A 1977 Mego Order Form with Buyer's Notes

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In a box of very musty paperwork comes this wonderful bit of Mego history. It's a 1977 Mego Order Form complete with the thoughts of the toy buyer, it's interesting to see what the thought process was at the time. Click on each image for a better look:

Page One The buyer seems impressed with the two million dollar Cher TV promotion but not the items that won't have commercials. Apparently he doesn't care for Jaclyn Smith or Lindsay Wagner much...

Page Two No love for the Star Trek Mission to Gamma 6 Playset and the Science Kits are labelled "Difficult Item" but the Trekulator is great? CB Mchaul is a total no go but there is much love for the Wayne Foundation.

Page Three A lot of lines like Our Gang and One Million BC get shot down but Muhammad Ali, Starsky and Hutch and King Kong get gold stars. Most interesting is the thumbs up for the abandoned Comic Action Spiderman Tower playset, too bad more buyers didn't think that way.....

If you want to see more Vintage Mego Order Forms, check out our Order Form Gallery at the Mego Museum Library.

Discuss this in the Megomuseum Forums.

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[vulcan2074]

It's great to see that this stuff survived. Definately very interesting.
Sammy

[toys2cool]

that's neat man

[rche]

very interesting glimpse into the retail side of this. Cool to see some of the could've beens like the Spidey Tower, and to see the wholesale pricing on the items. For 11.90, I would have ordered several of those Wayne Foundations. What was retail on those suckers? 25? That is a good margin, tho I am sure they sold 100 figures (or more) between sales of the playsets.

[ScottA]

It's interesting to think how lines suceeded or failed based on what a rep thought. What made him think he knew what the public would buy? Was he just guessing based on his own feelings for a certain line?

[Wee67]

Its amazing how much lived or died on a rep's gut back then. Now sped up production capabilities and super-fast research results play a much bigger role. All that said, I have to assume good ol' fashion relationships and someone's gut still play a big role.

[clemso]

Have you noticed, the bigger the cross, the more the sales rep seemed hate it

[megoscott]

That is freaky cool! What a great find, Brian.

[palitoy]

Thanks, I gambled on a lot of water damaged catalogs and order forms. I knew it was most likely trash and hoo boy does it smell but I got a lot of neat stuff in there.

[megoscott]

Our Gang sucks, OMBC sucks, CB McHaul sucks....

[megoscott]

I like how he colored in the M logo.

[palitoy]

Our Gang sucks, OMBC sucks, CB McHaul sucks....

As much as I'm a fan of McHaul, this guys gut was right.

[Twiki1979]

what other mego stuff was in that lot palitoy?

[palitoy]

Just more order forms, some with notes, some without.

I have a fourth page I just discovered (I can only handle these things for so long) that I'll put up tomorrow.

[rche]

Our Gang sucks, OMBC sucks, CB McHaul sucks....

And he was mostly correct, or perhaps other buyers felt the same and so the lines didn't go as far as they could have.
This fellow seems to think along the lines of TV being an all powerful advertiser and motivator.

CB McHaul - no TV, nothing but the cb craze to ride on.
Our Gang - pre cable, so the only support this had was in Saturday afternoon syndication. Not enough exposure for him.
OMBC- No TV, just the millions of kids that LOVE dinosaurs. Might have taken a second look if they were marketed as the Lost Land series.