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Mego Micronauts
The most basic of Micronaut, the Time Traveller came in a variety
of colours and designs.
If there was ever a success story for Mego Corporation, it is the
Micronauts. Much like G.I. Joe or Barbie, the Micronauts was an
in house brand name that Mego developed (with more than a little
help from the Japanese toy company Takara) that ultimately became
one of their greatest success stories.
Original Mego Sales Documents for the launch of the Micronauts,
click on them for a larger view
The History
To understand the history of the line, one needs to go to Japan
in the early seventies. Toymake Takara was looking for ways to expand
on their very popular "Henshin Cyborg" line, their result was 3"
character called Microman. The Microman story was that the Microman
characters came to earth via tiny capsules, some of the Micromen
became mutated and eventually turned into the evil "Acroyears".
Microman was a huge success, however it was also expensive to produce,
Takara was in need of a North American partner.
Bad to the Bone: Micronaut Aliens with the Glowing Brains! Lobros
and Kronos (L to R)
Enter Mego
Baron Karza, by now, I think everyone knows the story of
his name
Martin Abrams was introduced to the line at an R&D company in California,
he immediately had Neal Kublan, Vice President of R&D fly out to
see the line.
Neal Relates his initial reaction " I walked in there and there
was a table with all the Micronauts laid out and I said I think
it’s phenomenal, the biggest problem we’re gonna have is convincing
the trade that we’re doing all of this and the second problem is
we’re going to have to do at least three of four commercials to
cover the line"
Evil Antron and the Vile Repto!
A deal was struck and Kublan and his team immediately went to
work on the Micronauts, while Mego created innovative packaging
and commercials, there was almost no backstory for the products
letting children create their own.
One part building set, another part Space Toy, the Micronauts
were a hit with both kids and parents, Mego’s early Micronaut commercials
seeemed to introduce and explain the concept to not only the kids
but Mom and Dad as well.
Colour Variants played a big part in the Mego Micronauts
Universe.
The results were fantastic, the Micronauts were an incredible
homerun, Neal Kublan puts it better "The number that keeps sticking
in my mind I think was that 32 million dollars was the peak, that
was an awful lot when the company is doing $ 110 (million), It accounted
for a third of our volume."
Mego actually licensed out the Micronauts name to other toy
manufacturers as evidenced by these above puzzles.
The Micronauts remained with Mego until around 1981, producing
many unique toys featured below.
Click on the Covers to see the Micronaut sections of every Mego
Catalog from 1977 to 1980.
Micronauts After Mego.
Evilites Topen and Nepos from the Lords of Light look mighty
familiar…
Since Mego’s Demise the Micronauts concept has been revamped a
startling number of times, which gives credit to the genius of the
line. First off, was PAC toys line "The Lords of Light". For more
information on PAC read the Museums interview with PAC Toys founder
Joe Ruzzi . Later, "Hourtoys" produced
"The Interchangables" a series of recoloured and renamed Micronauts
figures and playsets. More recently, Pallisades toys relaunched
the Micronauts as a brand again and Devils Due began a new comic
book series.
Click on the thumbnails to see rare PAC Lords of Light promotional
and sales materials
Micronauts collectors are a vocal and well organized front, often
Mego 8" collectors and Micro Collectors do not mingle and with the
abundance of well done and informative websites out there, we will
end this galleries with links to some of the best Micro Sites available
so you may explore every detail of inner space for yourself……
Micronaut Links
Dave
Waugh’s beautiful Innerspace Online is a fantastic starting point
for anyone to learn more about the micronaut line. Dave’s site features
pics of every concievable Micronaut piece plus interviews, prototypes
and much, much more.
Micropolis
Embassy is the biggest group of Micronauts collectors on the web,
Moderated by Ray Miller, nobody knows more about the Nauts than
these people.
Bug
Eyed Monster is a great site for Micronauts as well as other cool
70’s toys like Six Million Dollar Man and Starbird, just to name
a few.
The
Mego Museum Forums have their own Micronauts section, nowhere near
as big as the Embassy but hey, if we didn’t plug ourselves, who
would?.
Lots
of Micronauts at the
Megomuseum Vault of Christmas Catalogs