The late Executive VP of Marketing at Mego, Neil Kublan was instrumental in creating the 8 inch toy line and nearly every major product line from 1971-1980.
"Mego
started a lot of what goes on today, we really did. Our showroom
when we moved into 41 Madison looked like the Starship Enterprise.
{Mego} had a console designed like the original Enterprise with chairs
as close as we could get. The showcases, these were for private audiences,
with the major accounts, {the buyer} would come into the conference
room and the wall would open up magically and show the product."The art director for Mego speaks with curator Brian Heiler about his career in the industry and days at Mego.
"So
a friend of mine, I don't know if it was Neal Adams or Bernie Wrightson
said, "You
know Harold, you ought to check out some of the toy companies because
they have a lot of work" and that's what I did, I knocked on
a lot of doors and wandered into Mego." As Product Design Manager at Mego toys from 1974-1980, Vinny oversaw and helped create many of our favorite playthings.
He is described by his colleagues as "someone who lived and breathed the toy industry," even today his enthusiasm for the subject matter is not hard to spot and his pride in the work evident. He sat down with us recently, via email, and shared his Mego experiences.
"It
was a high-rolling, gambling, seat-of-your-pants whirlwind.
There were no focus groups or MBA-types submitting demographic
reports. If it made Marty smile and Neal get excited we
ran with it and we were running in some pretty important
circles. ." Linda and John McNett met in 1977, while both were employed at Mego. Linda McNett (née Linda Larkin) was Neal Kublan's Administrative Assistant from early 1974 until late 1978 and John McNett was the esteemed Director of Design from early 1977 until early 1979.
"I
invented the Transporter, (from
the Enterprise play set) the (never-produced) Tribble,
the Tricorder and others, as
well as some of Mego's original toys: Mazeroni, Avery
Close Game and Commander
Zack Power." Growing Up Mego: Ken Abrams,son of Mego Chairman Martin Abrams shares his memories of life growing up in the World's Greatest Toy Company.
"KISS was my idea. My dad didn't know who they were
and I talked to him about getting it, he got the rights for little. Later
on, he became friendly with Gene Simmons, my dad took me to a rehearsal.
I was 11 years old and got to meet KISS, it doesn't get any better."
Harvey Zelman has had a career in the toy industry that could be considered "legendary". Starting his career with a rising star that was Mego during it's zenith, he then went on to create pop culture history with one of the toy world's most memorable creations.
"I'm telling you, we were ahead of our time. Then we had this multimedia conference room with like 14 slide projectors and dissolves and everything with video and I would be handling this for pre toy show and presenting this to the buyers and the sales force. When we used to present, let's say, Cher, we would have the all the Cher outfits on these slides dissolving with music, it was awesome. When I look back at it, I can't believe the stuff that we did and how hard we worked, it was a dynamite company, it was really was."
Tory Mucaro was the son of a Mego artist who became a toy designer at Mego in his own right, working on such lines as Buck Rogers and Star Trek the Motion Picture.
"Chris Reeve was [really ticked
off about his licensing deal] and he didn't realize it wasn’t me [who
had done the deal] it was Cubby Broccoli. I had to say “Whoa, Superman!”.
He seemed like a really nice guy."Orit rose from a young graphic designer to become Mego's Creative Director in the late 70s. She shares some of her thoughts on the creative atmosphere at Mego.
"We
weren't scared of failure, I guess because it happened so quickly and we
were so hugely successful that it just was a deal.."Growing Up Mego: Chris Kublan, son of Mego Executive Neal Kublan shares his memories of life growing up in the World's Greatest Toy Company.
"My
biggest impressions were the big giant closet with all the toys that Mego
made into which I would take a garbage bag. "