KISS FIGURES
1978, MEGO
“Faces that look exactly like the real-life quartet!” screamed the ad found inside a comic book. Not quite, but these 12½-inch articulated figures were the hit toy of 1978. Supported by a kitsch televison commercial, this was the entry point for KISS into the homes of many younger North American fans who perhaps had only been exposed to their comic book and later NBC TV Movie. The Mego company which started in 1954, started to dabble in the arena of licensed products over the years, and product lines such as Star Trek, Happy Days, Starsky & Hutch, Laverne And Shirley, Planet Of The Apes and The Wizard of Oz were released. Having made one of history’s infamously bad decisions to turn down the Star Wars franchise in 1976 (D’oh!), they were, perhaps, desperate, doing everything to have a hit. Mego finally struck gold with their Sonny and Cher dolls (in fact, Cher was the biggest-selling doll of 1976). Despite earning over $100 million in sales by the late ‘70s, none of these, KISS included, were enough to save them from bankruptcy by 1982. Mego did have a resurrection of sorts, producing a line of retro-style toys for US Target stores from July 2018 onwards - including Demon and Starchild dolls. The KISS line was released in two versions: the skinny dolls, which were said to be Sonny Bono bodies (no skinny Peter doll, though), and the muscular final versions. The skinny ones were less articulated than the final versions, and some of these prototype versions can be seen in an alternate early cut of the TV commercial. The Paul head was actually a repainted Daryl Dragon head (from The Captain and Tennille), whilst new sculpts were made for the Gene, Peter and Ace figures. According to Gene Simmons, he was the only one with a unique head on the prototype figures; the others were probably all originally repainted Captain dolls. As the band retained sign-off on the dolls, the action figures were all sent back to be made more like their human likeness. Not sure if they succeeded there or not. Whilst the bodies have a 1977 copyright, the heads have a 1978 one. The outfits were modelled on the Love Gun-era costumes, and all boxes - which were exactly the same, bar the product sticker number - had
cut-out-and-keep instruments on the back. A Canadian version appears with both French and English writing. So popular are these dolls with modern KISS fans, a company called Figures Toy Company resurrected the 1978 packaging design for their line of 8-inch dolls some 40 years later.
Thanks to kissmuseum.com for the extra pic.