TOYHEM! Mego did right by the Clown Prince of Crime… — Welcome to TOYHEM! For the seventh straight 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 — and have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah and Happy Holidays! This first ran in 2020. — Dan — Buddy and pal Scott Tipton wrote the other day when discussing Mego’s more obscure superhero vehicles (click here) that learning about new toys could be something of a hit-or-miss proposition in the ’70s. He’s 100 percent on the money. For example, I didn’t learn about the Wayne Foundation playset until well after it was too late – and I finally scored one, as chronicled in TOYHEM 2019. Now, as an avowed Batkid I had the essentials – all the Batfigures, the Batmobile, Batcyle, Batcopter and Batcave. But I cannot say with any certainty when I first learned about Mego’s grandest ride — the Jokermobile. The Jokermobile came out in 1975 when I was still in prime Mego collecting territory at the age of 8. But as so many things did before the internet, it slipped right by me. I do know this: By the time I learned about it – perhaps from a Mego commercial, perhaps from a Heroes World ad listing – my mother was already trying to discourage me from such things. (Shows what Mom knew, huh?) I had no interest in the companion Batman Mobile Bat Lab – that was too far afield from “real” Batman to me and I dismissed it out of hand. But the Jokermobile? This was the stuff of dreams: Bright green and red, like the Joker’s hair and lips; cackling stickers adorning the van from top to bottom; a gigantic grin on the front grill with a boxing glove gag meant to surprise Batman in the rear; and, best of all, a working prank daisy on the top that shot water (or in your fevered imagination, Joker gas or acid). This thing was a beast – and what I liked about it most was the same thing I liked about the Removable Cowl Batman: that added, world-building dimension. No toy line is complete without secret identities and an...