Ask Ken at Palisades

[ResidentLilly]

Dr. Bombay What is MEGO?

What is MEGO? WHAT IS MEGO!?!? Oh my I am really depressed now. Just pulling your chain. BUT, the person who should answer that question is the biggest MEGO fan I know...MWC...Michael, will you do the honors?

radionate Ken,
With all the posts on here, maybe you missed it. Or maybe you are waiting to answer it in one of your mass questionings, or maybe you are ignoring it for some reason, but what is going on with the Santa Claus line?

Sorry...I don't ignore any of these things...but I do miss some from time to time. YWASC is on schedule and doing quite well. Understand something though...it really isn't our line. We are designing and manufacturing the figures, but we are doing it for Musicland. Technically it is their line, we are having it made for them. After this year's release of stuff our involvement is concluded.

We haven't shown anything on it for two reasons. One, we won't be selling it on the site or anywhere else. Musicland is the only retailer. Two, simply because we have decided to wait until closer to the holiday season, that's all. But now that you mention it...we should at least show the PVC's...I don't think we showed those sculpts. OK, Daily Bit topic...lemme write that one down.

I would love to do the Halloween one. But one thing that makes it tough is now that they want too much money for that kind of stuff as far as licensing fees and what not. For what we have seen people asking for licenses lately, people have a very inflated idea of what kind of dollar these kinds of things (figures and so forth) can generate at retail. You can do it for the high dollar amounts they want if you cut corners and put out figures that don't push the limit...you can't if you make figures that do push the limit.

 

[radionate]

Hey Ken,

I saw the sculpts of the figs and they looked fantastic!!!! I'm kinda pumped. Bummer its a musicland exclusive though. There goes more of my money.

I also saw that the store was up online today. But no Muppet lunchboxes. Will that be happening any time soon?

 

[Dr. Bombay]

I found what MEGO is

and they look like cool toys! Actually I found two of the Dukes of Hazard eight inch action figures in my grandma's basement when we were cleaning it out after she had passed away. They were still on the card. I though it was so cool.

The place I found is the Mego Museum. It looks like a lot of fun.MEGO Museum

 

[Luke]

Mego made a lot of the early Batman figures as well as the Batmobile, Batbike, Batwing. I've actually got some of this stuff and apparently it's very rare and worth quite a bit. Some shopkeeper i knew had kept a lot of it in storage since the seventies and sold it onto me about ten years ago. I never kept the boxes though. ;-(

 

[Louis Kazagger]

I still can't believe that I had the Mego Romulan from the Star Trek aliens series when I was a kid. Apparently that doll is worth about $1500.00 in the package nowadays. That would fund a lot of Muppets figs.

 

[Gorgon Heap]

Ken- S & W accessories suggestions (many!) and more

Hi Ken

I know you're busy with compiling the list for the collectors' club, but I just had some brain flashes (after a large strawberry milkshake) as to Statler & Waldorf's accessories. I know they're a ways off, but I figured I'd offer some preliminary suggestions. Here's what I came up with:

Statler & Waldorf could be good figs to put those fan 'Easter eggs' with. Their props on the show have usually been rather limited, but they have had some things that would work in figure form.

Have you seen the episode with Valerie Harper? I know I'm not the first to suggest it, but in that episode Statler goes backstage to meet Valerie (he's "dated and wined and dined some of the finest performers on the legitimate stage") and brings an African Berrybush as a present. The berrybush grows at an enormous rate. You could make a potted plant that 'grows' by extending parts inside of itself. Kind of like the extending light sabres, where the base is the thickest and inside is an extending layer slightly thinner, inside that one another extending layer slightly thinner, and so on. I hope I'm not alone in saying that the berrybush is a must for Statler.

Other stuff for Statler:

Cigar (#1 Juliet Prowse episode;
Waldorf: "That's one of the reasons I always thought the Muppets were weird."
Statler: "Why is that?"
Waldorf: "They think explosions are funny." Statler: "Ah, yes..."
Waldorf: "Explosions aren't funny."
-Statler's cigar explodes-
Waldorf: "Although some of them are really very droll. Heh heh heh!")

Tennis racket (#2 Connie Stevens; Swedish Chef 'serves' the meatball with his racket, Statler hits is back.
Waldorf: "Fifteen-love!"
Then again, you've already got that covered with the Chef's tennis racket. Of course if Statler has one too then you've got a game!)

A book (#54 Jean Stapleton;
Waldorf: "Think we'll be entertained tonight?" Statler: "I will. I brought a book!"
Man, am I reaching, only if you were to put on the package "accessories: book (to take his mind off the show)". Of course, if it were a book like "1001 Insults for Stage Shows"...)


Stuff for Waldorf:

Grandfather clock (The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence pilot; there's a funny scene where the clock stops and Statler says "Waldorf, either that clock has stopped, or we've just died." Would Sex and Violence require addt'l rights acquiring or would you not need the rights for something like this?)

Teacup (they drank tea up there a couple of times- #17 Ben Vereen and #22 Ethel Merman are two episodes I remember but there may have been more)

Bag of popcorn (one mention- the 'Thudge McGerk' scene in the Vincent Price episode, where the monster Thudge scares Statler so much that he leaps out of the box, to which Waldorf says:
"Hey on your way back up bring some popcorn!"
Thudge: "Arrrigh hiyrree rraaaorrroa buttrhe!"
Waldorf: "With butter!" Doing my best on the monster growling.)

Television set (#26 Zero Mostel)

Hearing aid- the kind with a wire and a box (#27 Milton Berle)


Stuff for both:

Hearing aids (as I recall only Waldorf ever wore the box kind, although they did both wear hearing aids presumably every week)

Easy chairs (The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence pilot; their original concept sketches show them in easy chairs; same question as above regarding the pilot)

Army helmets/hardhats (Waldorf wore one when the opening number on the Nancy Walker episode, the target practice sketch, resulted in a hole in the house wall; also they wore German army helmets in the John Denver episode, and Statler wore a hardhat in the Kenny Rogers episode. You'd think they'd really need them with all the stuff that's been thrown at them in there!)

The Avacado (#53 Pearl Bailey, shared their box and traded barbs; for either, not both, though hardly likely as a pack-in I'll admit; only if you REALLY get stuck, which after this long list I would think impossible)

Eggs and tomatoes to throw (just fits their character, though there was a food-throwing mention in the Danny Kaye ep.)

Scorecards (#96 Diana Ross; maybe we oughta just leave that one be)

Muppet Show programs (now THAT'S something I wouldn't mind seeing)


If you think these are obscure you should see the ones I left out! For those ones you'd really have to have seen the episode to get it (although I know several of the ones I included are like that).


Are their box seats going to come with the theater set (as I'm guessing they will) and will they have the seat bottoms so they can sit? Will they be made so they can sit? Seeing as most action figures with pants seem to be made with that ability (or maybe I'm just overgeneralizing) I'm guessing the answer is yes. Or if it's uncertain then I guess it's too far off.

If you know the answer to this yet, could you tell me whether the S & W figs will be based off the original puppets or the current ones? By older I mean from the Sex & Violence pilot and TMS Season One through the first quarter of Season Four. I favor the original myself (and I'll bet most of the members of this board do too).

Just three more unrelated items-

Will the Vet's Hospital operating table be made so that people can put other figures on it under the blanket? What kind of material would you use for the blanket?

An idea (a good one, I can feel it): have Vet's Hospital come with a stretcher. A stretcher was used a lot in backstage scenes whenever someone was injured onstage (which was frequent- the shows with Ethel Merman, Don Knotts, Nancy Walker and Diana Ross just off the top of my head.)

Strangepork is coming with MAMMA- there will still be room for his ray gun, right? BTW, in case you need to know this, remember MAMMA is with 3 M's and stands for Music And Mood Management Apparatus.

Correct me if I'm wrong: regular Floyd comes with a bass guitar (as he is the group's bassist) and the repaint comes with a differnt kind of guitar, right? Would the Janice repaint come with another instrument, like a tambourine or an acoustic guitar?

Hope this wasn't information overload. Hopefully somewhere in here is one good idea.

Now as the sugar hits my bloodstream and I pause for a verse of "Diddle I Po", the gibberish lullaby, I must be off. Toodles.

David "Gorgon Heap" Ebersole

 

[uncleduke]

Originally posted by Dr. Bombay
What is MEGO?

Man, you just made me feel so old.....
I haven't been this depressed since Phantom of The Paradise was on American Movie Classics!!
It can't be a classic, I saw it in the theater!

Next you'll be wondering who Major Matt Mason and Captain Action were........

 

[ResidentLilly]

Regarding Statler and Waldorf

Would you believe the roughs on these figures are done? They are.

All good ideas there, but I have already decided on their major accesssories. They each come with a Victorian Gentlemen's Chair, just like the ones in the show. Why? Cause if I give them the chairs in their SKU it lets people who don't have the playset have the "theme" of their show activity, and it lets me spend more money on the stage and not have to worry about putting chairs in the stage budget. That frees me to do Robin or some other cool thing in the stage.

They will probably have cards and some veggies or something as well.

Statler's mouth moves...it's friggin SWEET.

Will the Vet's Hospital operating table be made so that people can put other figures on it under the blanket? What kind of material would you use for the blanket?

Really too soon to tell, but a fabric blanket would be the way to go. Probably a TC derivative.

An idea (a good one, I can feel it): have Vet's Hospital come with a stretcher. A stretcher was used a lot in backstage scenes whenever someone was injured onstage (which was frequent- the shows with Ethel Merman, Don Knotts, Nancy Walker and Diana Ross just off the top of my head.

When you see the final design for the Vet's hospital...you'll know why I can't possibly do a stretcher in there. The budget will be maxxed.

Correct me if I'm wrong: regular Floyd comes with a bass guitar (as he is the group's bassist) and the repaint comes with a differnt kind of guitar, right? Would the Janice repaint come with another instrument, like a tambourine or an acoustic guitar?

Floyd was going to come with a new guitar, but we nixed that and decided a repaint only, like the Teeth, was the best way to go. Janice will have a repaint only short pack figure too.

Ken

 

[Gorgon Heap]

Ken, I almost forgot something! Don't I always have something to add.

I came up with it last night and wrote it down and didn't mention it in my last post. I was thinking about how Series 5 has Gonzo in his purple suit and I was thinking you could do a repaint exclusive of him in the maroon tux! He wore that for the first two seasons and several times thereafter- the purple suit wasn't until Season Three. I don't think you'd have to make any sculpt changes (can anyone out there double check for me?) and the repaint is simple enough. It would also be an opportunity to include more weird stuff for him. Maybe a rubber tire with a bite taken out of it, a violin (I would suggest his trumpet but that I think should definitely be with the regular series one), his motorcycle, or maybe a creature pack-in, like the dancing slinky creatures or some Snerfs.

Mull over it as you will. Thanks for bothering to read all the ideas I seem to spew at you.

David "Gorgon Heap" Ebersole

 

[ResidentLilly]

Actually I think we are doing a tux...he is wearing a bow tie in all the reference shots Henson sent us. Thought it was a suit...maybe it is the tux.