Old Mego Only: WORST Mego Likeness

[Megotastrophe]

I’m also thinking I heard a story about Mark Lenard not being thrilled about not being paid a license for his POTA character or Romulan Mego figures.

[ODBJBG]

I had an interesting back-and-forth recently with the eldest son of Mego's Canadian distributor. He told me that his dad put Linda Carter on the 12" Wonder Woman box and she lost her mind and demanded 50k for using her likeness. This likely altered Mego's entire strategy regarding TV and film properties based on the comics.

Makes sense. The video posted here (or somewhere) a while back with Farrah and they were talking about how they were getting anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands for likeness on products. We tend to think of this as a more modern thing, but it was the 70s when this stuff was starting to really take off and there were a handful of agents pursuing this for several actors/stars.

These days it's just part of the process and so toy companies or any company just expect they'll have to pay some kind of fees... But back then it was more foreign to companies and so if they could get around paying anything, I'm sure they did, but the actors (or rather their people) were probably keeping a careful eye on everything from bath soap to action figures and see if there was a payment in there somewhere.

I'm sure some officially licensed TV/movie characters with likenesses may have made some money, but I'm not sure the market was as ravenous for that kinda stuff as it is now. A Hulk is a Hulk kinda thing was going on for a bit. I wonder if the trade off of what you would have earned versus the additional cost to make likenesses would have broke even or if it would have made more money or less. Obviously Mego and other toy companies figured it was cheaper to use the generics. And yet Cher, 6MDM and others all had great likenesses and were big hits, so who knows.

I suspect since we didn't really get many likenesses for comic and TV shows until the mid 80s might be why it became such a thing anyway. I suppose we'll never fully know.

[Dan2Dan]

I suppose we'll never fully know.

Totally. I don't always remember exactly why I made many (on hindsight) professionally important decisions about my own life 20 years ago, let alone 50 years ago. And what I do recall, I certainly am not detailing publicly like I'm giving a deposition. (Not that anyone is asking or interested, in my case.) So I totally get it.

[apes3978]

I’m also thinking I heard a story about Mark Lenard not being thrilled about not being paid a license for his POTA character or Romulan Mego figures.

I could see his point about the Romulan, but I really don't think he would have any claim in the case of Urko: The Urko figure looks *nothing* like he did when he was made up as Urko. I see no resemblance.

Plus, I think 20th Century Fox would have had the right to license the character without having to pay Mark a licensing fee for his image.

[apes3978]

Similarly, as a kid, I could not understand why Mego made such awesome figures of the two astronauts from the PotA TV show, but didn't make any version of Taylor at all. Instead Mego made this oddly generic Astronaut that was the only figure in the PotA line that wasn't of a specific character. (Although I also thought the Ursus head looked more like a bear than an ape, but I think I only saw that figure once as a kid.) As an adult, I learned long ago that apparently the license Mego acquired to PotA didn't include likeness rights to Charlton Heston. But I still don't really understand why that caused Mego not to make a Taylor that just didn't look like Heston's face, or, even more conservatively, make a generic astronaut at least dressed in a white ANSA suit or brown Tarzan-like rags. Why make a generic Astronuat that I now know (from a Brick Mantooth You Tube video, I assume) was assembled using a head from another, more obscure line of figures, and a helmet and boots that I recognize from Action Jackson, and this weird blue (or purple) jump suit that resembles nothing whatsoever in PotA (maybe that was Action Jackson too)? Maybe Mego thought the generic astronaut wouldn't sell well because he was generic, but they thought they had to make a 'hero' character nonetheless, so they made one in the least expensive way possible?

Yes, the whole Taylor thing was kind of screwed up. As you said, why couldn't they make a more 'generic' Taylor figure? By that I mean even a bearded figure with no resemblance to Heston would have been more preferable. As far as the generic 'Astronaut' name, my guess is that 20th Century Fox would have made them license the name 'Taylor', so that could be why they just went with 'Astronaut'. That or they went with 'Astronaut' because they didn't want to risk *any* type of lawsuit from Heston

Heston really was protective of his image-In regard to the trading cards based on the original film, he only allowed them to use 9 images of him in their 44 card set, some of which didn't even feature his face! So, it's not surprising that he wouldn't have been cooperative in regard to having a figure made of himself.

[palitoy]

Makes sense. The video posted here (or somewhere) a while back with Farrah and they were talking about how they were getting anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands for likeness on products. We tend to think of this as a more modern thing, but it was the 70s when this stuff was starting to really take off and there were a handful of agents pursuing this for several actors/stars.

These days it's just part of the process and so toy companies or any company just expect they'll have to pay some kind of fees... But back then it was more foreign to companies and so if they could get around paying anything, I'm sure they did, but the actors (or rather their people) were probably keeping a careful eye on everything from bath soap to action figures and see if there was a payment in there somewhere.

I'm sure some officially licensed TV/movie characters with likenesses may have made some money, but I'm not sure the market was as ravenous for that kinda stuff as it is now. A Hulk is a Hulk kinda thing was going on for a bit. I wonder if the trade off of what you would have earned versus the additional cost to make likenesses would have broke even or if it would have made more money or less. Obviously Mego and other toy companies figured it was cheaper to use the generics. And yet Cher, 6MDM and others all had great likenesses and were big hits, so who knows.

I suspect since we didn't really get many likenesses for comic and TV shows until the mid 80s might be why it became such a thing anyway. I suppose we'll never fully know.

Pretty much sums it up, I view it all as the infancy of licensing adapted properties. I mean, look at the '66 Bat craze, very little merchandise looked like the Dozier show, and there were some intricate and complicated rights to all of that, as we only recently found out about.

Behind the scenes, we had precedent-setting lawsuits by people like Bela Lugosi Jr., and I believe even George Barris started getting litigious about his Batmobile design. Spencer Milligan went after the Kroffts, the Duke boys walked off the job due to licensing. It was an era of change. I also think that when toymakers are unsure, they err on the side of caution.

For a company like Mego, they had the rights to the Hulk action figure deadlocked, so obtaining Ferrigno's likeness would have been an extra and wasn't included because it was through Universal Television. It's all a complicated mess at the time.

The fact that we've never gotten toys based on those TV shows is telling, even the "77 Spider-Man" Marvel Legends is being somewhat sneaky to avoid mention of "TV" or any imagery of it's star.

[basilfan]

I wouldn't think an actor would get paid for using his likeness when he was wearing a full head mask at the time. But I guess that would be something for a judge to decide. Now the Romulan Commander, that's different. Though, frankly, I never thought the original Mego Romulan was intended to look like Mark Lenard.

[palitoy]

I wouldn't think an actor would get paid for using his likeness when he was wearing a full head mask at the time. But I guess that would be something for a judge to decide. Now the Romulan Commander, that's different. Though, frankly, I never thought the original Mego Romulan was intended to look like Mark Lenard.

Oh great talking point, I got him to sign a carded Romulan in the 80s and he flipped the hell out. "What is this? I never got paid for THIS!" He sounded just like General Urko there (i also got him to sign my Urko which caused the same reaction)

[basilfan]

So...you're the cause of Mego's problems with Mark Lenard...?

[TrekStar]

Regarding the Mego Romulan, I guess you could also argue the fact it could be modeled after Lawrence Montaigne too.

When EMCE Diamond Select released the remade Star Trek megos, the pic of the Romulan face on the card resembled Montaigne.

The Klingon on the other hand was technically just a generic Klingon, but the likeness was very close to William Campbell.

[Megotastrophe]

Oh great talking point, I got him to sign a carded Romulan in the 80s and he flipped the hell out. "What is this? I never got paid for THIS!" He sounded just like General Urko there (i also got him to sign my Urko which caused the same reaction)

yea that’s the story I was thinking of. I didn’t remember the specifics but I knew it came from what I consider a reliable source.

[TrekStar]

Of course it’s definitely a Mark Lenard likeness, I guess I can see his argument.

I don’t know what I was thinking, got to much going on these days and can’t think straight, and I must have misunderstood it, talk about a brain freeze in the middle of a heatwave, I mean for Pete sakes I have a mego Romulan, I should have known this, forgive my ignorance.

But the EMCE Diamond Select card art does have the likeness of Lawrence Montaigne which is another story.