my bad!).

Aw, the hell with it - screw work, let's go grab some GI Joes and Planet of the Apes stuff and run over to Lisa's house! If we're extra nice, maybe your Talking Commander with Kung Fu Grip might hook up with her PJ doll!

Unless she's into Dr. Zaius.

Okay, well I may as well confess - I used to make my Barbies "do it" with other male dolls (I never had or wanted Ken). Any little girl who says that she never stripped her dolls nude and laid them on top of each other and then ground their faces together while making kissing sounds is lying (which was as much as I knew about sex when I was a kid - you took off all your clothes, laid down in bed and kissed). My Barbies had particularly good taste in men - they all went after the astronauts from Planet of the Apes. The Peter Burke doll got ALOT of action.

Considering those dolls weren't anatomically correct, stripping them down, lying them next to or on top of each other and "kissing" was pretty much all they could do. It would explain why GI Joe had all those freakin' weapons - poor guy has to get his frustrations out.

Peter Burke got all the lovin', huh? Yet another reason for the apes to hunt his ass.

Amusing side note - at this one job I worked, a friend of mine who happened to be a lesbian used to get some Ken dolls at flea markets, dress them up in Barbie outfits, and put 'em in the rear window of her Jeep. She'd have them hold hands or hugging, surrounded by Rainbow and Pink/Purple triangle stickers. Truly a piece of work. Definitely got a few looks when she drove by, or was stopped at a light.

Yeah, probably because he was my favorite on the show. The Alan Virdon doll didn't do too badly either, but the Peter Burke doll was the Barbies' go-to boy-slut. (Off topic - did you know that James Naughton's younger brother is David Naughton? Just found that out when I hit IMDB. I'm sure the Chewers knew that, but I'm embarrassed that after having crushes on both of them as a kid that I'm just finding that out now. Now that you mention it, they do look a bit alike).

I'm confused now. There's more to it?

I got hip to the fact re: sex thanks to my folks (very liberal, plus my mom was a nurse), and Marlo Thomas on "Free To Be You and Me" or one of those ABC After School Specials. They explained the whole reproductive system to kids. Throw in a lot of PBS and a couple of episodes of "Laugh-In" and I was set... admittedly, it did take me awhile to locate some girl's "bippy", but there we are.

Thanks for the Naughton connection, too, Lisa... I never thought about them being brothers before. See! I learned something new!

Not to derail, but David Naughton: Pepper.

I love ya, Big Jim. Because I was thinking, "It's the Chewers, so at least refer to him as 'American Werewolf in London' David Naughton..." (which I still didn't even do) "...do NOT refer to him as 'Dr. Pepper' David Naughton."

The only additonal "step" my friends and I heard about during sex was that, after taking off their clothes, laying down in bed and kissing, we also heard from another kid that also, the man and woman put their "things" together and peed on each other. (Which, in some circles, I suppose so - Ha! See what I did there? A Golden Showers joke!) I'm sure someone heard that "liquid" comes out of the body parts, and we all just assumed from there it must be pee - after all, what ELSE liquidy would come out of there? And that was how, at age eight, we figured out how a baby was made - you put your privates together and pee on each other. It's sort of like Campbell Scott's story in Singles about being eight years old and having ejaculation explained to him by the doctor with the thick Boston accent. "And what comes out is spam!"

Holy cow. I worked in a Jamesway the summer of 1990.

And I still have the Megos from my childhood, including every single Ape and my Removable Mask Batman. So cheesy, so wonderful.

Good on you, sir! Yeah, they are kind of cheesy, but for the time they were (and still are) pretty damn spiffy. Plus, Mego nailed the likenesses of the Apes, Starsky and Hutch, and Star Trek figures to a T.

If only they signed with George Lucas when he pitched the idea of doing Star Wars figures with them instead of Kenner... they might still be around today. Instead, they said "nah. Not interested. No kid would be interested in Star Wars."

They really did, the facial likenesses of every Mego figure that I can recall is spot on. Case in point - do you remember the 1975 line of Wizard of Oz Mego figures? Two clear examples - Judy Garland, despite being a lovely girl, had a very unconventional kind of look to her features. I'm a huge Oz fan, and this has been a bone of contention with me since I was a kid - out of the dozens of Dorothy dolls released by toymakers over the years, only Mego made a Dorothy doll that facially looked just like Judy Garland.

The other interesting thing of why that line failed so miserably, and I read an article about this - the Wicked Witch doll did indeed look so much like Margaret Hamilton that children were terrified of it. They took the dolls around, pre-release, to a bunch of school kids as a sort of "traveling focus group." The dolls had one of the highest recognition rates that Mego ever saw - I don't remember the exact number, but it was around the 98% figure. And that included Miss Hamilton. No kid wanted anything to do with that doll - they were terrified. And supposedly, that's why that particular line did so poorly - over one doll. Needless to say, they're hard to find on ebay, because almost no one had them.

I remember the Oz line (saw a couple of them in a store when I was a kid), but that's a pretty cool story!

Mego really were spot on when it came to likenesses. Even their Superhero lines were pretty faithful to the source material (Spider-Man originally had a circle of webs on his chest, surrounding the spider, when Marvel asked them to correct the costume. Mego did, and the circle-suit variation is one of the harder figures to get - I got mine on eBay).

There's a lot of cool behind-the scenes stories about Mego. I found out their Iron Man figure was supposed to be Dr. Doom originally, and the Jordache figure started life as a Dr. Strange prototype (I think - both figures were reworked due to production costs).

My brother used to have this figure called J.J. Armes, based on a real-life guy. The guy lost his hands in an accident, and would use these custom made "hands" for his detective work. The figure had a great likeness of the guy, and he had a gun and magnet hand, as well as a "stainless-steel HHHHOOOKKK (Bill Murray from "Meatballs!"), where his right hand used to be."

Green Arrow doesn't come from the forrest...And why does Iron Man have a smiley face? What the fuck, Mego!?

He's probably drunk again.

Yeah, but consider who their target audience was - little kids. Plus this was back in the 70's - those commercials weren't as slick-ass as they are today with CGI and shit. They probably got Joe the janitor for his dramatic alliteration and baritone ("Some WIERD, FOUL MISCREANT from the FOREST clogged the LADIES' ROOM shitter!! AGAIN!!!") to read off the commercial. You're looking at these things 30 years after the fact. If you saw these as a little kid, you'd be after your Mom and Dad to hook you up with some of these in a heartbeat ("But, Ma!! I gotta have a Conan! He's got a Sword of Justice!!! That's COOL!").

True. Remember, most of the kids that bought the figures weren't "girl crazy" at the time, so the black-and-white tittie thing wouldn't have mattered. Conan looked cool and rocks anyway 'cause he had a sword and axe, so there ya go.

Re: Mr. Fantastic - the figure couldn't stretch, and since that was his main power, the marketing guys had to think of something.