Mego The Loveboat

Just hearing those words reminds me of Ernie (Ghoulardi) Anderson's promos for that show, remember that booming voice of ABC going "tonight on the Loooove Boat"?.

A highly rated show at the time, Love Boat seemed a logical shoe in or kid's toys (Hey I watched it!).

Mego took what is a questionable approach with the line however, it would seem a toyline based on a romantic comedy series would be more girl orientated. One would have expected Mego to create a series of fashion dolls based on the female leads, instead they chose a 3" line similiar to the Pocket Superheroes.

The figures were sold on blister cards which were often placed in the boys section in stores in my town.

The Loveboat playset does exist, it was released in Canada by Grand Toys. As you can see it's a huge piece of styrene like the Pocket Heroes Batcave or the Star Trek the Motion Picture Enterprise Playset

Card backer courtesy of Troy, note that it uses simple one colour line artwork, a cost cutting measure.

Above and below is a set of Canadian (Grand Toys) cards, which are smaller than the US cards.

Grand Toys was able to market the Love Boat Playset because they sent Senior executive Charles Marshall to Hong Kong to restart the Lion Rock Manufacturing after Mego had gone under. More on this later....