Micronauts

Micronauts

A scan of the 1977 cover of an official Mego Micronauts catalog.
Type	Action figures
Inventor	Takara/Mego
Company	Mego
Country	United States
Availability	1976–1980
Materials	Plastic/Die-cast
Slogan	“The Interchangeable World of the Micronauts”

Micronauts was a North American science fiction toy line manufactured and marketed by Mego from 1976 to 1980. The core of the Micronaut toy line—designs, articulation and modeling—was based on and licensed from the Microman toy line created by Japanese-based toy company Takara in 1974.

Mego officially discontinued the Micronauts line in 1980 prior to the company’s bankruptcy and dissolution in 1982. But years after Mego’s demise other toy companies—such as Palisades Toys and SOTA (State of the Art) Toys—have attempted to revive the toy line over the years.

The core of the Micronaut line consisted of 3.75-inch-tall (9.5 cm) action figures (such as Time Traveller) which were known for their high number of articulation points relative to other toys of similar size/scale in the 1970s. The toy line also included vehicles, robots, playsets and accessories. Many of the Micronauts toys used interchangeable 5-millimetre (0.20 in) connectors and ports that allowed parts to be transferred and connected between different toys.

Takara first released Microman toys in Japan in 1974 as a smaller version their popular 8-inch-tall (20 cm) & 12-inch-tall (30 cm) 1972 Henshin Cyborg (Transforming Cyborg) line. Henshin Cyborg figures were based on 8-inch-tall (20 cm) & 12-inch-tall (30 cm) Combat Joe figures—which themselves were based on Hasbro’s G.I. Joe figures—with their bodies molded in clear plastic, exposing their inner workings and supposed cybernetic parts.

By downscaling their size, Takara sought to create the Microman line to offset the sheer cost of producing a full line of plastic-based 8-inch-tall (20 cm) and 12-inch-tall (30 cm) figures and related playsets as well as acknowledging that basic living space is limited—and considered a premium—to most Japanese households. Smaller Microman figures would not only cost less to produce during the energy crisis of the 1970s, the line’s smaller scale would also take up less physical space in a household and thus be more attractive to space conscious consumers in the Japanese market.

In Japan, the Microman figures themselves were marketed as actually being 3.75-inch-tall (9.5 cm) cyborg entities that hailed from the fictional planet known as "Micro Earth" and who disguised themselves as toys in their exile on our Earth.