This chapter begins with Neal talking about 2XL
NK: 2XL was (originally) a five foot tall reel to reel tape recorder. A guy named John McNet designed (2XL), he's with Ohio art today. A guy named Michael Freedman held the patent on it and he was the voice of 2-XL as well and those (Magna doodle and 2XL) really were the two best we ever did.
Mego Museum: The Museum barely covers all the things Mego did, you were so prolific.
NK: Well, for that I have to give (Marty) his due, he let his people run the show. He always had his overview and was always listen and give us tremendous freedom (and) it's what made the company. We were the first ones to make liquid crystal, anything outside of a watch. We were the first to use an IC in any consumer product, just tremendous things came out of Mego. Magnadoodle came out of a Pilot Pen stationary item that we redid. If 2-XL had hung around we had it set where if the kid picked the right answer, it would have shown the kid a picture of the item. It was on a little reel and it was sound coded to come on with the correct answer.
Mego Museum: That's brilliant. So getting back to production, you worked on Star Trek for instance.
NK: We actually did a tour with Nimoy and Shatner. They got $5,000 an appearance to go to Toy's R Us locations around the country., limousine, first class hotel and $ 5,000.
I've got pictures of my kid hanging with Shatner and Nimoy..
Mego Museum: So that was '74 when they first came out?.
NK: About then, I think the year after.
Mego Museum: There was an animated series at that time was that the tie-in that allowed you to launch the toy line?.
NK: No, there was no animated series, it was before them or the movie, (Star Trek) was a big hit in syndication. We contacted them and they did at least a half dozen each of different Toys R Us's at $ 5,000 a pop.
Mego Museum: So you were in on the ground floor on designing that whole line?.
NK: Oh yeah, I did that whole line and the commercials, I did them too.
Mego Museum: Did you design the figures yourself?.
NK: Well, I didn't do the sculpting; when I say myself I had a staff of people.
Mego Museum: The story about the second series of Star Trek Aliens, them getting destroyed in a fire, any truth to that?.
NK: I don't ever remember a warehouse fire. It's possible, that was no warehouse fire here that I can recall but I'll have to check.
Mego Museum: Design-wise with the Star Treks , with the aliens, do you remember the Mugato?.
NK: Oh yeah I remember that.
Mego Museum: So where did that outfit come from because the character was just a big hairy ape but the figure had a cool suit on..
NK: I really don't remember but if you look at that old show, it's so badly done by today's standards but I really don't remember. I'll tell you something though, the ancillary characters by that time were being done in the orient.
Mego Museum: So you would send over the artwork and the reels from Paramount to Hong Kong?
NK: No we would send over drawings, with keys, this would have to be this Pantone color blue, this hair colour is wrong etc. They would match it and do it until they got it right.
Sometimes, they'd get it right and then we'd get the product in and it wasn't quite right. They'd establish a price with us, even though it was our factory and if they could save a penny or two down the road, you couldn't expect every piece, so the change would be made . There were no faxes those days, it was telex's, it was much tougher. Mego was one of the first companies to set up a factory in China
Mego Museum: Is that right?.
NK: Yeah, doll clothing, I think it was '75. Nixon went in, I think it was '74 and by '75 we were doing business in China. We had a Cut and Sew factory (for doll outfits) they weren't capable of molding or anything like that
Mego Museum: You know we were talking about the commercials (that Scott had sent Neal), did you watch the Starsky and Hutch commercials? They are incredible, it shows the KIDS leaping from rooftop to rooftop!
NK: That was the Toy Fair version, it never aired. A lot of those commercials were strictly shown at Toy Fair, we had to do 30 seconds with a five second disclaimer and if you time some of them they are 38 seconds, forty seconds etc.
Mego Museum: What other TV licenses were you considering, I know Mego did the Waltons which was an interesting choice.
NK: Um, one of the things, the toy industry to this day, is very segmented. Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers control the game aisle, for example, Mattel has been trying to break into the games market for years. The same thing existed in pre-school and we made any number of attempts to break into the business (like the Woodies). We thought (with the Waltons) it was family, we'd get a younger child interested in action figures and it had enormous popularity at that time. So we took a shot at it.
A lot of them, because we were the chosen one in licensing, we got a lot of things, very, very cheaply. The bodies were done, it was just making the clothing and the head, which was virtually nothing.
Mego Museum: Even the mold?.
NK: Even the mold, today a dolls head mold is $450, a master mold and when you make 100, it's a slow process, rotation molding but it may cost you $5,000. It's cheap, in those days it was less.