Mego Happy Days

Mego figures haved always been rad. Even the less popular lines included the same great detailing and comprehensive accessories and playsets as the more popular ones. The Mego Happy Days line is one of the better television toy collections. Although there are some likeness problems, particularly with the dour Richie Cunningham, the collection is far better than Mattell’s Welcome Back Kotter Series, for example, if only because of the superior Mego poseability and 8-inch scale. The Fonzie doll, with his jointed thumbs and “thumbs up” action through the mechanism in his back is one of Mego’s better efforts and was a popular toy in his time.

Happy Days was the number family sitcom at the time, it was a logical choice for Mego to produce figures of these fabulous fifties characters, but to hear Neal Kublan explain it, the line only had one real bright spot for Mego. “Happy Days the first year was really a bomb, but then Fonzie emerged” he adds “I don’t know how many pieces of the other characters we sold but the Fonzie doll sold like crazy for a year.”

The detailing of the high school letter sweaters on Richie and Potsie is particularly nice. This line was rounded out with the Fonzie’s Garage playset and Fonzie’s Motorcycle. The line debuted in 1977 and continued in 78. Note that Richie and Ralph are wearing white tennis shoes with dark side stripes. They would ship with standard Mego dress shoes. Two more figures and a 12″ Fonzie were planned for 1978 but eventually dropped… read more >