The following summary was originally published on the Mego Museum Blog and it is a report of the events at the 2006 Mego Meet Convention

By Brain Heiler

Where to begin? Well, I suppose Friday would be the best time to start. Scott and myself arrived at the Wheeling Super 8 after a lesson in Pittsburgh Traffic jams.

After taking some time to unwind we headed over to the Friday night setup get together at the Toy and Train Museum.

 

 

 

Friday Night Set Up

The Dealers Room was already bustling, already set up were Dr. Mego, Joe of MegoStore and Paul Clare of Megoville.

Roberto Ligotti and his brother Tom (who was apparantly was a superstar in helping set up) were also setting up. Roberto was in true form this year bringing plenty of original mego goodness.

Dave McCormick was working overtime in his set up making sure everything got done correctly, all the while folks were happily trading, eating pizza and catching up. Running into to so many people that you know but never met is an interesting experience.

I quickly set up the raffle wall with these over sized proofs of MegoMuseum trading cards that we eventually gave away. These went so fast I never really got a to take good pics. Probably because I started chatting with Dan Crandall, Ray Miller and of course, Ben Holcomb.

 

After the meet closed, the gang headed towards a local sports bar and then night capped at Paul Clares suite, which was dubbed the "Mego Suite".

The Highlight of the night had to be "My good friend Ben" unveiling pics of his upcoming book "World's Greatest Toys", seeing the loving detail of those first few pages was enough to sell everyone in the room.

Perhaps it was the long day's drive or the copious amount of heineken but I decided to pack it in for 3 am. I would soon find out that I was actually one of the first to leave......

Saturday morning came pretty quickly and I had to motor if I wanted to make the first seminar of the day (I was the speaker). Lucky for me, Scott was on the ball and ready to go before me.

 

 

 

 

I immediately ran into Chris Johnson (DVM2) and got a great shot of the show's exclusive Jet Jungle Action figure.

 

Austin Hough of Reproheads.com was set up beside Chris with an array of silk screened suits including some rather obscure characters.

 

As I mentioned the first speaker was myself in a commentary about Mego's unproduced lines, touching on a few things I haven't yet at the Museum.

 

While the attendance for my seminar was better than expected, I was also very happy to see a few folks such as MegoSteve (You can read his own blog about the Mego Meet experience here) and Mike J, both were undecided about attending but at the last minute drove through the night.

 

 

Speaking of Last Minute........

A visit to the parking lot after my seminar revealed the rental van of Mark Huckabone, who made it in record time (note watch in the pic). Actually Mark had a Herculan effort of being at two shows six hours apart on the same weekend. We were honoured that he and his delightful lady friend showed up and teased us with goodies. More on the Mark offerings later but suffice to say had he not attended, I might have gone home with toll money instead of scrounging around floorboards on the I-90.

 

Chris Johnsonkicked off the next Seminar, a detailed trip into the world of Mego's 3 3/4" lines such as Black Hole and CHiPs.

In addition to a respectable amount of knowledge, Chris brought props! Many of the items Chris brought from his collection were extremely rare and truly added to the presentation. It was hard not to start playing with his Buck Rogers Landrover.......

In the Dealer's area, Mark was still setting up while others were clicking along already including Russ who had some custom heads available.

Brian Leitner was also on hand with some very impressive custom suits and heads.

 

 

John from Type3toys, had a professional looking display of finished figures for sale, it's not hard to tell that John likes himself some Bronze Age marvel characters.

The Mego Meet Dealer's room was an incredible mix of vintage, repro and custom. Whatever your flavour was, it was likely at Mego Meet 2006.

The First thing you saw was a stunning display of Mego figures, rare prototypes and foreign figures such as Mego Zorro and Tex Willer on top. A complete history of Mego Superman packaging on the bottom, more pics below:

Just another shot of the Superman display that made my heart go pitter patter.

Inside, I was relieved to see that the Museum hadn't gotten rid of their creepy mannequin (you can see her foot in this shot) We also were treated to displays full of Mego goodness, this display was dedicated to Mego World's Greatest Superheroes

Chris Johnson shared some very rare Mego Steve Goal getter outfits in the next case, it's always cool to see something you never have before.

Ray Miller provided an impressive display of Micronauts, when people mention Mego, often they seem to only think of the 8" figures so it was great to have an expert on one of Mego's more successful toy lines on hand.

Another impressive display of Micronauts (pics courtesy of Ray Miller)

Across the hall, Ben had created a makeshift photo studio for World's Greatest Toys and busied himself by taking photos of items folks had brought for him from across the country. Here, Mike J has brought his incredibly minty Secret Identity figures for Ben to photograph.

Scott also made use of this opportunity to photograph unusual items for the Megomuseum.

Heading Back downstairs, John Miic had another surprise waiting:

The afternoon got into full swing and Ray Miller began his fasciating seminar about the Micronauts. Anyone who was there can tell you Ray really knows what he's taking about. Ray brought with him some truly amazing items including original production designs and Harold Shull packaging artwork for Nemesis. It was great to have such a strong micronaut presence at Mego Meet this year.

In the dealer's room things were really buzzing, I personally missed out on a few things I should have grabbed. I spent some time trying to piece together a custom for my son, more on that later.

Meanwhile, I noticed Mark had been unpacked for some time, I wandered over and checked out what he had brought.

Mark had brought just about something for everyone from a whole display case of Star Trek Aliens (see pic below) to CB McHaul trucks. It truly was an inspiring site for the Mego collector, tons of beautiful boxed Mego pieces on display.

Of course, the main attractions had to be amount of uber rare Mego World's Greatest Superheroes Mark brought to Mego Meet. For folks such as myself, seeing a Kresge Carded Green Arrow up close is almost like meeting a celebrity, both will never make it to my home.

The day was far from winding down, after Ray's well done Micronauts seminar, people got a sort of sloppy presentation about Foreign Mego by yours truly. The day was starting to wear on me as can be evidenced by this slouchy picture here.

After that, it was time to do the raffle drawing,

The raffle had some amazing prizes so it was great that so many attendees and non attendees won. The winners in order were;

9) World's Greatest Toys prints -Meule

8) Paco Pirates and Clamshells- Kolin Erb

7) Tex Willer CTVT set plus parts bag- Hector

6) Boxed AJ, Heroes of the Revolution MOC, Invisible Man, repro boxes- Kevin Dillon

5) CTVT Pirates, Marvel Legends Monster set- Ron Peritore (how funny is that?)

4) Carded Pocket Heroes Spiderman-Jason Dewitt

3) $25 Gift Cert- Abmac

2) Carded Human Torch- MegoMike

1) Carded Andorian- Wee67

After the raffle (or was it before?) the winners of the Customs contest were announced, the winners were:

So what character did i choose for my son? My choices were limited based on the time and my lack of imagination. I scowered the parts boxes and Ta-Da!

None other than Marvin from the Superfriends. A character my son likes well enough but let's just say even a three year old can recognize a phoned in custom when he sees it.

I managed to make myself a good Dad with some of the DVD's Joe provided me with so all is well.

The final panel of the day was General Mego and it was manned by what I think are the most knowledgable Mego collectors around, Anthony MacElveen, Dan Crandall, Scott C Adams (Creator of the Megomuseum) and World's Greatest Toysauthor Benjamin Holcomb.

The whole time this was going on I was wrestling with whether or not to make a big purchase, this wasn't helped by Ben playing the devil on my shoulder. As mentioned previously, I was Broke-Ass broke on the way home, so I guess you know what path i chose.

Adios Amego's

Well, it seemed fitting to use this point to show off Ron's incredible Gray Morrow original artwork for the Mego Western Heroes.

The show was over and the break down had begun, we headed back to our respective hotels and prepared for the final dinner.

The Mego Meet supper was held at a place called Undo's, I can't speak for others but I seriously enjoyed my meal and the price was fair. Many of us said our goodbyes and finished up deals in the parking lot of Undo's.

For the small group who weren't completely thrashed, we headed over to the "Mego Suite" at the Super 8, drank conservatively, laughed at a poor judgement moment of mine, played on the internet (which I found weird) and said our farewells.

And that was it, as quick it came, it was gone. I've been to every Mego related event in the last few years and I honestly have to say that Mego Meet 2006 was my favourite. While still being a top quality event, it had a wonderful relaxed energy running through it that I've never experienced before.