If I were ever asked to write down my definitive list of toy brands, Mego’s Micronauts would be in the top five alongside The Transformers, LEGO, G.I. Joe and Zoids! Wait, where’s Star Wars? Come on, Star Wars transcends the fickle fancies of any top five collectible chart!
In 1976, the Mego corp. signed a deal with the Japanese toy company Takara that would forever change the way children played with toys. They inked a deal that would import one of Japan's most popular toy lines to the USA and Europe (Airfix in the UK). By 1977 the Micronauts were born. Incidentally Hasbro combined Takara's Diaclone and Microchange toylines in 1984 to create The Transformers.
Mego was an already strong competitor in the toy marketplace in the early 70's. Their World's Greatest Super Hero line was a huge success, and they had cornered the market in the 8" action figure genre – Batman, Spiderman and Superman owned my bedroom long before the arrival of Luke Skywalker and friends!
Mego were the licensing kings, scooping up almost every character name and likeness on both TV and in comics. But the time had come to have their own "original" property, and Takara's Microman was an excellent fit.
The Microman concept was a simple, yet ingenious, one: a line of toys that used a 5mm peg-and-hole interchangeability system. This allowed any item from the line, figure, vehicle or playset, to be fully interchangeable with each other and assembled anyway the child wanted, albeit in a fashion more restrictive than LEGO.
Backed by a gripping Marvel weekly tie-in, Future Tense, Micronauts were a transient hit. Mego spent approximately $3.5 million in advertising in 1978, and it paid off. Christmas 1978 saw Baron Karza clash with Darth Vader for supremacy of the toy galaxy and parents pockets!
Micronauts graced UK toy shelves until 1979, when Mego corp. teetered on the verge of bankruptcy due to poor business decisions including passing over Star Wars to Kenner. D’oh! In desperation Mego had licensed Disney’s The Black Hole and Star Trek The Motion Picture, which soon filled depart store budget bins.
The fate of these lines was no reflection on the quality of the products (in many ways the likenesses were superior to Kenner’s products), but the movies had not captured children’s mindshare in the way that Star Wars had, and with the advent of the first Star Wars sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, Mego’s and the Micronauts fate were sealed…
The story doesn’t end there!
Labels: batman, darth, darth vader, disney, g.i. joe, hasbro, kenner, luke skywalker, marvel, marvel comics, mego, microman, micronauts, movies, spider-man, star trek, star wars, star wars transformers, superman, takara, the empire strikes back, toys, transformers, zoids
