Mego Sweet Innocence & Her Friends

[monitor_ep]

I now have gotten the Mego Sweet Innocence & Her Friends and it got me wondering:

* Who here has her in there collection?

* Is she rare or just short run?

* How many were actually made?

* Who has seen her at conventions?

[SeattleEd]

* Who here has her in there collection?

Not anymore. I had two. One packaged and one loose. Sold the packaged one cheap and took apart the other for pieces. Still have the head but the clothing I gave to my youngest daughter so she can play dress up.

* Is she rare or just short run?

Not rare or short run. Palitoy Brian has some insight on this one but I do see them pop up on ebay for last decade.

* How many were actually made?

Palitoy Brian might be able to answer that one.

* Who has seen her at conventions?

A few times on the bargain tables.

[monitor_ep]

Thanks for the info. I need more info on this to see if it was worth sealing up or just add him to the wall.

Here are some images compared with my WGSH females:

[Earth 2 Chris]

Wow, I've never seen that before. I guess that's the straight arm heroine body?

Chris

[4NDR01D]

I've never seen that before either. I dig the packaging.

[ScottA]

I've seen her on ebay a few times, never at shows. I have one of just about everything Mego made from the games to finger puppets to clown arounds to Fashion Candi. But I've never had one of these.

[monitor_ep]

What gets me is she isn't on the Mego Museum list of characters.

[HardyGirl]

Interesting...never heard of her, though.

[monitor_ep]

I went to the source. I contacted Ted at Sasha Street who created the idea of this figure and this is what he told me:

Well, you certainly have a "rare" or "hard to find" item. Not quite as valuable as a GI JOE prototype that recently sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Back in the 1970s there were hundreds of toy companies that showed their products at TOY FAIR in NYC in February. At that time all the toy designers (called inventors) came to NY to sell their concepts for the following year. We set up appointments and showed concepts. Companies then took "options" on the idea. They had one year to produce the concept or return it. Options usually cost a company from $50,000.00 to $100,000.00 and was non-refundable. If the product was a no-go they had to return the concept and all tooling to the inventor. So, selling a few hundred "samples" was a small way to recoup some of the advance money.
It might seem that those huge advances were risky but in reality a good concept could net millions for a toy company.

"Sweet Innocence" was inspired by a series of ads for Herbal Essence Shampoo that featured a young nature girl and her animal friends. The concept also featured a playset that involved her jungle home. The concept also included additional accessory sets featuring fashions and additional pet "friends".

Sweet Innocence was a concept I created for MEGO. It appeared in their catalog and a few were actually produced. But it was never actually released to the general marketplace. A few dozen were probably shipped across state lines to establish copyright and trademark protection.
Toy companies often show product at Toy Fair that is never actually manufactured. They produce samples for the above reason. If the toy store buyers do not place enough orders then the toy is not produced.

The harsh reality of selling toy concepts is that they often never get produced. But, if they are produced they can produce good income in royalties for the life of the line. Like the publishing business, the toy industry depended on new ideas and like publishing, often paid high advances for a potential winner (best seller)

My business partner was the Hasbro marketing director who bought the GI JOE concept. At the time he was simply a salaried employee. The man who "invented" the GI JOE line was an outside concept designer. He made a lot of money on that concept.


I hope you enjoy your Sweet Innocence. She is one of only a few hundred ever produced.

Not are ultra rare as I had hoped, but rare enough for a unreleased figure that comes complete and packaged. This makes me happy to add her to my collection.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^Sounds pretty rare to me! So it seems it never got a full production run. Interesting.

Chris

[dumbldor]

These are around, and not really all that rare. Usually really cheap, too.

One just sold on ebay for $27 shipped. That is pretty typical.

[monitor_ep]

Yeah I just bought the one off of Ebay. I just wanted some info and when you web-search Mego Sweet Innocence & her Friends there is hardly any info out there.

[megofreak]

Wow! I never knew she existed. Must....have...

[Saroyan]

Love reading the history behind the toy. Not anything I'd see myself collecting...unless she had a dark side where she transformed into something dark and dangerous at night and stalked the creatures of the forest in a way that was less sweet....and innocent. I'm picturing pentagrams and candles and something with goat legs!

[megofreak]

I got this for $27 on Etsy

http://s1318.photobucket.com/user/dorsia555/media/il_fullxfull612361913_492y_zpsbaf8d217.jpg.html?sort=3&o=5

The thing is the white part of her dress was behind her, and her hair was bound. I opened her hoping to make her appear more like the photo initially posted here. But I ended up chickening out on untying her hair. I did mess with the dress a little.

http://s1318.photobucket.com/user/dorsia555/media/IMAG1243_zps9b854487.jpg.html?sort=3&o=3