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Toy line rumors on the school yard

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  • Earth 2 Chris
    Verbose Member
    • Mar 7, 2004
    • 32498

    Toy line rumors on the school yard

    Did you ever encounter wild rumors about toylines as a kid? Young pathological liars who told you of imaginary releases that they "saw" or their cousin "had at their house?"

    The Masters of the Universe line was probably the most popular toy line during my early days of grade school. After the TV show hit, anything that was on the show but wasn't in the toy aisles was fair game for little liars. One kid in particular spun a yarn about a MOTU Snake Mountain playset, a good year before the real toy was available. He said he saw it in a MOTU catalog insert. This Snake Mountain looked just like the cartoon version (which the real one did not) and the top of the mountain lifted off to reveal the meeting table of Skeletor and his goons. The same kid also said he saw Prince Adam on the shelves a good year before he was made. His mom wouldn't let him buy it he said. These tales had me haunting the toy aisles for weeks until I finally came to the realization that my "friend" was lying through his teeth.

    And then there was the case of Cobra Commander. The mysterious Cobra Commander had never been seen without his mirror-plated helmet or hood. One kid in our 3rd grade class claimed he had a GI Joe coloring book that showed the face of the Enemy leader. We all begged him to bring it in. And he said he would. Then he told us his brother had destroyed it. Yeah right. Years later an entire generation of kids was scarred by "GI Joe: The Movie", and it's depiction of Cobra Commander as a multi-eyed blue guy. Ugh.

    One that I got to debunk was some kid spouting off about a Super Powers Hall of Doom playset. Similar to the Snake Mountain deal, the top of the "head" lifted off, and there was the banquet hall from Hell. I told him he was full of crap. After all, if they were going to do this, I would know. After all, I had the first (and only!) issue of the SP newsletter. It said Darkseid was coming (and hinted Green Arrow would be out too), but not the Hall of Doom!!!

    Anyone else ever encounter any school yard yarns about your favorite toys?

    Chris
    sigpic
  • Blackkryptonite
    Persistent Member
    • Jun 28, 2006
    • 2118

    #2
    LOL, although i can not recall any particular moment in my childhood where this happened, as soon as i read your post I laughed out loud because i do remember friends spreading rumors of toys that they just made up in their heads. I guess they did it for attention or maybe just to jaw jack and BS but its funny to hear someone bring this up after all these years. And you know it still happens with kids these days! Great post, I hope others have something to add to it

    Comment

    • toys2cool
      Ultimate Mego Warrior
      • Nov 27, 2006
      • 28605

      #3
      ha ha ha! as a kid I remember hearing a bunch of He-man ones,Like Adams mom or a Man at arms figure with a mustache

      with Gi Joe it was the same,I had heard there was a removable helmet Cobra Commander and that the Black Basketball player from the movie was going to be released as a mail in,I'm sure they confused him with The Fridge figure
      "Time to nut up or shut up" -Tallahassee

      http://ultimatewarriorcollection.webs.com/
      My stuff on facebook Incompatible Browser | Facebook

      Comment

      • MIB41
        Eloquent Member
        • Sep 25, 2005
        • 15631

        #4
        That is an interesting question Chris. In the late 70's I actually fell for a joke, a friend of mine pulled on me. He "claimed" Mego had just come out with a Mr. Fantastic that actually stretched and there was also a Nova figure on the shelf next to him..truly the cruelest of jokes. I ran up to the local toy store salivating at the prospect only to find out he had pulled a fast one on me. I was so annoyed I have never let him forget it to this day. Of course, you know the irony to this...Hasbro is releasing a Mr. Fantastic (mego-style) that looks like it stretches. Not that it looks very good, but when I saw prototype shots of it, I couldn't help but smile. I should send one to my friend when it comes out... Also with the success of the latest Nova comic can one of him be far behind? If Hasbro actually releases a Mego-style Nova, I will buy five of those figures!!

        Comment

        • rcbats1
          Banned
          • Nov 1, 2005
          • 0

          #5
          ...as a matter of fact....Back in 75' I had just picked up Green Arrow..I was in the seventh grade and I knew somehow....through a comic,christmas catalog or something I guess...that the Star Trek figures were coming out.
          I had a class mate that said he had just picked up the Star Trek figures. Now I was'nt as much a Star Trek fan as I was a Mego fan...but even then I couldnt wait to see a new Mego...no matter who it was.
          I badgered him about letting me see them so he said come by his Grand Mothers house after school and he would let me see them. In the meantime I asked him to describe them to me...and I remember he told me they had hard plastic heads....If I werent so niave back them I wouldnt have believed him since I knew what they were made of....so I went to his Grand Mothers house and he never came out with them...I'm sure he didnt have them after that...that and I knew what every store in my small home town of 6000 in Arkansas had at the time...and there wasnt a Trek figure in sight!

          M.

          Comment

          • palitoy
            live. laugh. lisa needs braces
            • Jun 16, 2001
            • 59204

            #6
            My neighbour had an eight inch flash that also sparked, his shazam doll could fly with the help of a motor. These were at the cottage and he couldn't bring them home.

            When I visited his cottage, they had gone missing.

            Another kid I went to school with had the cast of Battle of the Planets as 8" figures, always missing at his house.

            My other neighbour claimed to have a Wondergirl doll, I cried BS and his sister produced it. My mind was totally blown, what other figures were out there I didn't know about?
            Places to find PlaidStallions online: https://linktr.ee/Plaidstallions

            Buy Toy-Ventures Magazine here:
            http://www.plaidstallions.com/reboot/shop

            Comment

            • saildog
              Permanent Member
              • Apr 9, 2006
              • 2270

              #7
              I'm sure I had some of those experiences, but I can't remember any particulars.

              However, it is quite possible I dabbled in spreading a few of those rumors, myself.

              Comment

              • megoscott
                Founding Partner
                • Nov 17, 2006
                • 8710

                #8
                In that fall of 1977 before Star Wars toys appeared this giant lug of a kid named Eddie claimed to have Star Wars figures that he described as Megos. He kept "forgetting" to bring them to school or his mom "wouldn't let him". It went on for weeks until the paper bag he kept them in was lost. I think he actually had us retrace his route to school looking for it. I still have that imaginary image in my head of an 8 inch Darth Vader and Luke in a paper bag on the side of the road. It's why I love Dave's Star Wars customs so much--those were the figures I imagined and stupid Eddie lost.

                Later in high school, Eddie was the first person to tell me the Space Shuttle exploded. I didn't believe him of course, but now he's forever a part of one of those "where were you when you heard" moments.
                This profile is no longer active.

                Comment

                • cjefferys
                  Duke of Gloat
                  • Apr 23, 2006
                  • 10180

                  #9
                  I had a friend who would always lie about stuff. When the first 12 Star Wars figures came out, the Jawa was the last one to be released (I can't remember how long it took for him to finally appear in stores, it seemed like months and months of waiting when I was a kid). Anyway, during that wait, my friend claimed to have found one and bought it. He went on to tell me about the features he had, things like removable eyes (!!??) and a movable trigger on his laser gun (that sounds ridiculous now, but as a kid I kind of believed it). Of course after a couple days of badgering him to see it, he admitted his fib.

                  Funny thing, this same friend later told me that he saw KISS figures for sale (we were both huge KISS fans). I called BS, but I really wanted to believe him, I would have killed for actual KISS figures (I imagined them as 8" Megos of course!), but had a hard time believing that someone would actually make such toys. Well imagine my surprise when about a month later, I actually found them in stores (albeit in 12" scale, something my friend neglected to tell me, and I didn't think to ask). I was never so happy to find that he actually had told the truth for once.

                  Of course, there was the usual Mego Flash story too. My cousin (who was a superhero nut as much as I was) claimed to have seen one at a friend's house. I believed him for a while, and it was years of guessing and wondering before I definitively found out that Mego never made a figure of that character.

                  Comment

                  • nvmbrsdoom5
                    Persistent Member
                    • Mar 1, 2005
                    • 1627

                    #10
                    Yeah, man I haven't thought about this stuff for ages! It seems like the Mego Flash story was a common one. I remember being told by a couple of kids that they had "seen" the Flash on the shelves at Toys R Us. I whined about it to my mom many times until finally one day she came home with....Kid Flash! Of course the kids swore that they'd seen an actual Flash, but I started to guess they were full of it. And to this day I meet people who tell me about their childhood Megos and insist they had the Flash, LOL. Was this some mass hallucination or what?!

                    The main fib that I heard from kids back in the day, was about how "someone they knew" actually owned a rocket firing Boba Fett. My best friend during grade school would swear up and down that his cousin got one of the rocket firing Boba Fetts in the mail during the mail-in offers. I actually wasn't sure if this was a complete lie or not until I got older and learned the whole truth behind the now legendary Rocket Firing Boba Fett story.

                    Another one I just remembered (that really makes me feel silly for believing it at the time) was about how there was a Gene Simmons doll that actually could "breathe fire" by shooting sparks out of its mouth, haha!! Again, it was my best friend who'd told me this. Come to think of it, he had many a tall tale to tell. I can't believe I actually believed the Fire Breathing Gene doll story though! But then again when I was 5 years old, I actually believed that KISS were superheroes

                    Comment

                    • batmanmc
                      mego batman collector
                      • Jun 22, 2004
                      • 6227

                      #11
                      there were several i cant remember. but the kid next to me had e very toy ever amde. we saw about 1/4 of all toys made. didnt show us teh rest.

                      Comment

                      • toys2cool
                        Ultimate Mego Warrior
                        • Nov 27, 2006
                        • 28605

                        #12
                        I remember my little brother going out with his dad and coming back with the Matrix Commando figure,little liar swore he saw the Bennett and Sally figures
                        "Time to nut up or shut up" -Tallahassee

                        http://ultimatewarriorcollection.webs.com/
                        My stuff on facebook Incompatible Browser | Facebook

                        Comment

                        • Captain
                          Fighting the good fight!
                          • Jun 17, 2001
                          • 6031

                          #13
                          I took my Dinky Enterprise and Klingon cruiser to school one fine day (the one with the orange shuttle that drops out of the belly of the secondary hull, and fired little plastic rollaids that were suppossed to be torpedoes) where a young know it all told me he had one that you could look in the windows and see the crew inside. Even went so far as to say it was the same as the one featured on the show (Catspaw). I, in my 6 year old wisdom, believed him, and spent many a moon looking for that version of the ship. Of course, once I hit the even wiser age of seven, I realized he was full of crap!

                          I was no better, I remember having a couple of buddies wide eyed over the Red Skull Mego figure I swore I had seen at Tops in Toys that weekend.
                          "Crayons taste like purple!"

                          Comment

                          • toysrus
                            Persistent Member
                            • Aug 23, 2007
                            • 1247

                            #14
                            Mego's

                            wow Deja Vu on the Flash mego story man! I heard that growing up so much, my friend said many times that he saw a Flash mego in the stores.

                            Another i remember was this kid telling me he just got the new Mego Superdog action figure. I begged him to show me, he always said oh i cant find it right now!

                            Also heard about a Mego Sub Mariner!


                            Originally posted by nvmbrsdoom5
                            Yeah, man I haven't thought about this stuff for ages! It seems like the Mego Flash story was a common one. I remember being told by a couple of kids that they had "seen" the Flash on the shelves at Toys R Us. I whined about it to my mom many times until finally one day she came home with....Kid Flash! Of course the kids swore that they'd seen an actual Flash, but I started to guess they were full of it. And to this day I meet people who tell me about their childhood Megos and insist they had the Flash, LOL. Was this some mass hallucination or what?!

                            The main fib that I heard from kids back in the day, was about how "someone they knew" actually owned a rocket firing Boba Fett. My best friend during grade school would swear up and down that his cousin got one of the rocket firing Boba Fetts in the mail during the mail-in offers. I actually wasn't sure if this was a complete lie or not until I got older and learned the whole truth behind the now legendary Rocket Firing Boba Fett story.

                            Another one I just remembered (that really makes me feel silly for believing it at the time) was about how there was a Gene Simmons doll that actually could "breathe fire" by shooting sparks out of its mouth, haha!! Again, it was my best friend who'd told me this. Come to think of it, he had many a tall tale to tell. I can't believe I actually believed the Fire Breathing Gene doll story though! But then again when I was 5 years old, I actually believed that KISS were superheroes

                            Comment

                            • jwyblejr
                              galactic yo-yo
                              • Apr 6, 2006
                              • 11141

                              #15
                              Originally posted by saildog
                              I'm sure I had some of those experiences, but I can't remember any particulars.

                              However, it is quite possible I dabbled in spreading a few of those rumors, myself.
                              Same here. Although not on purpose. When you've got a parent trying to hurry you through the toy aisle to reach another section of the store,you think you see toys that were made but weren't. Had that happen way back when with the Star Wars three packs. I could have sworn they had been packaged with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru.

                              Comment

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