Vintage Mego: The 12? Black Hole Line

[RSS]

Vintage Mego this week goes in, through, and beyond Mego’s relationship with Disney’s 1979 Science Fiction blockbuster, The Black Hole! This episode explicitly discusses the 12″ Mego line of action figures based on the Black Hole characters, considered one of Mego’s biggest failures. Why did it fail? We give you a breakdown while discussing its…

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[monitor_ep]

I was watching this Black Hole auction but while I was away it sold for over $300:

bh prototype 1.jpgbh prototype 2.jpgbh prototype 4.jpg

[Werewolf]

Never picked up on the Poseidon Adventure connection. It always seemed like a haunted house movie in space too me. I had Vincent, Kate, Sentry and Max in the 3 3/4 inch line and would have loved to have gotten Old Bob. I remember Durant, Booth and Reinhardt being huge peg warmers. Had no interest in the 12 inch line. Like everyone else, no robots. They were nicely done collector dolls but boring toys for kids.

[Werewolf]

I forgot to ask are 3 3/4 inch BH figures like crazy fragile?

As a kid I broke the thumb off of Kate trying to put a SW blaster in her hand. Vincent's leg broke off in his stand and his paint would come off if you just barely touch it. Max fell apart and Sentry's hands wouldn't stay on. I was very gentle with my toys. Anyone else have these problems?

[ODBJBG]

I've often wondered why Mego's 3 3/4 figures were so dreadful. The lack of face paint always boggled my mind. The eyes and stuff being unpainted. I know some other manufacturers occasionally did that as well but even when Mego did a good job on a 3 3/4 line, it always looked cheap.

The difference between GI Joe a few years later and Mego's stuff is fairly stark. I'm sure the technology got better, but even looking at Kenner's SW figures next to Megos, the unpainted faces just scream "unfinished" for some reason.

Anyway, I love Black Hole, fantastic visual film, but not really a "toy" film. Outside of the robots, nothing was really marketable.

I'm baffled sometimes at all the sci-fi toy lines we got thanks to Star Wars.

Of course I'm also always fascinated in Disney "flops", because they're often great films. Rocketeer is another.

Timing always seems to be an issue. Had Black Hole come out before Star Wars, I think it would have been a much bigger hit. Still not a huge merchandise mover, but so many people wanted epic space operas and not slower thinking "haunted house" type movies. Same with Rocketeer. If it had come out before Batman, probably would have been a bigger hit, but people wanted it to be Batman and so did Disney. But great on it's own.

[Mikey]

…………. Why did it fail? ………..

The Black Hole did NOT fail

I had all the figures, was CRAZY-IN LOVE with Yvette Mimieux (just like your average Star Wars Princess Lea Clowns)

The prob was Disney didn't back it up

They were TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN guys back then

After all, when your biggest money-makers are Kurt Russel and Kim Richards --- Which you didn't even put in the movie !!!!

Disney, you are sooo stupid

Gawd, at the tiny age of 15 (in 1980) I could have made The Black Hole the best movie EVER