Mego Museum: So Marvel was owned by Hudson vitamins is that where the "Mego Made Vitamins" rumor came from?
NK: Exactly, we did some focus group testing where we found out every mother fed her child three perfectly nutritious meals a day and never went to fast food.
So once we realized the testing was ridiculous, we tried to procede but DC and Marvel felt kids would take a Superman vitamin and try to fly or a take a Spiderman vitamin and try to climb up a wall, so we were turned down.
(Editors note, Hudson vitamins did eventually market Spiderman Vitamins on their own)Mego Museum: So the idea was the make "Worlds Greatest Superhero Vitamins"?
NK:Yes
Mego Museum: There are some significant differences between the design of the DC figures and the Marvel figures?
NK: There were differences, the Marvels in terms of the cost benefit ratio were much better figures from a manufacturing stand point, that was because we had a year and a half's experience
And we had already started to make up new tools
Mego Museum: Why couldn't take the advances you made on the Marvels and apply them back to the DC?
NK:First of all, if it ain't broke don't fix it and it also had a lot to do with the factory situation, changes when we didn't have our own factory were excruciating.
Hong Kong and China today are much easier to deal with now than in those days, we had language barriers. When we started over there it was virtually impossible to get four color printing, when you did a four color job, you did two "two colors". It was a much different place than it is today.
Mego Museum: What is the deal with Lionrock?
NK: They were a trading company that {Mego} owned and it was named after a range of mountains on the Kowloon side that we could see.
They were our go between agents in Hong Kong, but we owned them
Mego Museum: Mego sold a lot of products under the Lion Rock name in England?
NK: Yeah, there was even ladies garment stuff after we went public. Wasn't our company but some guys started a company called "Dizzy Girl" and they were making these Polyester pants and Lionrock was the broker, the agent.
They were in a lot of accounts and that's why bought some of the companies we did after we went public, Christmas trees was another stroke of good fortune
Mego Museum: Tell me about that?
NK: We had bought a very successful Christmas tree lights company and after about a year or so, they were chaffing, it was three brothers and a father and they hated Marty and they hated being controlled.
They wanted to buy the company back, Marty always a tough negotiator cut a marvelous deal for Mego.
The day they signed the deal was a Friday and that same evening Richard Nixon went on television and said "Turn your Christmas lights off, Save Energy" These guys had paid now paid an incredibly exorbitant price to get their company back. You'd think Marty had a direct line to Richard Nixon
Mego Museum: So tell me about Marty Abrams?
NK: He's one of the best salesmen I ever met and one of the toughest negotiators I ever met, an extremely bright man. {Marty} hasn't one creative bone in his body but he is on the greatest recognizers of creative talent and he knows how to position it and market it and take it
He's a very, very bright guy
Mego Museum: Mego always made a big splash for it's toy fair parties, can you tell me about those?
NK: {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
Mego Museum: Tell me about the Wizard of Oz Toy fair party.
NK: Well that came about through a very strange set of circumstances, {Mego) hunted down the license because it I had noticed that was one of the top two or three movies of the year. We got the rights and we had just gone public and Marty named Mervyn Leroy, who produced and directed it to our board of directors which opened up a lot of areas for us, it helped us get the Cher doll. We had a party with 1800 people for the Cher doll, every year we had a big party, one year we had Milton Berle, Sonny and Cher. Sonny held us up for an extra $25,000.00. at the party
Mego Museum: Tell me that story.
NK: {He said} "Hey we're not going on until we get some more money". Tough little guy
Mego Museum: What did Sonny and Cher think of the dolls?
NK: We had a difficult time getting them approved, {Cher} had spilt with Sonny already and was living with Greg Allman. I did the final touches on the final sculpt as a matter of fact.
NK: She finally approved it with her lawyers and Greg in the house she had lived with Sonny. It was something else, she did earn over a million dollars and then, it was real money.
NK: In fact, {Mego} were the first to get in on it but word got out and everybody tried to get on the bandwagon. Mattel jacked the price up trying to protect Barbie, Remco was also entertaining her, they ended up doing the McDonalds characters.
Mego Museum: Tell me about the Muhammad Ali doll?
NK: A failure, it did not do well.
Mego Museum: That's a shame, it's such a nice line.
NK: Well I think it had a lot to do with the times, white people then did not buy black dolls. At the time, Muhammad Ali was the most well known person in the world and he was one of the most terrific and fascinating persons I ever saw. The breakfast that we gave to introduce it, he started to play the game (the boxing ring) with my son who was eight at the time. When it was time to pose for pictures, he refused so he could finish the game with my son. He was on time, professional, a gentlemen.
Mego Museum: You had planned other boxing characters for that line?
NK: They never came out, never got out the door
Mego Museum: The opponent figure that came with the ring, it looks an awful lot like Joe Frasier?
NK: It's Ken Norton
Mego Museum: Back to WGSH, I've heard of rumors of Daredevil and there was some talk parents wouldn't buy something called "Devil"?
NK: I don't remember any of that, the biggest controversy we ever had, the only controversy was the tongue on the Kiss Action figures. Whether it should be in or out. The out won.
Mego Museum: Did Gene Simmons have a say in that?
NK: No
Mego Museum: DO you recall any other prototype superfieroes, they say you did a Dr Doom?
NK: Yeah I think we did a Dr Doom, we did a lot of different early Marvel characters that today look much different and they got no reaction from the trade.
(Editors Note, here Neal mentions the "XMen" but says they have a different name and describes the Thing)NK: There was a bunch we had done but the Marvel characters had just not taken off yet
Mego Museum: Moving on to DC, was Green Lantern ever considered or Flash ?
NK: The Flash was, definitely, I can see it today, we definitely worked on Flash. ( Neal Describes the Flash perfectly) Very often we showed it or prototyped it and we got no reaction at Toy Fair