Toys 2 Remember

Mego Mad Monsters vs. Mattel Monster High?

I really liked playing with Mego 8" characters as a kid. I already mentioned Mego Batman, Mego Star Trek, and the Mego World's Greatest Super Heroes as being amongst my favorite toys. When it comes to monster toys, Mego is again at the top of my list with their Mego Mad Monsters!

There were four awesome monsters available: The Dreadful Dracula, The Human Wolfman, The Monster Frankenstein and the Horrible Mummy. Sadly, I no longer have my original set but I do still have a better looking mummy that is not by Mego. There were lots of knock-off 8" monsters made that also included other monsters like the Creature, Cyclops and various Aliens. You can read much more about the Mego Mad Monsters and the other companies monsters at Mego Museum or The Gallery of Monster Toys, as I am really no expert here.

I searched for a modern equivalent to the Mego Monsters and really couldn't find anything like them. Of course there are the McFarlane Monsters. Those are very cool, but more collectibles for adults than toys for kids.

The only thing close in toys that I could find were girl versions; The new Monster High Dolls, and Halloween themed Barbie Dolls. Don't boys play with monster figures anymore? Has it been too long since the great Universal Monster Movies? Sorry, I'm getting off topic.

Anyway, To my surprise, there are dozens of different Halloween Barbie Dolls available. I guess Mattel has made different ones over the years and most are still available at low cost on the internet. One of this year's is the Halloween Treat Barbie Doll pictured here.

Most of the Halloween Barbies are various Witches but there are many dolls of Barbie's little sister Kelly and her friends dressed up in many different Halloween costumes. My daughters used to really like these.

The Monster High Dolls are new this year from Mattel.

The Monster High line looks more like Bratz dolls and is pretty creative. The characters are all daughters and sons of famous movie and mythical monsters and go to a high school strictly for monsters. Mattel has also created many Monster High accessories for the dolls and for girls - also similar to the Bratz line. But Mattel's marketing has been new and different for these dolls. They made many animated mini web episodes to get kids used to the characters and storyline. There is a book about the school, an mp3 song download and even a live action/animated music video that is already very popular with kids. Here is is if you are curious:

These modern marketing techniques must be working because these dolls are difficult to find in toy stores. They are scarce even on MattelShop.com where they have a whole section devoted to Monster High. The only place these dolls are readily available this Halloween season is on Amazon.

So, Mego Mad Monsters for Boys of the 70's give way to Monster High Dolls for Girls of today. Interesting. Do you think Monster High is here to stay or will it be a short-lived fad? Will girls still want Halloween type dolls for Christmas?

Is it possible that These dolls will become Toys 2 Remember? Who knows.

             

Mego Batman Was the Greatest!

Probably the best selling Mego Superhero group was Batman! I know that ALL of my friends had Batman, Robin, and at least one of their arch enemies. Those bad guys were pretty cool too. There was the Penguin, the Joker, and The Riddler. They also had a very funny looking Catwomen and Batgirl, but I didn't know anyone who owned them.

Batman and Robin went through several changes over the years. We had the original Batman with the removable cowl. That was great because we would actually change him to/from Bruce Wayne by using Action Jackson clothes. Maybe that is why our Batman fell apart over the years. We got another one later that had the cowl painted on. I think Robin had a removable mask as well in the beginning.

All of our Batman figures fell apart except Penguin. This is what our Batmans, Riddler and Joker look like now:

I posted a picture of our Penguin in the Last post about Mego Superheroes.

We also had a lot of fun with the Batcave playset, the Batmobile and the Batcopter. The only one left to show a photo of is the Batcopter:

I found some good pictures of the Bat mobile on Ebay from user Ringer 1808. He gave me permission to show them to you:

I love the fact that Robin is wearing a Superman costume and that Batman has lost his chest decal. That is the way most Mego Dolls ended up, isn't it?

As for the Bat Cave, I remember it to be lots of fun. When I look at it on internet sites like Mego Museum, it sure doesn't look as good as I remember. We also never had the BatCycle. Probably because we thought of that as belonging to Batgirl.

I finally figured out how to embed a youtube video, so I want to close this post with a Mego Batman commercial that shows all of what I have been writing about here.

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If you have read anything in this post that interests you or helped you bring back memories, I would love to hear from you. Please comment or send me an email.

I have many other toys that I can write about and show pictures of. Please comment or email if you have a favorite toy form the 60's, 70's, or 80's that you would like me to post about. If your favorite toy is before the 60's or after the 80's, I will still give it a shot. I have many of my Dad's old toys, and I know about the more recent ones too.

This blog is for you. It's for everyone. Together, lets talk about the Toys 2 Remember! Thanks!!

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Now, does that bring back memories or what?

I hope you've enjoyed remembering Mego Batman with me.