Lorne Kotzer has been around toys his whole life; in the 1950s his father Morris was already making trips to Japan to import items from their then fledgling manufacturing industry.
It was there that he struck up a friendship and buying relationship with Mego founder D. David Abrams, this would essentially turn his father’s company “Parkdale Novelty” into the Canadian arm of Mego during the 1960s and the majority of the 1970s.
During the 1970’s Lorne spent his high school years working at Parkdale Novelty unloading Mego shipments and had the pleasure of inspecting every Star Trek Tricorder and repairing the legs on 12’ Wonder Woman dolls.
He fondly remembered those days and took time to do an interview with us which we’ll disclose in the coming weeks, but for now we focus on his surprising reveal, an original Mego 12” Superman prototype from 1977, a product created by Mego for Parkdale Novelty.
This hand painted item was brought back by his father from New York in 1977 and remains one of the very few prototype pieces from the World’s Greatest Superhero collection. We spoke to him about the 12” Superheroes line:
MM: Not a lot of people know this but your dad Morris was the creator of the 12” Mego Superheroes.
LK: Yeah, he thought there was a lot more value in the 12” piece rather than the 8” pieces. He always thought the 8” [figures] were too small. I guess when compared to Fighting Yanks and G.I. Joes, why were they sticking with the little ones?
The cost back then wouldn’t be that much more to manufacture the 12” versus the 8”, you can get more money and it’s just a flashier piece. My dad really wanted those for a long time and I think Mego was pretty open to lots of ideas, they didn’t fight back too much if he said “I’ll order them” they would make them.
I don’t think they were competing with the 8” dolls at all. I don’t think it was one or the other.
MM: This is kind of a detail question but it’s something that’s plagued Mego Collectors for years. On the Parkdale Spider-Man box, Mr. Fantastic is pictured, was there any intention of releasing that.
LK: I have no idea; I’m sorry [laughs] I don’t believe my father would ever have bought that. If he wasn’t really keen on something he wouldn’t buy it. He didn’t buy any Ali, he didn’t buy any KISS. [Editor’s Note: those went to Montreal based distributor Grand Toys]
MM: The prototype you have, is that the only one that was spared or do you remember others?
LK: I really don’t know, all I know is about ten years ago it was there amongst other miscellaneous items and my dad remembered it’s what he brought back from New York.
We probably had more, although back in the day, they didn’t really mean anything, it was just a prototype. Who needed it? This is the original one, [my dad] would have brought it to shows and it was involved in the design of the whole thing.
The Superman prototype is set to be auctioned this year at Hake’s Americana, where Mego and Superman fans alike will have their chance to add this piece of toy history into their collections.
Look for updates on the auction and an expanded interview with Mr. Kotzer in the coming weeks.
