Yesterville's First Anniversary!

This blog is as much about reminiscing and honoring the past as it is about the toys themselves. Toys from childhood are the "hooks" to hang memories from to be revisited time and time again. So, I'm taking this opportunity with Yesterville's first anniversary to reminisce about something other than toys and give an update on an item from the past that was included in a photo from the very first official post on Yesterville.

This item works for today's post nicely in two ways. First, it was shown in Yesterville's first post. Second, today is Valentine's Day and this item was created as a school Valentine box.

I created this R2D2 Valentine box with my Dad in 1978. I'm not trying to turn this blog into "Things I Created with my Dad" but I thought this would be an appropriate item for today, anyway (There will be one more item I created with my Dad coming in the future...last one, I promise).


This little guy has survived all these years in a box in my parent's garage. He's a little beat up but is still in pretty great shape, all things considered.

A Quaker Oats container served as the base for R2's torso and foil covered paper mache served as his noggin.' Cut and shaped poster board became the legs. All the detail artwork was done by me (Give me a break... I was 10).

Vintage photo from 1978. You can see the R2D2 Valentine box in the back on the left.

Valentines went in through the slot on the front. If any Death Star Plans happened to find their way in, all the better.

This R2D2 Valentine box won first prize that year in Bench School's 5th Grade Valentines Box contest. That is the main reason it's been kept all these years... historians will someday want this for the Smithsonian when they do their "All-time greatest Valentines boxes from Bench Elementary" exhibit. Don't laugh, it could happen.


As a tie-in with the R2D2 box, just this weekend (on Saturday) I visited my elementary school for the first time in over 30 years. I hadn't stepped foot in the school since leaving after 6th grade in 1979 (Yes, I graduated from 6th grade). I have driven by several times over the years and have wanted to see the inside of the school again but didn't know how to do it without looking like some kind of deranged stalker.


Serendipitously, Bench Elementary School was having a Pancake Breakfast School fund raiser this weekend that would allow ANYONE access to the inside of the school!! Bench Elementary had become a sort of surreal place in my mind over the years. I spent four years "getting my school on" in that place but time had faded my memories and I couldn't remember exactly how everything looked... just somewhat, vague notions of everything. Would it all come rushing back to me? Would the pancakes be served from the same lunch window in the gym that I had stood in line for so many times before? Would anyone reading my blog care? ;)

So, on Saturday morning, I loaded up my two bravest sons and headed across town to Bench Elementary. I was so excited that I could hardly fall asleep the night before. My kids just wanted pancakes. My wife stayed at home, stunned that her dorky husband could be so excited about a pancake breakfast at an elementary school across town.

Seventies music blared across the car stereo speakers as we made our way across town (my kids were NOT amused). Unbeknownst to my kids, we left our house in 2010 but arrived at Bench School in 1975.

This sign wasn't here when I attended school here. I decided to let it stand.

When I walked through the front doors, everything was EXACTLY as it was. All sorts of memories came flooding back and my memories of the look of the school came flooding back, as well.

It's good to see that they can still display the American flag in public schools.

I have so many memories of this old gym. It was the place where we had gym class and it doubled as the school's cafeteria. This is the place where I was forced to dance "the Hustle" during gym. This was the place where I rehearsed for a school play (I was a fireman). This was the place I took first runner-up in the school spelling bee. This was the place where I envied all those cool metal lunchboxes that some of the other kids had. Of the ones I remember are Kung Fu (The tv show), Six Million Dollar Man, Star Wars, Happy Days, and the NFL.

For educational movies in the gym, these large curtains would be closed. Anyone remember Mulligan Stew with the notorious Flim Flam Man that was always trying to get kids to eat poorly and fill their bodies with poor nutrition?

In the upper right corner you can see my elementary days' nemesis... the rope. It's still there...laughing at me. We had evening Cub Scouts meetings in this gym and climbing the rope was part of the festivities. Stupid rope. You'd think after 30 years it would be gone or someplace else in the gym. Nope, right where I left it.

Ghosts of the past or just poor photography? You decide.

Here are my boys enjoying their scrumptious pancake breakfast sitting right where I sat many times as a kid. They really are happy, well-adjusted kids. I promise. I think they are just a bit overwhelmed with being in the 70s. Time travel can take it out of you.

This is a story I wrote for a 6th grade project. I think it's title is freakishly appropriate for this post. I came across a box of this kind of stuff in my folk's garage this past summer. The story is about some friends and I reuniting in the future. We remember our elementary school days and start a band called "Lasers." It's almost like I was nostalgic for the 70s before I even left the 70's. Strange. You know "Lasers" would have rocked, don't you?

Every one of my classrooms while at Bench Elementary was down this hallway. Unfortunately, I had to shoot this photo through a gate. I don't remember the hallway ever being any brighter than this.

The area between the two boys is exactly where I fell and fractured my shoulder playing "soccer hockey" on the ice with some friends. It was a sheet of ice then and I went down like a sack of potatoes. My shoulder became infected and I ended up spending a couple of weeks in the hospital. The good thing was, my Dad would bring me a new Star Wars action figure every day. How cool is that? All of the figures that my Dad brought to help me with my stay in the hospital are HERE.

I have so many memories of this playground, too. This is the door we would line up at everyday to come in from recess. Also, just to the left of the door is where they would post new class rosters at the end of each summer. We used to ride our bikes down and see which of our buddies would end up in our class. This playground also reminds me of things like Grape Bubble Yum, Pop Rocks, Wacky Packs stickers, and Make-A-Shakes (chocolate milk that you would shake in the carton and it would get thicker...like a shake). We often walked through this playground after school toward the Kwik Way convenience store a half-block away to buy a goodie or two before walking on home.

So many memories. This is where we stood with our backs to the sun to watch the eclipse as it shone through a hole in one piece of cardboard to project an image on the one underneath. This is where we played countless games of basketball, tetherball, and four square. This is where my Little League baseball team practiced after school. This is where girls walked around with Bonne Bell Lip Smackers on ropes around their necks and mini-Farrah hairstyles a few inches higher. This is where we would chew on toothpicks that had been soaked overnight in cinammon oil because candy was not allowed in school. This is where we couldn't be the days after Mt. St. Helens blew its top and covered our town with ashes...from three states away. This is where a friend shouted to me from a window during my recess that my Star Wars drawing had been chosen to be in the national Weekly Reader. I had never wanted to come in from recess as quickly as I did that particular day.

Too bad they didn't have a "Lamest" category. I would have taken first, no doubt.

These basketball hoops are the exact same ones that were there over 30 years ago. They were happy to see me.

The two silver playground structures in the foreground were there, as well, over 30 years ago. If memory serves, they were the ONLY playground structures we had at the time.

I remember spending countless recesses climbing this dangerous looking structure with friends and arguing about things like whether Darth Vader survived after spinning off into space at the end of the first Star Wars (there would be more movies but we didn't know it). I also remember talking with a friend about Gene Simmons of KISS's recent appearance in People magazine with Cher. He wasn't wearing makeup and had a napkin covering his face. It was like finding out about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. That's Gene?!!

I hope you enjoyed this somewhat self-indulgent trip down memory lane. I had a lot of fun visiting my old school and basking in good memories. It was particularly fun to walk around the old playground after so long. It was like having a hazy jumble of memories come to vivid life in an instant.

Of course, if I ever truly forget, I'll have ol' Artoo here to remind me and keep the memories fresh.

Mego 8" Planet of the Apes General Urko

Okay...I'm going to get through all these dang dirty apes if it takes me several months. I promised myself that I'd get through all the Mego apes in a reasonable amount of time... and I've failed. So, onward!! I'll do the best I can. Just a few more to go and then I'll move on to some other 70s toy goodness... like more large-size Star Wars.

This is the other ape general. I knew him as General Urko, as a kid. You may know him as General Ursus. His package variations, back in the day, used both names. Go figure.


This General was a hard "sell" to my parents. I never did get him as a kid. He looked too much like the previously released Soldier Ape for my parents' taste. They did have a point. However, he was different enough that I wanted him and envied those that did have him. There was something cool about his face sculpt that I really liked. Although, not screen-accurate, he was much closer looking to the apes in the movies and TV show than the first gorilla soldier ape we got from Mego. He looked menacing to me... maybe it was the knife.



A complete General Urko should include his tunic with attached cuffs (although, some variations of this figure were packaged with the original soldier ape tunic and separate "mittens"), pants, black split-toe general boots, bandolier with knife holder, knife, and M16 rifle (with brown string).

I've always viewed this guy as one of the "newer" Mego apes since he was released after the TV show started airing. That was over 35 years ago. Man, I'm getting old.

Almost Vintage: Mattel Retro-Action DC Super Heroes Green Arrow

Back in the very early Seventies, a company named Mego began producing some of the very first Super Hero action figures. They produced a wide array of characters from both DC and Marvel comics in a toy line titled "World's Greatest Super-Heroes!" They were 8" tall, colorful, and full of playability. Many "kids" of that era swear by Mego figures as being the best toys ever created. Mego figures may not have been the most durable toys but kids loved them and many grown men (and women) today still do. The way that Mego figures were designed often left the characters looking slightly goofy and "off-model." However, looking back, the quirkiness of Megos lends them their greatest charm.

Over the past ten or fifteen years, nostalgia for Megos has lead to at least two toy companies trying to recapture the "magic" of Super Hero Megos in a 9" format. Two of the things that makes a Mego a Mego are cloth costumes and and a "reusable" base body. In kind, the new 9" "Megos" from Hasbro (DC Super Heroes) and Toybiz (Marvel Famous Covers) had cloth clothing and utilized a "reusable" base body. Both companies succeeded to some degree with both hits and misses in their respective lines. However, both companies were trying to create a product that would appeal to both nostalgic Mego collectors AND to the current generation of children roaming the toy aisles with their parents. In my opinion, by trying to hit both targets, they also missed both to a great degree. The 9" format wasn't truly in scale with the vintage Mego figures that Mego collectors already had AND children were more used to action figures with sculpted clothing and a smaller scale. Both lines did fairly well but began to fizzle after a relatively short time.


Just recently, in 2009, Mattel toys announced that they would partner with EMCE Toys (makers of the fantastic Star Trek and Planet of the Apes Mego replica figures) to resurrect the "World's Greatest Super-Heroes!" toy line by producing brand-new "Megos" in an 8" scale. The figures would be made to closely resemble the style and look of vintage Mego figures. All new characters that Mego never produced would also be a part of the new Mattel line. Mego fans rejoiced at the prospect of having all-new Megos and have been waiting anxiously for the figures to become available. It should also be noted that the "World's Greatest Super-Heroes" name has changed, sadly, and the line is now called "Retro-Action DC Super-Heroes."

The first new "Mego" from Mattel is Green Arrow and he is an online exclusive through mattycollector.com. The following waves of figures will be exclusive to Toys R Us stores and a few online toy sites. Green Arrow just shipped out to collectors last week and is just now arriving to homes, currently.

So, how does this new "Mego" stack up? Let's find out.


Packaging: The packaging on the "Retro-Action" Green Arrow is a definite "nod" to the packaging of vintage carded Megos. It consists of a somewhat flimsy cardboard backer and a simple clear bubble to hold the figure. The figure and accessories are packed in the bubble with nothing to hold them in place. This is exactly how vintage Megos were packed and it definitely adds to the nostalgia factor of this toy to not have twist ties or an insert tray to keep everything in place. The packaging art is also clearly an homage to vintage Mego art using many of the same design cues like the rectangle for the name of the toy line, the white line around the border of the card, and vintage looking drawings of the characters on the front and back. There is also a bit of "distressing" to the card art to help carry over the idea that this is an homage to a vintage toy.


The figure: The figure itself is very Mego-like. The way that the costume and accessories have been produced gives them a quality that is very close to vintage Mego. The costume seems to be made of the same type of material that Mego used and the accessories are molded in a single color (without painted details) just like vintage Mego accessories. His hat, bow, and quiver all look very much like their vintage counterparts with just a slight bit of updating.

Green Arrow's boots are made of a much denser, hard rubber-like plastic that gives them a bit of a different feel than vintage Mego boots. Vintage boots are a bit slimmer and less chunky looking. They were also made of the thinner plastic that almost "rattled" on the vintage figures' feet.

Green Arrow's head is still squishy like a vintage Mego. The headsculpt is also very reminiscent of classic Mego sculpts.

The body used on Mattel's new Megos will probably elicit the most criticism from vintage Mego fans. Clothed, Green Arrow looks quite a bit like a vintage Mego. However, it does have some key differences that do point away from Mego, somewhat. It's limbs and torso are sculpted to look a little more muscular than a vintage Mego. For instance, Mattel's new "Mego" body has a much smaller waist and legs that seem a bit too muscular and "bow legged." However, official word is that the legs will undergo some "tweaking" before the second wave (characters yet unannounced) of these figures hit shelves. Articulation-wise, this new body has the same basic style of articulation of vintage Megos and in the same spots on the figure. That's a plus.

As you can see, the new Retro-Action Green Arrow "hangs" with vintage Megos quite well.

Overall, the Mattel Retro-Action Green Arrow hits almost all of the right buttons and should produce a good dose of nostalgia for anyone that loves the old Mego action figures. I definitely felt a nostalgic rush while cracking open this brand-new "Mego." Much more so, than other aforementioned attempts at bringing back some "Mego Super Hero magic." I, for one, am very excited about the what the future holds for this line.

As I mentioned, Green Arrow is currently available at www.mattycollector.com. This Spring (2010), the next four figures (Superman, Lex Luthor, Green Lantern, and Sinestro) will begin hitting Toys R Us shelves.

I can hardly wait.

Mego 8" Planet of the Apes General Ursus

Happy New Year, Everyone!!!

This is Mego's General Ursus from 1974. He was released as part of the second wave of Planet of the Apes figures. This second wave was based on the POTA TV series that was running at the time.

There is a bit of controversy involved with the name of this figure. You see, during the time that Mego produced this figure, his packaging used two different names...General Ursus and General Urko. Another Mego General figure from this same wave also used these two names. However, since the figure I had as a kid was called "Ursus," that's the name I'll be using for this guy. Although, it should be noted that "Urko" is probably the more appropriate name as Urko was the name of the helmeted General from the TV series (played by Mark Lenard) that this second wave of figures was based upon. General Ursus is from the film Beneath the Planet of the Apes and is almost identical to the General in the TV series.


Ursus was probably my favorite Mego Ape. There was just something so cool about him coming with an extra accessory. He had a rifle AND a knife. So, that automatically gave him a "one up" on the regular soldier apes because they only came with a rifle.

Looking back, it was an odd choice for Mego to use the colors that they did on General Ursus. His costume with the riveted collar and helmet were a nice approximation of a character costume from both the movies and the TV show. However, the purple and mustard coloration seems completely out of left field. When I was a kid, though, I think the bright colors were part of what made this guy my favorite. Perhaps, Mego was following the look of this character from the Planet of the Apes cartoon. I don't know.

A complete General Ursus should include his mustard colored tunic (with attached cuffs), a pair of purple pants, two black boots (note that the General's boots have a split toe and are not the same as the soldier's boots), a rifle with string, a bandolier with a knife "scabbard," and a silver/gray knife. Ursus is also sporting a helmet. However, the helmet is not removable.

Left to right: Mike Magnuson, Yours Truly, David Magnuson, and my brother Michael. The Magnusons were good friends that lived next door. We shared a wall in our townhouse. They were in a band with two older siblings and it was always a lot of fun for me to hear them practicing through the wall.

The photo above was taken in Fridley, Minnesota in 1974. So, I've had the picture almost my entire life. I was scanning and archiving a bunch of old family photos last year when I noticed, for the very first time, that my brother is actually holding a Mego General Ursus figure! Also, a friend (thanks, Brian B!) pointed out that he is ALSO holding Mego Batman in the other hand. Wow!!...hidden treasure.

Below is a close-up of the figures in Michael's hands.

The Mego Planet of the Apes figures were such great kids' toys and General Ursus is no exception.