Best Non-Licensed Mego line?

[drmego]

You know - I remember seeing the mini-catalog that came with the POTA treehouse
even though I didn't own one as a kid, but when I saw it as an adult, I remembered
seeing it before - and that had pictures of the monsters, western, etc. maybe I was
just too much of a superhero kid to pay attention to anything that wasn't Apes or
Supers.

[drmego]

If only Action Jackson had the face of the one on the outfits package.
That was the same face used for the Colorforms kit.

How did he go from handsome man in the art to fugly in production?

[PNGwynne]

I remember the mini-catalogs, & I did have Ivanhoe & Mad Monsters as a kid.

However, I grew up in the sticks--If a Mego wasn't in our Christmas catalogs or my local supermarket, I didn't get it. I don't recall seeing Mego Pirates originally, although I had some Fighting Furies as a child.


Paul makes a good point about the work involved on the Knights--it's interesting to get a manufacturer's perspective.

But Patch is my favorite Pirate sculpt lol. Some of the "legends" lines have great accessories but mediocre sculpts (Am. West.).

[HardyGirl]

If only Action Jackson had the face of the one on the outfits package.
That was the same face used for the Colorforms kit.

How did he go from handsome man in the art to fugly in production?

I didn't think his face was so bad. It was just unique. And certainly better looking than Captain Action who looked as if he were going to break down and cry at any moment!

[drmego]

But Captain Action was supposed to have his face covered up!
He was the hero born to have a bag on his head. At least AJ
grew a beard.

[Falstaff13]

I think other Western lines actually come out a little ahead of Mego (well, basically I rank The Legends of the West above them), but I'd make it a close call between the Knights and Robin Hood, and I think the two are both excellent. I like the pirates but just not as much.

Meanwhile, I still am surprised, given their success with these lines and the movie success for The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers, that Mego didn't produce a Musketeers line (World's Greatest Adventurers? Literary Characters?). They would have only needed to make one costume and repeat it (maybe change the color of the hat or something), and then just reuse bodies already in production--perhaps blonde versions of Ivanhoe and King Arthur/Buffalo Bill, a reworked Robin Hood, a slightly changed Little John, and you've got Athos, Porthos, Aramis, & D'artagnan!

[PNGwynne]

^Re: Musketeers--You make a great observation & suggestion.

But of course they would have skipped Cardinal Richelieu lol.

CAT released some nice Musketeers in a similar vein using CTVT parts a while ago.

[drmego]

The Musketeers were adult movies - definitely not kid fare - even though it
was PG.

[kingdom warrior]

If only Action Jackson had the face of the one on the outfits package.
That was the same face used for the Colorforms kit.

How did he go from handsome man in the art to fugly in production?

That's what I always thought!

[kingdom warrior]

The Western line was awesome too but it was a shame that mego didn't have the license to do an 8' Lone Ranger line to go with the Western heroes that would have been killer!

[actjac01]

The Musketeers were adult movies - definitely not kid fare - even though it
was PG.

I don't agree. I love the Three Musketeers when I was a kid, especially because of the movies. In my opinion, they were as much adult as "The Adventures of Robin Hood' with Errol Flynn or "Ivanhoe" with Robert Taylor.

[PNGwynne]

^I think Paul is referring to the more bawdy '70s Salkind films.

But Musketeers in general could easily have been a Mego line--virtually no new tooling would have been needed.