We Had That

Buck Rogers: Killer Kane (Mego, 1979) As years pass from an event, the facts surrounding that event sometimes become less and less clear.  I'm confident that the Buck Rogers 1979 movie / TV pilot was made because of the success of Star Wars, but I've read conflicting information about some of the details with Buck Rogers.  We know that Mego acquired the license to manufacture the toys, but the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of that license are a little fuzzy.  I have read that Mego picked up the license as a favor and didn't really have high expectations for the line, but I've also heard that they were willing to gamble on this line because Buck Rogers was a space-themed property with an existing track record.  Maybe both are true.  I've also heard that the figures sold well for Mego and I've heard that they sold poorly.  I guess it's possible that some characters sold well while others didn't.  Either way, kids who played with the figures w...

  Eagle Force: Goldie Hawk (Mego, 1981) I don't remember the exact year when I first heard of the Eagle Force figures (it was either 1981 or 1982), but I do remember that my introduction to the line came in the form of a TV commercial that I thought was absolutely awesome!  The commercial worked and I wanted these figures.  Unfortunately, when I saw them for the first time at the store, I was surprised and disappointed that they were so much smaller than all of my other action figures.  At 2.75 inches, the Eagle Force didn't really fit in with any of my other toy lines.  They were made of die-cast metal, so I always assumed that they must have cost more to make and Mego made them smaller to save money, but years later, I found out the reason for their scale was more likely because Mego had recently acquired the molds for a bunch of old Marx vehicles and playsets that were originally sold with little plastic army men.  They were too small for the 3 3/4" figu...

  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. Mego 3 3/4" Draco with his Draconian Guards Although the toys for Buck Rogers in the 25th Century didn't achieve the popular...

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: Draconian Guard action figure (Mego, 1979) When Star Wars came out in 1977, it caught the world unprepared.  The movie was a hit and, even though Kenner had purchased the license to produce Star Wars toys, they weren't ready in time for the massive demand.  For the next few years after Star Wars, all sorts of Science Fiction movies and TV shows were being approved in Hollywood in an attempt to catch lightning in a bottle with another similar franchise.  "Buck Rogers In The 25th Century" was one such project.  Mego rolled the dice on a 3 3/4" line of figures (as well as a 12" line of figures) in hope of similar success to Star Wars. Draconian Guard: standing around and missing a thumb! Unfortunately for Mego, the Buck Rogers line of action figures wasn't the phenomenal hit they had wanted.  Still, those of us who thought these figures were cool as kids were lucky that we got them at all.  Not only that, but Mego had enough fa...

Comic Action Heroes presents The Joker! (Mego, 1976) In the 1970s, Mego brought many of our favorite comic book characters to life with their 8" World's Greatest Super Heroes line.  Since they were having so much success, they decided to branch out into other scales as well.  One of their lines of Super Heroes was the smaller scale Comic Action Heroes line which gave Mego the ability to offer a variety of vehicles and playsets that would have been too large for the 8" scale.  I've seen copyright dates for both 1975 and 1976 for these figures, but from what I understand, their actual first release was in 1976.  The figures continued through 1977 and were given new, straight legs in 1978 and re-branded as "Pocket Superheroes." Two pages from the Mego 1976 mini catalog packaged with the toys I thought these guys were great!  I know as a kid I had Batman, Robin, 2 slightly different Superman figures, Shazam, and Aquaman (the only one of my originals that I still...

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: Twiki (Mego, 1979) When the Kenner Star Wars figures first came out in the late 1970s, they sold so well that many other toy companies wanted in on the game.  Action figures for a wide variety of movies and TV shows started arriving at toy stores across the country with each manufacturer hoping that they had the "next big thing" on their hands.  It seemed like Science Fiction was an especially popular genre to gamble on and in 1979, when the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century movie was in the works, Mego acquired the license to manufacture the accompanying action figures Twiki outside of the city (Mego, 1979) The figures didn't sell terribly well and the single wave that was released only consisted of 9 figures, which actually isn't that bad when you consider how many toy lines had only around 4 characters back then!  Regardless, I thought they were pretty cool!  They had more points of articulation than Star Wars figures and several coo...

Captain Eagle: Leader of the Eagle Force! (Mego, 1982) My first exposure to the Eagle Force was seeing the TV commercial and thinking, "WOW! These figures are AWESOME!"  My second exposure to the Eagle Force was seeing them in the store and thinking, "WOW! These figures are SMALL!"  For decades, The Eagle Force has been remembered for two things: 1) Mego's final bad idea before going out of business and 2) a poorly designed knock-off of G.I. Joe's "Real American Hero" line.  Well, the Eagle Force packaging has a copyright date of 1981 while the first release of 'Real American Hero' had a copyright date of 1982.  I'm pretty sure I remember seeing Eagle Force before G.I. Joe, but I'm not 100% sure about that (it was a long time ago).  Either way, I'm confident that Eagle Force was in development either before 'Real American Hero' or possibly at the same time, but certainly not AFTER, so Eagle Force definitely wasn...