Mego Corporation
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The Mego Corporation was a toy company that dominated the action figure toy market during most of the 1970s. The Mego Corporation was founded in the early 1950s by David Abrams and was mostly known prior to 1971 as a producer of dime store toys.
Starting in 1971, Mego began purchasing license rights to various hot motion picture, comic book and television programs and started producing lines for such works as: Action Jackson, Planet of the Apes, Star Trek, the Wizard of Oz and Superhero Action Figures - which was their most successful line.
The secret of Mego's success was their action figure construction with interchangeable heads. Generic bodies could be mass produced and different figures created by interposing different heads and costumes on them. Mego also constructed their figures primarily in an 8 inch scale - setting an industry standard in the 1970s.
Mego also created the Kresge style card (named for the Kresge store chain, for whom they were originally produced), now commonly referred to as the Mego Bubble Card. This style of card placed the clear plastic bubble containing the action figure in the middle of the card.
In 1976, an executive with Mego rejected, without company approval, a deal to license toys for the not yet released motion picture Star Wars. This decision set Mego up for its eventual collapse as the movie was a huge success and Kenner Toys sold huge amounts of Star Wars Action Figures.
Following Star Wars' great success, Mego embarked on a mass campaign of purchasing license rights to any and all potentially hot motion picture and television shows in the hope of finding a similar hot property. They produced figures for King Kong, Moonraker, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Black Hole, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and the Dukes of Hazzard.
Unfortunately for Mego, no line was as successful as Kenner's Star Wars Line and in 1982 Mego filed for bankruptcy. By 1983 the Mego Corporation ceased to exist.
Today, Mego Action Figures and Playsets are highly prized collectibles - some fetching thousands of dollars on the open collectibles market.
In recent years, Mego's 8-inch figures, particularly the Superhero line, have found new life in "Twisted Mego Theatre", a humorous photo comic-strip appearing in Toyfare: The Toy Magazine. Toyfare staff take pose and take photos of the figures in bizarre situations, with added dialogue bubbles. The series is well-known in comic book and collector circles for its distinctive, off-the-wall sense of humour. The strips (now renamed "Twisted Toyfare Theatre") have even been printed separately in their own collection.
Reference
Mego Action Figure Toys, 3rd Edition (2001) by John Bonavita
External link
- Mego Museum (http://www.megomuseum.com)