We Had That

Micronaut Time Travelers by MEGO Shortly before Star Wars figures dominated the shelves of every toy store, MEGO released a line of more articulated figures in the same scale: Micronauts.  The Japanese company Takara had found success with their Microman line of toys, so MEGO licensed several of the figures, vehicles and playsets, re-branded them Micronauts and released them to the USA. The most common figures from the line were the 3.75" Time Travelers.  Sold individually as well as packaged along with select vehicles, the Time Traveler was the figure that just about every Micronauts fan had.  Even though the Time Travelers didn't come with every vehicle released by MEGO, they would fit in any vehicle that could hold a figure, so they were a 'must have' for any kid with Micronauts! Although there were several different Micronauts figures, the Time Travelers were always my favorite.  As a kid, there were many Micronauts figures that I never saw, but even if I...

Original 1982 Adventure People X-Ray Man with modern Imaginext A-Ray Man and Dog. A few years ago, Fisher-Price began releasing blind bag figures from their popular Imaginext line.  I started collecting them Imaginext when Series 1 first came out.  Although they're distribution has been kind of random, I've managed to pick up most of the ones I've wanted.  Fisher-Price has created a lot of cool figures for this line, but there has been such a variety of themes that I'm not really interested in collecting them all.  For the most part, I'm not interested in the sports guys or some of the more mundane characters.  I pick up anything monster related and most of the space or robot guys.  With that said, I've picked up at least one figure from almost every series. When series 11 came out, I picked up every figure.  There were several figures that were made as tributes to old toys from the 1980s.  There's a tribute to the M.U.S.C.L.E. figures (whi...

My childhood "Power Droid" action figure takes a walk outside As I've mentioned before in other posts, Star Wars dominated my world in 1978.  I loved Star Wars figures and played with them every day in the late 70s and early 80s!  I had all 12 of the first wave of figures and I thought every single one of them was amazing.  Apparently, I wasn't alone because Star Wars figures were selling like crazy and I would imagine it took no time at all for Kenner to decide to make figures of more characters from the movie.  At some point in 1978, a second wave of 8 figures hit the shelves. The second wave included 4 bizarre and intriguing aliens from the cantina, Luke Skywalker in his X-Wing flight suit, R5-D4 (the R2-D2 style droid with orange detailing), Death Star Droid (who looked like an evil, silver C-3PO to me), and Power Droid.  X-Wing pilot Luke was easily my favorite and I loved the aliens too!  It was cool to have two droids that, even at the time, fe...

Center: Metal-Man "Radon" figure. Background: Micronauts "Galactic Warrior" and "Space Glider" Going back at least as far as 1976, Metal-Man action figures were some of the earliest 3.75" figures on the market.  Their die cast metal construction and numerous points of articulation combined with multiple themes such as Space, Military, Robots, Police Men, and Construction Workers made them cool and curious toys!  Yet unlike many of the toys of the time, it seems few people remember them. Metal-Man "Radon" figure from Zee Toys Although Micronauts aren't as well known as Star Wars, G.I. Joe, or Masters of the Universe toys, I would think that most people who collect action figures from the 70s and early 80s are at least familiar with Micronauts, so it only makes sense that people might think some of the Metal-Man figures fell into that toy line.  I don't know if the reason for their relative obscurity was that Metal-Man didn...