Action Figure Overview: Buck Rogers - Emperor Draco (Mego, 1979)
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| Buck Rogers Emperor Draco action figure (Mego, 1979) |
The unexpected, massive success of Star Wars in 1977 led to huge surge of Science Fiction movies, TV shows, and books. Along with the popularity of the movie, Kenner's 3 3/4" Star Wars figures had quickly become the most in-demand toy of the late 70s. Toy manufacturers scrambled to get a piece of the SciFi pie. Mego, who had missed out on the licence for Star Wars didn't want to make the same mistake twice, so they seemed to jump on any license that came their way, Science Fiction or otherwise. They ended up making action figures for everything from The Black Hole and Star Trek: The Motion Picture to The Dukes of Hazzard and CHiPs and even The Love Boat! It was around this time that Mego was offered the license to manufacture toys for the re-boot of the Buck Rogers franchise.
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| Mego 3 3/4" Draco with his Draconian Guards |
Although the toys for Buck Rogers in the 25th Century didn't achieve the popularity of Star Wars toys, it wasn't because Mego didn't try. While many companies were only releasing a handful of figures to test the waters with their new lines, the Mego Buck Rogers line had an unusually large first wave of nine 3 3/4" figures and seven 12" figures! While Star Wars figures had only 5 points of articulation, the Buck Rogers figures offered a much wider range of motion. There were also several vehicles and a playset made specifically for the line, plus a few vehicles from their Micronauts line re-packaged as Buck Rogers vehicles.
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| Draco poses with a 1979 Mego Buck Rogers cardback |
Even though Buck Rogers had been around since the 1920s, this new Movie and TV show offered us an updated version of the character that could only have come out in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It's almost as if the creators of the show said, "We're going to combine the two hottest things in the world: Science Fiction and Disco Music!" It wasn't just the music, but the fashion as well. The costumes consisted of more sequins, boas, and metallic spandex than any other show on TV. On the other hand, the action figures weren't so garish. There were no metallic colors and the paint applications were kept to a minimum which meant in many cases, the figures were almost entirely one solid color with only a few painted-on details.
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| There were very few paint applications on the Buck Rogers figures |
It's no surprise that Mego made figures for Buck Rogers and his robot sidekick Twiki. Of course you need a couple of bad guys like a Draconian Guard and Tiger Man or maybe Killer Kane, but I'm surprised that the line included not one, but TWO female characters (making female characters was something that most boys toy lines avoided at the time). Possibly the biggest surprise was the figure of Emperor Draco!
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| Lack of screen time didn't stop Mego from making a Draco figure |
Emperor Draco was known as The Conqueror of Space, Warlord of Astrium, Ruler of the Draconian Realm (which includes 75% of the known galaxy). That should be impressive, right? He also has 30 daughters - That's impressive! One of his many daughters was Princess Ardala, who was one of the main villains in the movie. All of this makes it sound like they should make an action figure of this guy, but in reality, the character of Draco only appeared in one short scene of the movie which lasted less than a minute and even then, only as a hologram yelling at Kane! Sure, Ardala and Kane talk about the guy throughout the movie, but when you have a line of nine figures, it's odd that one of them is an old dude in pointy shoes who had 35 seconds of screen time. Then again, who would they have made instead of him? Mego actually did a pretty good job of making action figures for pretty much everyone in the movie who had any dialog.
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| Emperor Draco looks a little bit like his Mego action figure |
The action figure of Draco was kind of neat, I guess. He looked a little bit like the character in the movie. He was given gray hair instead of brown and Mego didn't include his crown for the 3 3/4" figure (it was included with the 12" figure). He had a yellow Star Wars style cape, but it was made of cloth instead of vinyl, so it started to fray right when it came out of the package. He had two, unpainted, molded-on necklaces on his chest and a molded-on sash around his waist that matched the color of his pointy shoes. Like the rest of the figures in the line, he came with no accessories. The 12" figure was much more movie-accurate. He may not have been the coolest figure in the line, but I had him as a kid and I played with him. He mostly just sat around yelling at people from back at his base, but it's good to have a figure to cover that job. When it comes to the Buck Rogers movie, I really can't think of any characters that Mego left out who should have been made instead of Draco (maybe Buck in his NASA space suit?), but there were definitely some characters from the TV show that would have been cool to have! Overall, I think Mego did a pretty good job with this line.
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| Mego Draco figure without his cape |
Did you have any of the Buck Rogers action figures as a kid? Do you collect them now? Which character was your favorite? Tell me in the comments!
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