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Dec25

MEGO’s WAYNE FOUNDATION: Dig This Rare UP-CLOSE LOOK

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Dec 25, 2019

MEGO’s WAYNE FOUNDATION: Dig This Rare UP-CLOSE LOOK

THE TOYHEM! FINALE: A tale of the one that (almost) got away… — Welcome to the TOYHEM! finale! For the holiday season, we’ve brought you a series of features and columns celebrating the toys of our youth, which often made for the best memories this time of year. You heard from comics creators, regular 13th Dimension contributors and more. Click here to check out the complete index of stories — and have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah and Happy Holidays! — Dan — Every year, I tell the story of how I got the Mego Batcave for Chanukah. It’s become something of a tradition here at 13th Dimension and you can click here to check it out, if you like. Now, the Batcave has always been — and will forever be — my favorite toy. The sheer amount of enjoyment I got out of it, the countless hours spent on the floor concocting adventures for Batman and his coterie of allies and adversaries (not to mention a fleet that included the Batmobile, Batcycle and Batcopter) make it easily the greatest of all time. I will brook no dissent. Thing is, though, at some point I learned that Mego had put out another headquarters for the Caped Crusader: Batman’s Wayne Foundation, which, since its 1977 debut, has become the granddaddy of all Mego playsets. I can’t say exactly when I found out that it even existed. It was most likely through an old Heroes World catalog (click here for a trip through those), but in any event by the time I became aware, it was too late — its time had passed. Because when it was new, I was quite in the dark. I never saw a commercial for it — though there was one — and it wasn’t like I could just drive myself to the toy store to see what the latest Cool New Thing was. And I’m not even sure I would have been able to convince my Mom to get it for me to begin with. Money was tight and she knew I had the Batcave. To her, this probably would have seemed duplicative and wasteful. Besides, by the time I was 10, she was trying to steer me away from such things. (Foolish Mom.) But, see, the Wayne Foundation wasn’t a repeat of the...

Dec24

THE IDEAL PLAYSET: The Most Underrated BATMAN Toy Ever

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Dec 24, 2019

THE IDEAL PLAYSET: The Most Underrated BATMAN Toy Ever

TOYHEM! MEMORIES: Sometimes simple is better… — 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. You’ll be hearing from comics creators, regular 13th Dimension contributors and more. Click here to check out the complete index of stories — and have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah and Happy Holidays! — Dan — My first Mego superhero was Batman with the removable cowl, which probably comes as no surprise to regular readers of 13th Dimension. I got him when I was about 5 years old. But what is Batman without Robin? So, for some time after I got the Caped Crusader — days? weeks? — I hectored my parents to deliver unto me the Boy Wonder. (Mostly my Mom, I’m sure. She was the softer touch.) So, finally one afternoon in what I can best determine to be early 1973, Mom came home with Robin in hand. Naturally, I was ecstatic, even though I was a little disappointed that Robin’s mask was painted on. (I missed out on the brief wave of Removable Mask Robin, which I knew about thanks to my pal Phillip Tagliaferri. Click here for that entertaining story.) But Mom also had a surprise for me — she held out this white rectangle of vinyl with Batman and Robin painted on the front, promising something “FANTASTIC”: A playset by Ideal. I was mystified because I had no real understanding what this was. Besides, I was too distractedly happy that I finally had a Mego Robin to go with my Mego Batman. But then I took a closer look, popped the snap and opened it to find a miniature world of Batman adventure. The case folded out to form a diorama with three sections: Wayne Manor, the Batcave and a museum that was designed to prove irresistible to villains of every stripe. There were working doors, including my favorite — a bookcase that led from Wayne Manor to the Batcave a la the Adam West TV series. But it was the cast of cardboard characters, vehicles and props — printed with fronts and backs to give you a 2D facsimile of reality — that really made this Gotham City microcosm come alive. There were...

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