Tweet
Having poked around on the site for a while now and being active on the forums for a few months, it surprises me to find that the Mystery of the Mystery Mego Man has not been solved. I see so many other oddities that are known about these figures and this just plain boggles me.
This may be a dumb question and already covering ground that has likely been covered, but I am curious with the many interviews I see on the site, was the question of the Mystery Man ever put to any former employees of Mego during an interview? Somebody, somewhere out there had a hand in putting this figure together. They have to know something. Safe to guess that more than one person along the way literally put these together on the assembly line. Or in the upstairs office of the factory or something.
Having read the various theories surrounding this figure, I would be most likely to assume he was a proposed Blue Thunder figure. This could explain the unique jumpsuit quite easily. However, why would a type 1 body be used in the early 80's? Also, to save on the cost of producing a new uniform, why not use something on hand that was already made and possibly closer to the flight suits on Blue Thunder: The POTA Astronaut jumpsuit?
The next plausible theory to me is that when Mego was going down, this was just an attempt to sell off the remaining product on hand and built a figure with random spare parts. But again, why a new jumpsuit? Why would type 1 bodies be so readily available at that time period? This theory would make a lot more sense if he were on a type 2 body instead. Also, if they were just selling off remaining parts, it would stand to reason that more variations of this figure would exist, such as a Superman head or a Beau Duke head. And if just parts on hand, why the different paint job (eyes) on the Bruce Wayne head? Seems like it would be the same as an existing version.
To me those seem the most plausible popular theories. But I would suggest something like this:
As Mego begins the transition from metal rivets to the plastic pins, many figures were still produced until a certain point (as we know with some figures being found on this card or that one indicating the time frame they were made). But at some point, while they still had a large stock of these Type 1s, the plug is pulled on that and all figures are to be on Type 2 bodies from then on. From there, perhaps the remaining stock was sold off to other toy companies just to liquidate the old bodies. Perhaps some unpainted or maybe only partially painted excess Bruce Wayne heads were sold off as well along with random other accessory pieces (boots, helmets belts, etc). Now whatever company purchased these items may have just packaged the existing pieces together and packaged them as a pilot/astronaut figure after making some kind of suit for him so he would not be an exact Mego copy of another figure. This could explain the variations I have seen with this figure of having or not having a belt while still packaged. Perhaps they ran out of belts purchased from Mego. This would for the most part explain the consistency with this mystery figure. If some nickel and dime company put something out there like this, they might try to keep the figure pretty much the same across the board. A similar idea along these lines could also be, a Mego employee simply walks out one day with a couple of boxes of parts. Maybe sells them to somebody else a few years later and somehow they get a limited release on the market through flea markets or gas stations or whatever.
Anyway, just my two cents. I would love to know if any former Mego employees have been asked about this or not. While I am surely beating a dead horse on the forum, I would love to see what other theories and or evidence for them may be out there.
This may be a dumb question and already covering ground that has likely been covered, but I am curious with the many interviews I see on the site, was the question of the Mystery Man ever put to any former employees of Mego during an interview? Somebody, somewhere out there had a hand in putting this figure together. They have to know something. Safe to guess that more than one person along the way literally put these together on the assembly line. Or in the upstairs office of the factory or something.
Having read the various theories surrounding this figure, I would be most likely to assume he was a proposed Blue Thunder figure. This could explain the unique jumpsuit quite easily. However, why would a type 1 body be used in the early 80's? Also, to save on the cost of producing a new uniform, why not use something on hand that was already made and possibly closer to the flight suits on Blue Thunder: The POTA Astronaut jumpsuit?
The next plausible theory to me is that when Mego was going down, this was just an attempt to sell off the remaining product on hand and built a figure with random spare parts. But again, why a new jumpsuit? Why would type 1 bodies be so readily available at that time period? This theory would make a lot more sense if he were on a type 2 body instead. Also, if they were just selling off remaining parts, it would stand to reason that more variations of this figure would exist, such as a Superman head or a Beau Duke head. And if just parts on hand, why the different paint job (eyes) on the Bruce Wayne head? Seems like it would be the same as an existing version.
To me those seem the most plausible popular theories. But I would suggest something like this:
As Mego begins the transition from metal rivets to the plastic pins, many figures were still produced until a certain point (as we know with some figures being found on this card or that one indicating the time frame they were made). But at some point, while they still had a large stock of these Type 1s, the plug is pulled on that and all figures are to be on Type 2 bodies from then on. From there, perhaps the remaining stock was sold off to other toy companies just to liquidate the old bodies. Perhaps some unpainted or maybe only partially painted excess Bruce Wayne heads were sold off as well along with random other accessory pieces (boots, helmets belts, etc). Now whatever company purchased these items may have just packaged the existing pieces together and packaged them as a pilot/astronaut figure after making some kind of suit for him so he would not be an exact Mego copy of another figure. This could explain the variations I have seen with this figure of having or not having a belt while still packaged. Perhaps they ran out of belts purchased from Mego. This would for the most part explain the consistency with this mystery figure. If some nickel and dime company put something out there like this, they might try to keep the figure pretty much the same across the board. A similar idea along these lines could also be, a Mego employee simply walks out one day with a couple of boxes of parts. Maybe sells them to somebody else a few years later and somehow they get a limited release on the market through flea markets or gas stations or whatever.
Anyway, just my two cents. I would love to know if any former Mego employees have been asked about this or not. While I am surely beating a dead horse on the forum, I would love to see what other theories and or evidence for them may be out there.
Comment