Posted By Dan Greenfield on Dec 3, 2019 | 16 comments

TOYHEM! Let’s go shopping in the past — with hope for the future!

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UPDATED 12/3/19: Welcome to TOYHEM! For the holiday season, we’re bringing you a series of features and columns celebrating the toys of our youth, which often made for the best memories this time of year. Click here to check out the complete index of stories. Most of TOYHEM! is brand-new material but there are a few pieces worth re-presenting and this is one of them — because we’ve got a sequel coming! So dig this dandy column from 2018. It holds up as well now as it did then. Dig it. — Dan

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We’re living in a Golden Age of Toys and Collectibles.

Between modern technology and an unprecedented, insatiable hunger for comics-related TV, movies and video games — not to mention comics themselves — you can pretty much find any collectible you can imagine, depending on your budget.

The one thing you can’t do is turn back time and go buy that awesome toy you had as a kid but lost, played with into oblivion, or couldn’t convince Mom or Dad to get you to begin with. I mean, you can, but often it means paying big money on eBay or at comics conventions.

Now, I say this knowing that we collectors are still a spoiled lot. If you’re a Mego fan like me, for example, the last few years have been an orgy of excess: Companies like Figures Toy Company, EMCE and Diamond Select Toys have not only reproduced beloved figures, vehicles and playsets with unerring accuracy, they’ve released characters we always wanted but were never made the first time around in the ’70s.

Figures Toy Company’s Batman, Robin and Batcave, with original Batmobile, Batcycle (both of which they’ve also re-released) and Batcopter.

Still, there are plenty of items that would be great to see get re-released all sparkling and new, and I was kind of prompted to come up with a list of 13 by reader Tyrone Biljan, who began messaging me with all sorts of ideas. (A couple of his ideas are incorporated below.)

Now, the best part is that my list will probably look a lot like yours — but also differ substantially. If you’re five years older than me, chances are you’d have a few Captain Action selections, or items from Marx, or what have you. If you’re five years younger, I imagine it’d be Super Powers or Secret Wars.

I didn’t even include everything I’d want to see, like Bend ‘n Flex figures, simply because I didn’t want this to be too Mego-heavy.

So check out this list of 13 CLASSIC TOYS We Want to See Re-Released, see how well it matches yours — and then tell us what you’d want to see yourself.

Because if they make Underoos for adults and you can buy Crazy Foam again, you never know what’s coming down the pike.

They really are fun to wear.

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1. Mego Jokermobile. Hands down, Number 1, mainly because I never had one and I always wanted it. By the time I became aware of it, Mom decided I was too old for such things. I’m 51. If I’m not too old for one now, I wasn’t too old then! Seriously though, Figures Toy Company has done a terrific job with its Mego re-releases, including the Mobile Bat Lab. I would love it if they decided that reproducing the squirting flower and boxing glove was worth the extra expense — which I imagine customers would be willing to bear.

I lost this auction on eBay. It just got too rich.

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2. Mego Wayne Foundation. This is another one where I wasn’t even aware of it until it was “too late.” And, like the Jokermobile, now it really IS too late; eBay prices are as high as a Midtown Gotham skyscraper. (A complete one in the box recently sold on eBay for more than a grand.) I would clear out a corner of my house just to build this thing.

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3. Slurpee cups. I had a great time last summer making sport of the Slurpee cups of yesteryear. (Click here and here. You’ll dig it.) So much so, that Rob Kelly and I did a special podcast about them on his Fire and Water Podcast Network (click here). Anyway, how cool would it be if you could bike down to your local 7-Eleven this summer and choose between Clea and Ma Kent?

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4. Power Records. Spider-Man in Mark of the Man-Wolf! Batman in Stacked Cards! Escape From the Planet of the Apes! Star Trek! Six Million Dollar Man! So many fun, often lovably silly adventures — and often great comics — that have long been out of print. You can find the audio for a lot of these online but the sound quality really varies. And trying to track down nice copies of the comics isn’t always simple.

I also include Buddah Records’ fantastic Spider-Man “Rockomic” From Beyond the Grave!, which is my all-time fave superhero recording. (Click here for much more on that.) By the way, you should totally check out Rob Kelly and Chris Franklin’s periodic Power Records Podcast. It’s great.

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5. Ideal Playsets. Before there was the Mego Batcave, there was the Batman Playset by Ideal, which featured about 20 cardboard cutout figures of your favorite Gotham heroes and villains (their fronts printed on the front; their backs printed on the back) with a vinyl foldout diorama divided into three scenes: Wayne Manor, the Batcave — including a secret bookcase passage leading back and forth — and a museum.

Before I built out my Mego collection, this was my go-to playset to act out full-on Bat-scenarios. And even after Mego asserted its superiority, I still got a lot of joy and use out of this. And it wasn’t just the Batman set: My Spider-Man set got an awful lot of use too — especially since I didn’t have any Spidey villain Megos. The copies I have are in good shape, but it’d be nice to have ones that are pristine. (And I never got the Superman one — so that’d be cool too!)

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6. Mego Spidey Villains. As I just mentioned, I never had the Green Goblin or the Lizard and they generally cost around $125 each on eBay if you want one in decent enough shape. Diamond Select has released a bunch of Marvel Megos the last few years but they stopped short of these two. I would loooooooove for them to re-consider…

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7. Corgi 1966 Batmobile and Batboat set. The Corgi Batmobile/Batboat set was one of my very earliest Batman toys — maybe even my first — and I would love a shiny, brand-new one in a retro window package. Hot Wheels has done a fine job with this license but there’s still nothing like the original, with its chaincutter nose, spring-loaded rockets and shooting flame. There’s something to be said for having one that’s all dusty and nicked up from hours of play — but it’d also be great to have one fresh out of the box.

My Corgi Batmobile in Factory Entertainment’s upcoming high-end Batcave model. Click here for more info on that.

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8. Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle Set. Tyrone Biljan suggested this. I never had one but I remember borrowing one from a friend (or maybe it was the Canyon Sky Cycle). I also remember having a hard time giving it back. There are Evel Knievel retro figs out there, though they differ from the original Ideal versions. More notably, there was a rerelease of the set in 2005. Time to do it again.

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9. Colorforms. Another one suggested by Tyrone. Colorforms are still around and they’ve even reissued old sets like Snoopy Come Home. So why not Batman? Or Spidey? Or one of the Superman sets?

Or the Superadventure set that was obviously a riff on Super Friends? So much fun.

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10. Remco Batman Utility Belt. I so wanted a utility belt that I made one of my own. I took a bunch of yellow Kodak film boxes and twist-tied them to my white, triple-grommet belt. (It was the ’70s. Everyone had a white, triple-grommet belt.)

Had I known about Remco’s model, I would have begged, begged, begged for it.

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11. Soakys. Either my Corgi Batmobile or my Batman and Robin soakies were my first-ever Bat-toys.

But did you know that Super7 is bringing back the Soaky? They are! They have the Universal Monsters license and they showed off their “Soapies” at Toy Fair last month. Instead of them being shampoo bottles, though, they’ll contain blowing bubbles. So, now all they need is to get the DC and Marvel licenses.

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12. Mego Planet of the Apes Treehouse. I’m going back to the Mego well here. I had Cornelius and Zaius as a boy and when EMCE and Diamond Select re-released the Planet of the Apes figures a number of years ago, I snapped them up. But the one playset I wanted when I was around 8 years was the Treehouse. My Dad, who fancied himself as something of a DIYer, was turned off by how plastic it was, though, and made me one out of wood, complete with rooftop trap door. I appreciated the gesture, but man I still wanted that original. I’m selfish like that.

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13. Ben Cooper costumes. Ben Cooper has made a return in recent years but they’ve stopped short of reproducing costumes. Licensing must cost a fortune these days. Anyway, I still have my original cloth Batman shirt and would love a fresh costume in a new box to put on a shelf. Or you know what would be really cool? Adult T-shirts with some of the original Ben Cooper designs a la the adult Underoos.

Come on, make it happen.

Hell, make ALL of these happen.

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MORE

— The MEGO JOKERMOBILE is Now Officially in the DC Universe. Click here.

— 13 Great MEGO Boxes That Never Were. Click here.