Mego’s “Star Trek” line was “officially” based on the live-action
series in syndication in 1974, but the Mego designers appear to have referred repeatedly to The Animated Series for inspiration. It’s not difficult to imagine why frugal, economical Mego would choose a property like “Star Trek” to exploit as part of the company’s eight-inch action figure line.
Since most of the crew wore the same basic uniform–and used the same weapons and equipment–Mego anticipated minimum design cost combined with maximum utilization potential–a win-win situation if ever one existed. In fact, so high was Mego’s confidence in the line that they took the unprecedented step of creating specific lower-leg tooling for the male crew members. The Starfleet-issued boots were incorporated into the figure itself, saving countless lost pairs of Mego footwear at the hands of careless children–as well as eliminating one more step in the assembly process.
Additionally, Mego had impeccable timing when it came to picking up the “Star Trek” license. With a pittance of an investment, they bought into a virtually dead property that was in the throes of rebirth and rediscovery by a whole new legion of fans–fans clamoring for anything with the words “Star Trek” on it.
The outstanding success of the “Star Trek” line naturally led to new releases over the next two years. Mego’s first priority was to give the Enterprise crew more adversaries to fight. In 1975, four new figures were released: a Neptunian, the Keeper, a Gorn, and a Cheron. These characters were released under the new general heading of “Aliens.” It is probably more accurate to describe these Aliens as “inspired by” rather than “from” the “Star Trek” series. Mego was a pioneer in the field of licensing popular intellectual property for toy manufacture, and the problem with being a trailblazer is that there is no one ahead of you to set the standard.Mego was making it up as they went, and Paramount, being just as inexperienced in licensing (and still not fully grasping the cultural phenomenon that “Star Trek” was becoming), wasn’t very concerned with cracking the whip of consistency. As a result of this relaxed attitude to canonical adherence, the majority of the figures in the Aliens series can best be described as having merely a passing resemblance to their namesakes. In several instances, the Alien figures bear more of a resemblance to The Animated Series designs than the The Original Series; this is presumably due to the fact that The Animated Series was currently broadcasting at the time Mego’s “Star Trek” line was in development.
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