MEGO Gandalf

[Krypt0nite]

As a kid, and as an adult, the biggest thrill of Mego to me is having a wide variety of licenses together. As a kid, nothing was better than having, say, Green Arrow and the Lizard team up to rescue Spock from the Planet of the Apes, so I never thought of my collection as 'incomplete' just because, say, Sulu or Doc Ock weren't there. Even now, my current display of new Mego consists of Superman, Batman, Admiral Kirk, Saru, the flocked Wolfman and the Mummy. If Mego makes a character I like, I buy it. I'd love to see Mego make Robin, or TWOK McCoy, or Dr. Phibes, or any number of other characters but if they don't I'll still enjoy what they have made.

[TRDouble]

That has always confused me. Is my POTA collection incomplete because there’s no Taylor or Nova or is it complete because I have all the figures that were released?

This is an honest question. If you’re a completest, isn’t pretty much every line incomplete on some level?

Interesting thought. Some lines are complete, but the group they represent are incomplete, and depending on the importance of the missing characters, it can drive me crazy.

Super-heroes are a little different. Yes, there are groups, some greater as a group than others (JLA Vs. Fantastic Four), but they are so interchangeable, even my beloved Teen Titans, which took until DC Direct's Pocket Super Heroes to complete the main five.

The FTC Harry Potter figures hold little interest to me anymore because what is Harry and Ron without Hermoine?

Yet, I was fine with FTC's Gilligan's Island because I have the main two characters in Gilligan and The Skipper.

The issue with what Mego is doing is that it causes hesitancy when purchasing figures that are associated with a group, when they are not all released at the same time. When you get caught buying two of The Fellowship, two thirds of the Harry Potter Trio, or part of the TOS crew (and honestly, I am thinking of the Funko Super 7 3-3/4" figures more than Mego), then when two Gatchaman figures are released, I am hesitant to buy them because history shows the rest of the crew may not be on the way.

I understand the business strategy. I think Legolas and Aragorn were a solid two to start LOTR, and if those don't sell, it's probably smart to cut bait on the line. But it does not give me confidence to buy the next partial release of figures from a larger group.

[MIB41]

I'm okay with this because there is so much licensing to farm, not everything will get takers with those first offerings. But if those licenses pick up steam later, it puts Mego in a unique spot to add to the existing lineup as opposed to starting over. So I look at it as a shuffle to the back instead of a complete discontinuation. Mego is always in position to jump back in if the iron gets hot. Plus this selection process also brings greater promise to one note characters that don't have an ensemble for a traditional series. So there's allot of opportunity for characters we thought we would never see actually make it to market now. I love the potential.

[Werewolf]

Is it? You wouldn't make Spock without regular Kirk and McCoy either but there you go.

I have to admit, that's the reason I haven't collected the new Trek. Kirk, Spock and McCoy are like the trinity of Trek. No McCoy or regular Kirk is pointless to me. The way I see it Kirk, Spock and McCoy are A list. Scotty and Uhura are B/C list. Chekov and Sulu are D list. Having Chekov and Sulu are great bonuses but pointless without the rest.

[GlobalObserver]

If MEGO makes any more Kirk figures I certainly hope they fix the issue with the misshapen head.

The original one from the 70's was perfect.

[ODBJBG]

Gandalf likely would have sold. As others have pointed out, these were really rotten first choices to test the LOTR market. To be fair, I'm not sure LOTR has any marketing value. None of the LOTR lines have been particularly successful, many struggled even when the movies were out. And LOTR is a tough property to try to dip your toes into the water with because you're looking at almost a dozen "MAIN" characters. Even still, the hobbits and the wizards are likely more important, so if you were only going to make 4 figures I'm not sure either of the 2 we got were the ones I would have made. I feel like they just didn't do their research here or were taking a gamble that since there hadn't been much LOTR merch in a while that this might work, but it was a poor strategy IMO.

Mego runs the risk of people not buying their figures at all if they can't sort of complete a line. I know some of you will say "that's not true", but it is. They can do this only SO many times before people decide not to purchase one offs. It has happened to other companies. DST is so known for canceling lines that many fans don't buy their products at all because they're afraid of getting 3/4s of a collection. So Mego has to thread the needle carefully here. I think Rocky works as a one off, though Rocky has a couple of cool villains that you'd imagine they could have some easy sells there, but Rocky alone is fine enough... But certain lines, you need more than one or two characters.

Certainly Scotty would have sold more figures than Aragon. So in some regards this scattershot approach is backfiring because not only did they pay for a license (no matter how little) that they aren't going to use going forward, but they produced a couple of figures that didn't sell well, with no chance of completing the collection while passing on a figure that would have helped complete a collection on a license that is selling for them. Whoops!

And I know, Scotty is coming they say.

That has always confused me. Is my POTA collection incomplete because there’s no Taylor or Nova or is it complete because I have all the figures that were released?

This is an honest question. If you’re a completest, isn’t pretty much every line incomplete on some level?

Lots of lines are incomplete on some level, you're correct there because often there are oddball characters that may fill things out that never get made. With POTA though, you're talking about a different reasoning... I imagine a Mego Taylor WOULD sell, but it wasn't made way back when for legal reasons and the line then was aimed at kids (not like the collector's line of today) and the "astronaut" for all intents and purposes WAS Taylor (or Brent or whoever you wanted it to be) but it's not like Mego made a LOTR line and released a generic short figure named "Hobbit" so I'm not sure this is an apt comparison.

If MEGO makes any more Kirk figures I certainly hope they fix the issue with the misshapen head.

The original one from the 70's was perfect.

The new Kirk figures are awful in that regard. He looks like he's had bad cosmetic surgery. It's not just the mold, but the paint has been awful too. Oddly, EMCE's Kirk was fine.

[MIB41]

Gandalf likely would have sold. As others have pointed out, these were really rotten first choices to test the LOTR market. To be fair, I'm not sure LOTR has any marketing value. None of the LOTR lines have been particularly successful, many struggled even when the movies were out. And LOTR is a tough property to try to dip your toes into the water with because you're looking at almost a dozen "MAIN" characters. Even still, the hobbits and the wizards are likely more important, so if you were only going to make 4 figures I'm not sure either of the 2 we got were the ones I would have made. I feel like they just didn't do their research here or were taking a gamble that since there hadn't been much LOTR merch in a while that this might work, but it was a poor strategy IMO.

I think many book series carry a different kind of popularity when it comes to merchandise. When Harry Potter was new and the books were coming out every few years, the action figure side of that license were not big sellers. The big sellers mostly centered around the books and various prop recreations. Now a new generation is finding Potter and there has been some measured success with Mattel making a fairly extensive line of figures, but it still remains very much a book and prop-centric license. The fan experience seems to angle towards a more immersive atmosphere where they feel like they reside in those worlds. I don't think action figures translate as well. Lord of Rings seems to read in a similar trajectory. This is why I think its important to understand what feeds the popularity of some properties. Not everything that has a big fanbase is necessarily a target consumer for a figure,(let alone a retro figure).

[enyawd72]

That has always confused me. Is my POTA collection incomplete because there’s no Taylor or Nova or is it complete because I have all the figures that were released?

This is an honest question. If you’re a completest, isn’t pretty much every line incomplete on some level?

The Apes collection is complete since it was based off the TV series and not the films. They made all the main characters from the series.

[Confessional]

^^ That's not accurate. The line crosses film and tv and is definitely incomplete… Julius, Mutants, Ape-O-Nauts, Councillor Zaius, Barlow, etc. As a completest I could go on and on.

[CrimsonGhost]

Cornelius and Zira were on the TV show? I never watched it.

[Mego-Amigo]

Cornelius and Zira were not on the TV show. Confessional is right. The Mego POTA line is way incomplete. The only POTA line that has come closest to being complete is the 2000 Japanese Medicom Ultra Detail figures with 22 being produced but there's still several characters missing even with that line.

[TrekStar]

Cornelius and Zira were on the TV show? I never watched it.

Cornelius was actually called Galen on the tv show, Zira never existed, but Dr. Zaius I believe, was both in the first 2 movies and the tv show, always played by Maurice Evans. I’m pretty sure this is accurate, but not 100% sure.

Mego made 2 Cornelius figures, one had brown ears which is Cornelius, the other was made with green painted/tinted ears which is supposedly Galen from the tv show series.

[PNGwynne]

Evans played Zaius in the first two films. The related character in the TV series was played by Booth Coleman.

[TrekStar]

Thanks PNGwynne I’ll have to rewatch the tv series, it’s been awhile, I always thought Evans and McDowell were both in the tv show, Coleman did a very good job as Zaius.

[CrimsonGhost]

Cornelius was actually called Galen on the tv show, Zira never existed, but Dr. Zaius I believe, was both in the first 2 movies and the tv show, always played by Maurice Evans. I’m pretty sure this is accurate, but not 100% sure.

Mego made 2 Cornelius figures, one had brown ears which is Cornelius, the other was made with green painted/tinted ears which is supposedly Galen from the tv show series.

There’s no way Cornelius and Galen are the same character. The dolls are the same, I know, same actor and all that, but not the same character.

That could only mean that the Cornelius and Zira dolls are from the first movie. Taylor is the protagonist. If there’s no Taylor, no matter what the reason was behind him not being made, is the line complete? Does “the Astronaut” make it complete?

One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I’m not a completist! Haha!