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Make Mine Mego with Mego's Marty Abrams and Dr. Mego and Think 3Fold's Kenneth Siemens
438 Plays5 years ago
On this episode, friend of the pod and previous guest Kenneth Siemens of Think 3Fold joins the legendary Marty Abrams and Dr. Mego from Mego Corp. to talk the brand's history, relaunch, strategy and much more!
Follow Mego on Twitter and Instagram @megocorp.
Follow Think 3Fold's Collection Obsession on Instagram @collectionobsessionofficial and find their listings on Walmart.com/collectibles!
See our review of some Mego toys on YouTube
Follow us @aic_podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
Intro and other voices by Joe Azzari
https://www.instagram.com/voicesbyjoe/
Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
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Transcript
Introduction to Adventures in Collecting
00:00:02
Speaker
Are you ready, kids? Get your parents' permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart. It's time for the Adventures in Collecting podcast. I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and halls, along with our journeys as collectors. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting.
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome back everybody. We're back. We're back. And we're, we're, we're back with another episode, Dave. It feels like it's just, it's, it's becoming the regular thing that we don't have to bury the lead anymore. Yeah, there's, there's just not necessary. Just assume that there is, there's a lead we're not burying.
00:00:50
Speaker
The interview episodes used to be the special ones, and now it seems like the episodes where it's just you and I are quickly becoming the one-off episode.
Interview with Migo Legends
00:01:02
Speaker
Of course, if you're here, you probably read the description for the episode, but MeeGo is a toy company with a long history, having created countless iconic toys representing a multitude of properties going all the way back to 1954.
00:01:16
Speaker
Joining us today, along with friend of the pod, Kenneth Siemens from Think Threefold, we have Dr. Migo himself, Paul Clark, and we have the father of modern action figures himself. We have Marty Abrams. Marty, Paul, Kenneth, welcome to Adventures in Collecting. Thank you for having us. Yes, thank you. Yeah, thanks.
00:01:41
Speaker
So Marty, before we kind of dig into the meat of all of the fun things that we want to ask you, we ask all of our guests before we get started. And you know what, Marty and Paul, this one is for both of you guys can both answer it. Kenneth answered it last time. But what are you guys collecting right now? On a personal level, for me, I'm collecting relationships.
00:02:09
Speaker
I've got to a point in my life that material things don't mean a whole lot, but people do. Having said that, you get to that point where you wanna know and meet new people with new ideas, new thoughts, new experiences, and that to me is a full-time chore. And even in COVID, in this time where you have limited ability to get out to,
00:02:35
Speaker
to reach out and touch someone, for me, the reality check is doing things like this, meeting you guys, getting out and talking about other podcast shows, interviews all over the world, by the way. I'm talking about where we've reached out to folks in China, in Europe, and that to me is the most rewarding part of what we're doing now. Awesome. Well, consider us collected. You've collected us. Yes.
00:03:06
Speaker
We're gonna pin you on the wall. I've got a magnitude here hanging up in my toy room and I'm gonna write your name on it. Perfect. Awesome. Keep us mints on card, please. Absolutely. You have no idea how prophetic that is. And Paul, what about
Migo's Origins and Licensing Strategy
00:03:30
Speaker
you? What are you collecting?
00:03:31
Speaker
Oh, I'm collecting all the new Migos that we're making. There it is. Excellent. Awesome. So, you know, when when people think of I feel like when people think of Migo toys starting out, they think of, you know, the eight inch figures and the and also the larger ones, the 14 inch figures that you guys have been making since the 1970s.
00:03:56
Speaker
But prior to that, what kind of toys did the company produce? All companies start in a microwave. You start off with a small idea, and if that works at some level, it's built upon. And my mom and dad started this coming back, as you said, back in 19.
00:04:15
Speaker
1954. In that time, literally, if you could get toys, forget about creating great stuff. If you could get them, they sold. Because it's after World War II or after Korean War, there's a shortage on everything across the board, and no one's really doing branded stuff. They were bringing in stuff in Japan, cars and trucks and dolls all.
00:04:38
Speaker
Oh, you know, very commodity type product. You know, you're talking about minting box or minting card. I mean, the original packaging was a corrugated box with maybe a lithograph printed cover. Forget about how the packaging is done today. So that was the aspect of what they were doing. And everybody was doing basically the same thing.
00:05:02
Speaker
If they brought in a fire engine, obviously the red is what everybody preferred. But if it wasn't exclusive, maybe you got it in blue and you got it in green. And that was the aspect of what my folks were doing prior to that. When I came aboard and I came out of NYU with a marketing degree, and the first couple years I saw the painting or the writing on the wall,
00:05:31
Speaker
that we're just selling price because we have the same product that virtually everybody else had with a very little bit of a nuance here, a bell here or a whistle there. So everything became price. I knew we had to go out and brand that product that we were doing. And at that time to put stuff on television was very, very expensive. And the way down that branding road for me
00:06:01
Speaker
became licensing. And that's how that actually opened up. I was a kid back in 1968 and just about watching the New York Jets as Joe Namath wins the Super Bowl the next year. And we ran through each other over the course of a year. In New York, he was the same age as I am going to the same clubs. It became a perfect segue for me to turn around.
00:06:29
Speaker
and do my first license, which was the Joe Namath, the Joe Namath action figure. And that's really how we got into it. I knew that was the path that we had to take. So what other inspirations were there to make the kind of action figure you started producing when you took over for your father in 1971?
Transition to Inanimate Action Figures
00:06:48
Speaker
Here's what I knew. I knew that because we did the Joe Namath action figure.
00:06:54
Speaker
Literally, when we all ramped up to release the product, looking forward to the Christmas sale, he turns around, plays a preseason game. Guy was a great athlete. Someone intercepted his pass. He goes down to turn around and tackle them in a preseason game. That's what kind of a competitor he was. And he blows out his knee.
00:07:22
Speaker
By blowing out his knee, he blows out the season. By blowing out the season, he blows out the whole product. I know from that point on, we better get into it inanimate characters in terms of that aspect. So that was my segue into getting into the action figure area, but into it inanimate.
00:07:43
Speaker
and other objects, whether it be comic books, whether it be television, whether it be movies. And my first venture was because G.I. Joe at that time was a highly successful product in the marketplace. And in that area that I had the affinity for, we turned out we created a brand called Action Jacks.
00:08:03
Speaker
Which, by the way, was a redistribution in size of a GI joke so we could reduce the cost dramatically. And then we could turn around and build an environment around it that you couldn't actually do a joke because of scale. Because if you scaled up a Jeep or a tank or a battle wagon, they were huge and they were too costly for that time in terms of the cost of plastic and the pricing of the marketplace. But on an ancient Jackson figure,
00:08:33
Speaker
The scale comes way, way down and you can create the motorcycles and the vehicles and the environments that work. And so we went to the marketplace with Action Jackson. We have an incredible reception with the product line. We put it in the market and it starts a really hum and take off.
00:08:55
Speaker
And then again, we're kids, we didn't know what the hell we were doing. And we created these incredible commercials. They were all animated, first time because of what we were trying to accomplish with the brand. And the National Association of Broadcasters at that time said, you cannot have animated commercials selling to children under the age. I think that time was eight or nine or 10. So all our commercials got posted.
00:09:25
Speaker
So from going to heaven this great year, we went to heaven, we call it a flat year. It was a good year, we survived, but it wasn't anywhere near the dimension that we thought we would have. And so we knew we had to expand that brand and expand it fast. And so from that, the next step was into licensing. And we were looking for a brand that would work. And the first brand that came into our shop that we took a hold of,
00:09:56
Speaker
was Batman. Batman wasn't just Batman, it was Batman, it was Robin, it was the Joker, you know, the Riddler, Miserplex, all the characters, Superman. So having said that, and knowing that was the place, what we did was because of price, again, because of price point and because of collectability, we stayed the exact same size as Action Jackson.
00:10:18
Speaker
Rather than going to a 12 inch video that was Joe, which we knew that going under the marketplace and being priced at half the price of G.I. Joe and having a brand like that.
Superhero Expansion with DC and Marvel
00:10:29
Speaker
And by the way, in those days, brands only pay 5% royalties, not like they are today in the 15 to 16% range for the places like Marvel or Lucas. And so we were just humming. The minute that brand launched, it exploded off the shelf.
00:10:46
Speaker
And, you know, so we had the entire DC library. It didn't take a genius to figure out if you had DC, you should have Marvel because they had the, you know, the aligning characters, you know, the Hulk and Spider-Man and Iron Man, Black Panther. So we, Turner, obviously went out and immediately got to get that brand. So the brand just fell into line, into place based upon a history of our involvement from,
00:11:15
Speaker
Joe Namath and from Joe Namath to Action Jackson and from Action Jackson to Batman and then to Spider-Man, the Marvel as well as the DC group. Now see the thing that I think is
00:11:29
Speaker
is really interesting about the Amigo figures. And again, because of my age, and we'll get into the kind of later history of the company as we go on, but I kind of missed the initial wave of Amigo figures. It isn't until quite literally a few weeks ago that I got my hands on Amigo figure for the first time. I've known about them, known the history and everything. And one of the things that I found
00:11:58
Speaker
kind of mind blowing about the figure and something that I kind of always had an association with, particularly with three and three quarter inch GI Joes is the actual action figure system itself with like the O rings and the hooks and like the fact that there are those bands going through them. How did you guys initially go with that kind of design style when you picked the eight inch scale?
00:12:25
Speaker
We have a whole engineering group over in Hong Kong. There were other figures that were being made, being made out of other materials that were not the same quality that we wanted to make, but in that adaption portion, became a
00:12:44
Speaker
a involvement from a point A to point B to point C until we came up with what we wanted to do. We used Joe as a standard, as a product. We wanted to have the same quality in fields as the 12 inch GI Joe, but we wanted to be able to do it at a much lower price point, but have the same quality. And by having the costumes that we were already making on it, with it, we were that one step ahead because the GI Joe basically had the same costume
00:13:11
Speaker
and everyone that's characters. Their strategy was then to sell additional costumes to undress the characters, which is really not a male play pattern. It's a female play pattern. The male play pattern is to take one dollar in one hand and one dollar in the other hand.
00:13:31
Speaker
And so that was the response of how we operate. One thing we also knew is that when we went out and started acquiring brands, we had to be first to market. It wasn't just getting the brands, it was getting the brands in and getting the brands out quickly. Now, the only way to do that
00:13:49
Speaker
was to standardize the bodies. So we turned around basically two sizes of bodies. We had a 14-inch and an 18-inch. At that time, I think we had, it was 12 inches, but we've increased the size in the next go round. But all those bodies were standardized. So all we're really talking about doing is sculpting the head and doing cut and sew, putting a body about it. That allowed us to get to the marketplace
00:14:17
Speaker
literally in 90 days. Because to sculpt the head and to build a rotational mold maximum from sculpting to finish tooling is 60 days. So if you're going down that road, and that includes what they call a painting mask, so you can paint the eyes and the mouth and the eyebrows and that stuff. But if you're going down that road,
00:14:46
Speaker
simultaneously, you're building the costumes. And since it's all the same body, the patterns are basically the same. I mean, you know, you got maybe Shazam is red, Superman is blue, and Batman is black. But you look at those patterns, the patterns to make the costumes were all basically the same. So the cut and sew part became really the
00:15:11
Speaker
expertise of our factories that we could we could reduce them that quickly and we were not you know tied down by a unique and difficult difficult patterns and or super type printing on on our costumes that would take additional time so we could we could turn this we turned very very fast and that was one of our selling points to our license a license horse you give us the product now and you'll be making royalties for Christmas
00:15:41
Speaker
And that's why with all intents and purposes, everybody fell into place with what we were doing. And by the way, when you talk about the GHO 3.4-inch figure,
00:15:53
Speaker
or you're talking about the Star Wars three and three quarter inch figure. That standard is a standard that we started at MIGO because what happened, I think it was 1974, there was a major oil crisis and oil and plastic comes out of oil and the plastic crisis really doubled overnight. And we thought based upon the pricing that we were going to have, we would
00:16:16
Speaker
have to turn around and raise our prices so needed for you, it would damage the retail
Streamlining Production with Standard Sizes
00:16:21
Speaker
pricing. It would cut into our volume. So that's what we went down to the three and three quarter in size. We created a brand called the Comic Action Super Heroes. And they're much smaller, but it was all basically labor versus plastic. So we established another size. So we had the three and three quarter in size,
00:16:43
Speaker
We had the 8-inch size, we then had the 12-inch size, and then we had a bigger size as well. Just to give us the balance of price points and capture retail space.
00:16:56
Speaker
Now, we've talked about the licenses, you know, DC, Marvel, Kiss is another one that is really a kind of famous amigo license. Just kind of proved that all properties can be toyetic. How did you go about selecting some of those licenses? And were there any challenges or properties that were a little bit difficult to work with? Nobody was really difficult to work with. And Kiss was probably the easiest to work with because they
00:17:27
Speaker
had zero licensing base when we went after the license. It wasn't like everybody was banging on their door to go take these crazy.
00:17:34
Speaker
musicians who were dressed up in costume, and create a license bar. Certainly not in the action figure business. They may have had some, and I don't even think they had that, because I think we were really the foundation of their whole licensing program. But what happened was, again, because I was so young, and at that time I was doing all this, I had young kids. And they literally
00:18:05
Speaker
walked me through a lot of this stuff and got me into what we call that curve. It's almost like talking about these relationships. I collect relationships. Collecting relationships is collecting experiences. And that's something that you can't replace. So my son at that time, I think it was maybe six or seven,
00:18:29
Speaker
He said to me, dad, I want to go to a Kiss concert. I said, that's great. What is Kiss? I was clueless. I mean, I had no idea what Kiss was. He said, no, they're a big rock band. I said, what do you know about rock band? Oh, because they were these crazy costumes.
00:18:42
Speaker
they had touched the court for the younger male, and I'm talking about the six to 10 year old, he might've been 10 by the way, I'm like, huh? He was, he was 10? If Paul told me he was 10. Thank you Paul. That when I walked into Madison Square Garden, it was just him and I, his mother didn't go. What I saw was,
00:19:12
Speaker
20,000 people, half of them were fathers and half of them were 10-year-olds. We're all there. Like, whoa, but what am I missing? And by the way, that's what triggered some of the offbeat stuff that we did over the course of the years. And the minute I walked out of there, the next morning I was on the phone to their management and it was like, you know, we literally made that contract with them probably in 20 minutes because they were looking for me
00:19:43
Speaker
before I was looking for them. They just didn't know who me was. You know, me could have been Battelle, me could have been, at that time could have been Hasbro, could have been Remco, could have been Transagram, those are the companies that existed of that day. Me could have been Kenner, me could have been anybody, but they couldn't find me. I walked into their door. And it's such an iconic commercial to those, that original Kistol commercial.
00:20:13
Speaker
Like I can think of the jingle. Yes, that's the name. Yes, the totally insane kiss in frocks game. It's guess. There we go. That's what that's why he's here.
00:20:28
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean, they're they're literally not even figuratively. I mean, they're they're superhero rock stars. I mean, it doesn't get more toyetic than a guy that calls himself the demon, has an extremely long tongue and, you know, an axe or a base and wings.
00:20:44
Speaker
Kenneth, we're going to make it a point anytime you're on where you have to talk about kiss at least once. It's going to be an ongoing theme for you. Thank you. Thank you. So 2018 saw the relaunch of the Migo brand after being absent from the market for about three decades.
Migo's Return and Relaunch in 2018
00:21:05
Speaker
How did you determine that it was the right time, that the world was ready for Migo again?
00:21:11
Speaker
What we don't know, and I'll give you a little update, is I'm just going to do Star Trek. The original Star Trek? Not the original. You and I did. Oh, that was 2007. All right, 2007. Dr. Migos sitting next to me comes to me and says, we want to do Star Trek. So I said, gee, that's great.
00:21:35
Speaker
I mean, I mean, I knew just so we understand there is a Migo convention. It's called Migo Con. It's held every year in June. Obviously it wasn't held last year. It won't be held this year, but we're going to try to push it out to September.
00:21:58
Speaker
You know, nowhere, you know, there's about tens of thousands of people that go, it's a hardcore two, three, 400 people who are who amigo fanatics and
00:22:11
Speaker
Dr. Migo is one of the leaders of that convention. And him and another guy named Brian Heilin created something called the Migo Museum. He said, I don't know if you've been on it, but it's a digital museum and it talks about Migo across them. So he comes to me and says, we wanna do Star Trek. I said, great, what's that gonna do with me? He says, well, what would I do with you? I said, why would you wanna do it with me? He says, because with our, oh, you tell him, go ahead.
00:22:37
Speaker
Without marty, it's not mego. It's gotta have mego. It's gotta have marty involved so anyway, he turns around and says let's go do it and what happens is We do he does with me with diamond direct. Um, I guess 100,000 pieces. So uh, 30,000 we sold about between 30 or 40,000
00:23:02
Speaker
figures with me on the packaging, promoting the brand. It was shocking because, you know, and that was the first inkling that I was going to do something. But what happened was I've had a pretty good career post-bego. You know, my team created the Power Glove. I don't know if you know what the Power Glove is, but that was the first virtual reality product. You put a glove on your hand, then you can move projects.
00:23:32
Speaker
in 3D space. It had an X, Y, and a Z axis. All the head-mounted displays that you see now, we were doing back in the 90s, and we sold the PowerGo out of that head-mounted display concept to hook in with Nintendo. It was a $500 million piece of business. We did another brand called Skydancer.
00:23:56
Speaker
Which is a flying, a flying doll. You pull a string and it flies up 30, 40 feet, 40 feet in the air. I created that as well. That did about $700 million with the business. So I've had in the product development, a pretty good career post-Migo. I did not want to go back and get back into the Migo past because to me it was something I held sacred and I didn't want to screw it up a second time.
00:24:23
Speaker
You know, losing it the first time was a disaster to stay emotionally. Losing the second time would be horrific. And so, although we had this great success, not only by the way with Star Trek, but Paul also did with Diamond, Planet of the Apes. And that was very, very, very successful as well. And again, it would help me promoting the brand and make it work. But between that period of, that 10 year period of time,
00:24:54
Speaker
When we did that, everybody was coming out with MIGO-like product. In other words, they would create an action figure, they would dress it up, use the 14 points of articulation that we did, replicate it, and would call it MIGO-like.
00:25:12
Speaker
And it came to a point where that just over a 10-year period broke me down and said, okay, let's get back into the business. And that's really, really put me back in, was everybody using, and I'm talking, there was several millions of dollars, I don't know if it's tens of millions, but millions of dollars of business were sold under the brand, Megalike. So I had to clean that all up. I had to get everybody out of the Megalike.
00:25:36
Speaker
No one can say that any longer because we own the brand Migo. And that's how we got started. What brought me back into it. You know the expression, I think Al Pacino said it best in the Godfather 3. When I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. Exactly. Exactly.
00:25:59
Speaker
So Kenneth, in curating the selection for Walmart's collectible section, how did Migo factor it?
Reviving Classics and Targeting Collectors
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think a lot of it is, you know, Marty covered it really well. Migo is a classic, right? That form factor alone is an icon and getting the real deal was really important, right? We didn't want any of that Migo like stuff in there, right? And that the brand and the history
00:26:27
Speaker
gives so much credibility to building a collectible space, especially one focused on that adult collector, right? Because it's very much, they have that history and the nostalgia element. You know, and with that, you know, as we look at what MIGO is, and, and what they stand for, and what they bring, like, as we work with with Marty and team, we really want to kind of
00:26:54
Speaker
celebrate the history of the brand and also use that classic form factor to bring like more contemporary characters to life. So kind of create these, these new takes on this classic or a classic take on the new, right. And the, you know, the other thing that's really, really compelling about the Migo model is that the character design alone, right, with the, with the
00:27:21
Speaker
the common bodies and the ability to kind of just focus on the heads and the clothes and the hands allows for this unique kind of flexibility so we can really create newness throughout like the year, which is really exciting. And it's something we haven't really had a chance to tap into yet, but I think that the opportunities as we keep going are really, really exciting.
00:27:43
Speaker
Well, it's awesome as a collector, especially in that Walmart collectible section that's popping up within the entertainment section at Walmarts. It's really cool to see that MeeGo logo and then something like Marty, you had mentioned Star Trek and Star Trek being an important IP in MeeGo's history and now seeing figures for Star Trek Discovery.
00:28:11
Speaker
and seeing a show that's brand new and seeing some of those characters that are brand new to the Star Trek universe and are brand new to people's 4K, HDR, TV sets. And then you see this very retro and perfectly vintage version of that figure. And I love that concept. Well, and I think the packaging is such a unique
00:28:40
Speaker
piece as well. Like I'm a packaging geek, right? Like, so I work, I get really focused on what it looks like on shelf. And with Migo, it's so kitschy and nostalgic. Like some of the packaging is like, this should not fly. Like it's just, it's almost in the goofy level, but it's just so on point for what Migo is that it's just, it's like, it's like a little time machine.
00:29:06
Speaker
like on the shelf, right? Like it doesn't look like you could almost picture like an old KB sticker on it. Um, someone accidentally put it in a new Walmart and that's what's so much fun about it. Yeah. There's something about the, uh, I guess it's like the ratio to like of like bubble to card, right?
00:29:28
Speaker
that it yeah like your brain is like huh like but you know exactly what it is when you're when you know when you see it and it does make it stand out that's a that's a really really good point um so so overall um how how are people uh
00:29:45
Speaker
And this kind of goes to everyone here. How are people responding to the reintroduction of MIGO? We're back. How are people responding to it? From our point of view, it's been extraordinary. We basically started 18 months ago.
00:30:09
Speaker
Oh, it came in 2018. That was specifically for one customer. And it was a crossover brand because we had to cull out a lot of the stuff that we knew was not MIGO orientated. But so we're talking about when we first released the living product was
00:30:30
Speaker
last spring and summer. And then the development was the six months prior to that. So the response was just for us, as I said, it's been overwhelming. And then we created something called the amigo ambassadors. And you know, you're going to start with one ambassador. So whoever that one ambassador was has exploded down. We get like almost 9,200
00:30:59
Speaker
MIO Ambassadors worldwide. And we're on our way to, well, this year we should hope, then the year, close to 15,000. Because it's not just, MIO's not just a brand in the US, but it's branding and it's tracking in Canada, obviously, but it's tracking in France and in England and Benelux and in Spain and in Germany.
00:31:25
Speaker
We just literally delivered China, which, MIGO is never a brand in China, but because of the way we're marketing it with all our crossover brands, so it's Plan the Apes by MIGO. It's Universal Monsters by MIGO.
00:31:47
Speaker
It's Star Trek by Amigo. It's all in this brand. And so the market owner is accepting it. The Chinese market's jumped. We just opened up the Japanese market. Australia.
00:32:03
Speaker
Two countries in South America, which are in dire, dire straits financially, because what's going on with COVID, what's going on in the rural economy, Argentina and Brazil, both have taken shipments this year and have reordered. So the sense of what this brand can be over the next,
00:32:30
Speaker
three to five years is pretty extraordinary. And by the way, without the help and the leadership of Think Threefold, it would take us an extra three years to get there.
00:32:42
Speaker
So we saw that superheroes in science fiction seem to be the two genres that Migo was really known for covering originally. It seems that horror is the new focus.
Expanding into Unique Horror Figures
00:32:54
Speaker
So have you selected the intellectual properties in Migo's modern era? Interesting enough. I'm going to let Kath handle that question because he's been a leader for us and has directed us in some of our best properties. Yeah, this is definitely
00:33:11
Speaker
the fun part. As we look at like how that the space came together that they were building kind of once again for the adult collector. Kind of going back to using the opportunity to introduce like iconic characters that aren't traditionally found in the kids aisle, right? Like so we had a lot of fun this year with like Candyman and the creeper from Jeepers Creepers as well as a Teen Wolf. So these are like
00:33:39
Speaker
super fun icons that just have not been done in toy format a lot, right? And so horror is such a fun space, you know, done well. It's kind of like a schoolyard for adults, right? Like, you know, and historically in mass, it's been dominated by, you know, you've got five to seven characters that have lived, that have just dominated, right? And I love Jason as much as the next, you know, horror geek.
00:34:09
Speaker
You know, I also go deeper than that. And what we've really started to uncover, you know, that's not necessarily what people have been asking for. It's just what's been available. Right. So most fans of like a Friday the 13th will also gladly purchase like a My Bloody Valentine or a toxic Avenger because it's just it's it's almost like a DNA thing.
00:34:33
Speaker
Um, so kind of diving into that horror as a whole, it also has a lot of breadth to it, but that's mostly untapped. And that's where it really comes down to, um, Finding those unique characters that just haven't been done that amigo can kind of be the first in, um, in, in, in, in that in and out kind of exciting way. Um, you know, and you know, a lot of it's untapped because a ton of the content was low budget and there was no licensing or merchandising deals even considered.
00:35:03
Speaker
you know, until now as licensing agencies are kind of gathering stuff up. And what we're seeing is when we drop an unexpected character, like when it gets out into the wild, fans go nuts, right? Like, so it's really fun to see. My favorite comment is like, I can't believe they made that. Why would they make that, right? Like that's just so much fun. You know, we, and we are looking, you know, beyond horror,
00:35:32
Speaker
we do have basically the way we have it kind of coordinated in stores is they have a horror specific slot and then like an entertainment specific slot. So it kind of gives us a little bit of flexibility and entertainment is where you see things like Ultraman and Star Trek and things like that. So it's still, you're gonna see both but the ability to actually focus on horror is I think gonna create a really nice
00:36:01
Speaker
divide in character assortment and IP selection like as it just keeps going. Yeah, I have to say that so, you know, obviously the the news that amigo is coming back was exciting because of the the legacy of the brand and everything. But I have to say that the four that like really caught my attention. I'm so happy to now have all four of these actually. So
00:36:28
Speaker
Ultraman because I mean come on It's perfect like if there was ever a thing that should have been amigo toy when Ultraman was was out was was Ultraman When we talked about that one, I was actually taken aback that they had never done that before
00:36:46
Speaker
I, you know, I actually, I googled it because I was like, wow, this looks like it, like it, it looks like it should have been, it looked like a reproduction of something that should have already been amigo figure. Like that's how good that the like brand alignment was on that one. That's right. Um, so, so ultra man, um, mask of the red death. Yeah.
00:37:11
Speaker
Because it's like, OK, you know, Phantom of the Opera, you know, iconic film, but like a deep pull from from that movie. I mean, just unbelievable. And then Hammer Dracula.
00:37:26
Speaker
because you can never have enough Christopher Lee in toy form ever. And by the way, I love that you guys are bringing Van Helsing, Peter Cushing's Van Helsing next. Very, very, very, very excited for that one.
00:37:42
Speaker
And then the last one was Hannibal Lecter, and not just one Hannibal Lecter, but two different Hannibal Lecters, complete with the mask, complete with the straight jacket. Like just again, like to your point, like four figures where it's like, I can't believe that these exist, period.
00:38:01
Speaker
But that they exist in 2021. Yeah, like I'm excited that, you know, I have Candyman, like I would have never thought that there would have been a Candyman figure. And now I'm like, well, you know, who else can we get and can there be more like? Yeah, it got me even more fired up for like for the new movie that's come.
00:38:20
Speaker
I'll give you a quick take on Ultraman. Ultraman has got the classic Ultraman, but there have been so many subsequent Ultramans over the years that we're going to be bringing out, as well as their evil alien, miserable people. They're called Kaiju.
00:38:46
Speaker
Paul's telling me that they're called Kaiju. Yep, there you go. So I was searching for that word as all these other things came out. But interestingly enough, Ultraman is like Star Wars to here.
00:39:04
Speaker
Ultraman is the same way in China. Forget about Japan. Japan has run its course over the last X amount of years. It's over and over and over. Literally, in Japan, we call it the resting time. But in China, because the culture has been so attuned to it and they've had nothing like it, it has just exploded for us in China, which will give us the ability to make this brand much wider
00:39:33
Speaker
and deeper than if it was just, we're gonna do our selections here, because we'd roll them up. But now because of the manufacturing capabilities, we can do eight, 10 different characters and build around the process. And one of the things we started to think about is to do some unique environments. I don't know if you guys remember the bridge of the enterprise,
00:40:00
Speaker
But when we launched that, we sold 850,000 pieces. And the key thing was the magic, literally the magic of the transporter room. Now I have seen,
00:40:16
Speaker
that particular mechanism and 30 or 40 different items over the last 30 years, replicate it, try to accommodate what we've accomplished with that. But it never had the the imaginaryation of what we created where you spin it out and it was gone. Where'd it go? Well, what's the other planet? That's not it. I mean, it was actually the back door yet.
00:40:38
Speaker
Took it out, but it went down to, you know, to the bridge of the Robinson Station. So we're in the process of building, I don't know if you remember the the trios or the plow of the apes. We sold, I mean that was one, the year that we launched it, that sold
00:41:00
Speaker
40, that one item, 40% of the category. Everybody who bought a figure bought a tree house. It was just, you know, in terms of, and that launched the whole area of, especially in preschool, tree houses for the younger kid. My point is we know that there are play environments that we can bring out that can be very unique
00:41:25
Speaker
especially now when we do limited quantities. And that's, again, our plan across the board. So as we start to look towards the future, it's not just the characters, but the environments that we can put these characters in and create almost a universe, an echo universe of characters, environments, and other paraphernalia that brings in the whole Migo brand.
Enhancing Engagement with Dioramas
00:41:53
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's awesome because I'm sure you, you know, you guys are all very well aware of the, the online community that has been built up over people just kind of showing, showing off their toy displays or of course, you know, toy photography and, you know, having those, you know, what are effectively, you know, at the end of the day, play sets, but really they end up becoming diorama pieces. And that's exactly what they are. And people, people love,
00:42:19
Speaker
building these elaborate displays and taking these professional level, having professional level photography sessions with action figures and play sets. And I think that's an incredible idea, very exciting one too. Well, Paul will talk to you afterwards. He'll send you some of the videos that we've been making
00:42:46
Speaker
exactly down that road to give you an idea of some of the things that we may be doing over the next three to five years. Amazing. So we have one question for you before we get into, we have a little Q&A where we put out an Instagram story asking our followers if they had any questions for you and we have a few. But one last question before we get into that.
00:43:10
Speaker
Out of all of the brands and intellectual properties that you guys have worked with over the years and there have been a ton, is there one that you would love to take a stab at that you haven't yet? You got to be kidding me. Just one. Just pick. You could say if you know the answer to that, you know the answer. I mean, I think I do. If you don't know the answer to it, I'm not going to give it.
00:43:40
Speaker
Does it, does it rhyme with bar shorts? Well, you know, I mean, you know, you know, it, I mean, that was, you know, that's always been a, I've gone, I've gone through that. I've got the 20 different ways to, because I had a whole marketing strategy called a what if. Yeah.
00:44:07
Speaker
And what if we did it versus them doing it and how we would have approached it? Because remember, they didn't come out with that brand for almost a year after the movie left because they had to go out and rebuild it to leave from scratch. We would have been out with that product literally when the movie was still in the theaters. Yeah. And I mean, talk about what if. I mean, that would have
00:44:35
Speaker
completely upended and rewritten the history of toys and action figures. I mean, like these, I mean, you're talking, like, I don't know if you guys have been following Varner Studios, great sculptors on Instagram. They've done a lot of work for Playmates Toys over the years. And they're showing off a lot of the sculpts that they actually produced in the early 90s.
00:45:02
Speaker
when Playmates was vying for the brand before the eventual Kenner Hasbro relaunch.
Reflecting on the Star Wars Partnership That Never Was
00:45:13
Speaker
I don't know if you guys can share any of it at this point, but it would be amazing to see some of the stuff that you would have mocked up and just to see those characters in that format. It'd be so cool. Close your eyes. Close your eyes and make your imagination, because we did nothing.
00:45:33
Speaker
I'm sitting here. I'm sitting here actually closing my eyes waiting for like the next thing. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Not with not with like the characters wouldn't have had like yellow lightsabers. They would have been the right colors and you know, and originally. Yeah, that's I mean, yeah, that would have been that would have been absolutely out of this world wild wild stuff. Yeah.
00:46:00
Speaker
Also, hashtag bar chores. Yeah, yeah, bar chores. All right, Dave, do you want to do you want to kick us off with the you know, sometimes I have my moments, man. Sometimes I have my moment. Make that a put that on a T-shirt. So, Dave, do you want to kick us off with the Q&A? I sure can. And I have a handle that I can actually, you know,
00:46:28
Speaker
phonetically read this time. So at Eric Von Eric asks and spelled the same way as Eric co-hosting this show, would you consider returning to the 1970s style of packaging for figures?
00:46:45
Speaker
Yes. Well, there there you go. There he is. There you go, fellow, Eric. I love this. All right. Easy. Next one at why. Oh, man, I gave myself a difficult one here at W Yarmul. Yeah, we're going to go with that at W. W Yarmul asks, when can we expect to see final shots of the new planet of the Apes figures?
00:47:11
Speaker
Cornelius and Dr. Zayas are already in stores. So the next two are Caesar and General Ursus, and they'll be showing up in the next week or so. Awesome. So far, you guys are just two for two with like giving people what they want. Dave, keep us going. At 3D Movie Man asks, would you love to see something like Mr. Barlow from Salem's Lot? Has that franchise been on your radar?
00:47:38
Speaker
Yes, it's the vampire from Satan's Salem slot looks like Nosferatu. We didn't want to do that. We didn't want to jump into that. We just did Nosferatu. But further down the road, yes.
00:47:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, all of those Stephen King licenses, like there's so many good characters. In reading that question, I'm just thinking of all of the fun, like a Creepshow line would be awesome with a mossy flocked version of Stephen King from Creepshow while we're talking about Creepshow and Stephen King. Jordy Verrill is another topic that we keep going back to.
00:48:22
Speaker
Oh, man. All right. I think, Dave, I think that was the last one. I think it was. Yeah. All right. You guys survived the fire round of Instagram questions. So we kind of touched on this a little bit before we got into the Q&A, but before we wrap it up, you know, outside of
00:48:48
Speaker
building environments for these toys and these characters to live in. What's on the horizon for Migo? Is there anything else that you have in the works coming up that you guys can share? No. Obviously, we have a string of stuff that's happening, which includes a range of
00:49:09
Speaker
different sizes and positions, but we can't tell you that yet because we're filtering through it now and quite candid. We got to sit down with Kenneth and get some of his input in the direction and on finalization. But we're playing out now.
00:49:26
Speaker
all the way through 2023. That's the depth of both character involvement as well as brand extensions and not just brand extensions but brand verticalization and
00:49:46
Speaker
and what that means and how we're going to be doing some stuff. We can visit and do one of these podcasts every six months and we'll give you updates of what's happening so you guys get a sense of what the last one said and here's where we are now. We alluded to it but we didn't tell you about it. So I mean if that's you agreeing to come on this podcast as a regular guest every like every six months we're so game for that.
Return of the 14-inch Action Figures
00:50:13
Speaker
That's
00:50:14
Speaker
Like, like, let's just, let's put it in the calendar now. Like. Yes. Yes, please. But you guys did, did announce you're bringing back the 14 inch scale figures, right? Those, those are that, yeah, that's exciting. Well, I can't wait to see those in person. Dave. So this brings us to our final question. Would you, would you like to put on your James Lipton hat and, uh, and bring us on home? Yes. Now, Kenneth, you answered this last time.
00:50:43
Speaker
But before we let you go, Paul and Marty, we finish every interview with this last question, and it could be either one or both. So keep that in mind. What is your favorite and or strangest piece in your collection? I know of my pieces. I've got a single piece, only one in the world, and that's because my brother lost his piece.
00:51:11
Speaker
But I have an original Planet of the Apes head. My father molded for both of us, because he lived in Hong Kong for 15 years running the factories. A solid gold Planet of the Apes Caesar head. And it's just so f***ing cool. Actually, my strangest piece is an eight-inch Marty Abrams.
00:51:41
Speaker
Okay. Is your eight inch Marty Abrams mint on card though? No, it's loose. It's spreading around my house loose. All right. Marty, I would love to see the golden head if you ever are able to share a picture of that. I'd love to share it. I'm not sure of anybody
00:52:09
Speaker
outside of people who come to the house. Cause if that's, you know, what happens is all of a sudden that becomes real, you know, I mean, first of all, the gold itself is because gold is going so high is, you know, I mean, you know, and, but the other side of it, it's, it's, it's one of a kind. So, you know, in that context, I don't, I don't even tell the people about it.
00:52:37
Speaker
And you guys are so cool. I figured I'd give you a little insight about something that no one else knows about. Oh, that's awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you for, for, uh, for trust in trusting us with that, with that, uh, that share that's, that's an, that is an awesome story and it's, it's an awesome piece. Um, before we guys, we let you guys go, um, just let us know where, where, where can we find you on, on the internet? Where can we learn more about Migo and where can we learn more about think threefold?
00:53:07
Speaker
Well, MigoFigures.com, MigoMuseum.com, and Facebook, Migo Ambassadors. There's a Migo Corp Facebook page, but Migo Ambassadors is the most fun. It's a lot of interaction between fans. Yes, the Migo community is an awesome one to poke around in for sure. Yeah, absolutely.
00:53:32
Speaker
And Kenneth, remind us, where can we hook up with Think3Fold on the interwebs? So we're on Instagram under Collection Obsession Official, and then we have a website, collectionobsession.com. That's where you can find out what's coming. We're posting stuff all the time, and we interact with people regularly and directly. And then, of course, you know, a lot of our stuff is at walmart.com slash collectibles is where you see a lot of it. There's even Amigo Showcase up right now.
00:54:01
Speaker
that has some exclusive items and it even has that Ultraman on there. So if you don't have one, it's a good way to get it.
00:54:09
Speaker
And, uh, and if, and if you guys want to, if, if, uh, listeners out there, you want to get a little bit of an idea, uh, you know, hands on with a, with a Migo figure and you haven't yet, you can check out, uh, our review of three different Migo figures. And we'll, we'll put the link to that in the description. Uh, and we have that up on our YouTube as well. Um, they are awesome as if, as if you couldn't tell, we liked them before listening to this entire show. Let me assure you they're super cool figures. So.
00:54:38
Speaker
Marty, Paul, Kenneth, thank you guys so much for joining us on Adventures in Collecting. You guys have a great night. Thank you. Thank you. Take care, guys. Thank you, dear listener, for hanging out with us today. Subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen, and then tell your friends to do it. Thanks also to Joe Azari, the golden voice behind our intro. Our music is Game Boy Horror by the Zombie Dandies. Find more about them both on our show notes.
00:55:04
Speaker
Follow us on social media at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Stop by and say hi. Show us your toy hauls and share your toy stories. Maybe we'll talk about it in a future episode.
00:55:28
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation. Executive producer, Franca Blaui. This program and many others like it on the non-productive network is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives license. Please share it, but ask before trying to change it or sell it. For more information, visit non-productive.com.