MEGO 1971 MYSTERY MAN Figure

[Captain]

I've always suspected the Mystery dude was originally meant as an add on for a specific retailer. You know--"buy this playset at Consumers Distributing and get a free astronaut figure".
If this was the case, the most likely scenario would be he was to be included in one of the POTA sets.
The deal fell apart, and Mego was stuck with a bunch of these guys, who the quickly added a header card to the poly bag, and sold them through as one of their rack toys.

Again, this is just my own personal theory.

[ABMAC]

I've always suspected the Mystery dude was originally meant as an add on for a specific retailer. You know--"buy this playset at Consumers Distributing and get a free astronaut figure".
If this was the case, the most likely scenario would be he was to be included in one of the POTA sets.
The deal fell apart, and Mego was stuck with a bunch of these guys, who the quickly added a header card to the poly bag, and sold them through as one of their rack toys.

Again, this is just my own personal theory.

There's nothing to tie him to the Apes line except for the blue fabric which wasn't always used for the Astronaut figure. If a retailer had wanted an exclusive Apes Astronaut, wouldn't it have made more sense to put him in a more screen-accurate WHITE uniform? And why a yellow helmet? Only the Blue Angels wear yellow pilots' helmets.

Oh, and these figures were never bagged with header cards.

[JDeRouen]

Maybe you're thinking of Captain Eagle, who was packages similarly and did have a header card.

[AAAAA]

Or he was issued in the AJ helicopter,bike and parachute Adventure set.

[Captain]

There's nothing to tie him to the Apes line except for the blue fabric which wasn't always used for the Astronaut figure. If a retailer had wanted an exclusive Apes Astronaut, wouldn't it have made more sense to put him in a more screen-accurate WHITE uniform? And why a yellow helmet? Only the Blue Angels wear yellow pilots' helmets.

Oh, and these figures were never bagged with header cards.

All good points sir. Again, it was just a theory. I do still tend to think it was meant as an "add on" for some retailer exclusive that went sour. As for the colors, well...Mego never was a stickler for detail, let alone dead on accuracy. Still....who knows, maybe they had a bunch of Action Jackson Blue Angels outfits that never saw the light of day, along with a pot full of Bruce Wayne heads sitting around? It was a slow day at the factory.....

I thought these had a header card on them(albeit a generic white card) so they could be hung from a peg? My mistake.

I do find it kind of interesting that this mystery figure, and the infamous 12" Mystery figures were both pilot based.

[megozilla13]

Maybe the suit and helmet were originally white and faded to blue and yellow respectively through the years. Isn't an astronaut who pilots a space craft a pilot and a pilot who flies a space craft an astronaut? Lets say you had a friend who was an astronaut, would he get insulted if you introduced him to another group of friends as your friend the pilot? Maybe this happened to Bonavita and he hates pilots now, so he called him an astronaut. Forget it, don't even read this.


mikej

[Dave Mc]

I think he was meant for a line extention. "Tex Willer in Space" could have been planned but nixed at the last minute.

[ABMAC]

I think he was meant for a line extention. "Tex Willer in Space" could have been planned but nixed at the last minute.

Italy did have the blue-eyed Tex Willers, and AJ ads with (non-blue-eyed) Bruce Wayne filling in for AJ, and Bogi figures with yellow Mego helmets. It would be funny if the mystery figure turned out to be an Action Jackson variant.

[txteach]

Could be Ant. I guess we'll never know for sure.

[ABMAC]

Could be Ant. I guess we'll never know for sure.

I was being facetious about the possibility of his being an Italian exclusive, but it's true that we may never know his true origin.

It doesn't hurt to keep the theories coming as long as everyone knows they're just theories.

[txteach]

I'm curious, where was the warehouse these were found in and how many were there?

[zorro]

Sorry to dig this back up, but does anyone want to sell one of these mystery men?

[Brue]

He is definitively Larry Hagman from I dream of Geni (sp?).

-actually I only say that because I speculated it before and was shot down

Hey! i can believe it if I want to.

Did we ever give the BP car recognition in the museum?

And the figure posted in the top of this thread smells like a repro to me.

I'd cut both newbie posters in the beginning of this thread some slack though because I DON'T KNOW that it is repro, if the two posters are connected, if they are friendlies or speculators. So- WELCOME my new mego friends!

PS all opinions of who it is in this thread are great

Blue Angels Pilot
Action Jackson pilot (maybe canceled b/c Blue Angels)
Astronaut
Ape prototype pilot
Driver
Mego using up scraps
others all plausible

of course we all know it is...















JR Ewing!

[SlipperyLilSuckers]

[QUOTE=ABMAC;23239]The name spread because John Bonavita called him the Mystery Astronaut in his book. He was never afraid to make up an answer when the facts weren't known.

QUOTE]
I still think that John's work was monumental and it made a major difference to my collecting life.

[MegoNinja]

can't the old employee's of Mego just take a look at the damn thing and go "oh that's a failed toy we had" or some thing to that effect. Doesn't any Mego ex-employee recognize it?