This page is dedicated to the World's Greatest VP of Research and Development, Neal Kublan

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Mego Woodys & Wee Woodys
Preschool Toys

A product line that just wasn't to be.......

The story behind the Woodys line is important to me because it was important to Neal Kublan the great man behind so many of the Megos we love and former VP of Research and Development at Mego.  As Mego grew and Neal advanced in his career he was given more responsibility and allowed to test his skills on larger and larger projects for the company.  In 1972 he was given responsibility for a creating a full line of new pre-school toys.  This was significant because it was to be the first project that he owned completely from concept development to production to product launch and marketing.  It was a great challenge and test for his abilities as he moved up in the Mego ranks. (Note: the actual design of the toys was by Farmlett, Barsanti, and Wood)

The idea for Woodys was simple- to create a line of high quality kid safe pre-school toys out of wood....just like the toys most parents of the time had when they were little.  Neal's vision was for these toys to be inexpensive, high quality pre-school toys and in order to make sure that the quality was to his exacting standards he insisted that each and every one be hand painted.  For production he set up a factory in Tai Pei, China which he personally visited on more than one occassion and even endured a typhoon there once that kept him away from being present at the birth of his firstborn child.  Despite all of the hard work and frustration involved in setting up such a vast enterprise, Neal's commitment to the Woody's line was unquestioned and he was confident his hard work on this line would put him on the map at Mego and set the stage for much more success later on in his career.

He was confident, that is, until the first batch of production Woodys came in from China.  For some reason unknown to anyone at Mego the factory in China had made a major change after sending out the production samples. You see, as under 3 Pre-school toys it was required that the parts be of a certain size so they would not be swallowed.  Since Woodys were made up of many parts it was necessary for them to be bonded together with glue.  Just as planned, the production samples sent were glued.  The first shipment of toys, however, contained metal staples instead of glue which meant that the entire production run had to be scrapped.  When Neal saw one of my Wee Woodys toys 30 years later he could not believe it. 

He told me he personally saw to it that the entire line was destroyed so that none of the products get out on the black market and do harm to children anywhere in the world.  Apparently, despite his best efforts, some Woodys were smuggled out and today we have some examples that still pop up on Ebay every year or so and sell for usually around $5 or so.  Not bad for what according to Neal is "the rarest Megos that exist today"....not bad if you're the buyer that is!

Examples of WeeWoodys

Example 1: 1972 Boxed "Preschool Woodys All Wood Toys"

This example is dated 1972 and is unlike the other Woodys in that there are no "people" with it.  Just a wagon with blocks.  Apparently there were two kinds of Woodys- "Skill" toys and "Play" toys.  This is an example of a skill toy.  If you look closely at the out of box photo you can see that the corners on the wagon are indeed stapled together.  As an aside, you may notice that the color scheme is Red, White, and Blue....something Mego did to capture the patriotism of the upcoming 1976 Bicentennial.

Here is a skill toy in the form of a traditional puzzle.  Until recently I had no idea that they made a Woody like this.  It looks like Mego covered the whole spectrum of options.  From the common and familiar format of a plain wooden puzzle to the complex and innovative designs of the pop ups as you will see below.

The back of this puzzle shows the whole line which mirrors the 1972 Playthings article description of the line.  Originally I thought the Playthings descriptions of "Western", "School House", "Fire Station", etc. referred to the Wee Woodys Village series but now I realize it was talking about these puzzles.  Once again, while I hate to be a broken record and think that every Woody we find is a production sample or prototype, it is interesting to me that the back label is crudely pasted on much like the labels on my 2xl box and other known samples.

Another good example of a "skill" toy from 1972.  This time a "Jr. Bar Bell".  This thing is pretty neat and the detail is good right down to the little red screw on end caps....which I imagine were small enough for little Johnny to choke on which is why it probably never made it anywhere.

Here is another example of a 1972 Woodys, this time a pull string Zoo train.  As you can see from the box, the toy was shown both disassembled and in "ready to play" configuration.  This really was a well done line right down to the packaging where each and every side of the box has full color photos to reach out and grab perspective toy buyers.  (If only it wasn't for those pesky staples!!)  I love the thoughtfulness in the detail of these...right down to the handle where your ticket to ride is on the pull string.  Genius!

Another cool preschool Woodys pull toy, the Beetle Buggy

Obviously Mego's investment in this line was significant as you can see from the variety of products it featured.  This "Kiddie Karousel" is very complex and shows the level of detail that made this line so special.

In addition to the above toys the line featured a Puzzle Puppy, a Glad Spad (WWI Airplane), and a Shoe House on wheels were supposed to be in the line.  To date examples of these three items (featured in a Nov. 1972 article of Playthings Magazine) have not been found.

Creating a sense of community was important for the Woodys line because the thinking was that it would add to the collectibility factor.  So, Mego took the old adage "it takes a village" literally and created the Wee Woodys Village line of toys.  Note that this is the first time the prefix "Wee" is added to the line thus personifying the little people at last (the psychology at Mego was brilliant).  The example below is extremely interesting because it has a store price tag from "Hesteds".  Hesteds was a Midwest dime store chain that was aquired by JJ Newberry stores in 1969.  Since we know this wasn't made until 1972 I would assume that not all of their stores were converted by then and some of the stores were still using Hesteds branding.  JJ Newberry was aquired by McCrorys soon after so I believe its pretty rare for this sticker to be on a 1972 piece.  One other thing this tells me is that some of the initial Woodys orders must have been filled prior to the recall because clearly some were sold at retail.  One more interesting side note is that when you look closely at the price sticker it has a red "X" over it in ink pen.  There are also remnants of a second sticker next to it.   In my mind this begs the question....was it marked down for clearance, recalled, or marked down for clearance and then recalled?  We may never know.  Retail price by the way was $5.99.  Not cheap!

Example 2: 1972 Wee Woodys Village Preschool Toys

Here is this item's packaging out of the box.  I must say these are great toys.  Notice, however, the pesky staples shown once again in these photos.

Here are some more of the Wee Woody's Village toys.  To date I've seen the Gas Station, Train Station, School House, Post Office, Barn, and Police Station and I own all of the above except for the Police Station which I was outbid by $2 on.  (I'm still kicking myself for that one!!!).  Also supposedly produced was a "Western" building which I've never seen.

Example 3: 1973 Preschoool Woodys Construction Toys

Several years ago I was surprised to see these toys which were owned by a fellow Mego collector.  Frankly, I'm not sure what they are (other than they are obviously a line of construction toys).  Produced in 1973 this series featured four products, a Dozer, a Roller, a Tractor, and another piece of equipment I don't recognize.  (A Scraper?)  Only two of these have been found in cardboard box packaging.  As an aside, I've ofter questioned if these are production samples since as you will see below these same products were found on cards in blister packaging also.  P.S.  For what its worth, I haven't been able to figure out if these products have staples also but the cardboard packaging certainly does.

Here is the Tractor:

Here is a second toy in the line...the Dozer!

Here you see one of the same construction toys in a carded blister pack.  On the back the entire line is advertised.  Note that the tractor shown on the back of this version is different than the tractor shown on the boxed version.  What's interesting to me is that the blister packaged version is apparently older than the boxed version.  On the blister the tractor # is 1500 and on the boxed version its 1509.  I tend to think all of these are buyers samples of which about 60 would have been made.  Cool!

Close up of blister tractor image:

Close up of boxed tractor image:

Example #4: 1973 Preschool Woodys Pop Ups

Just when I thought I had this line figured out I came across this blister packaged example of a "Preschool Woodys Pop Up".   Actually, a whole bunch of these showed up online from a single seller who also had a bunch of the already mentioned blister packaged Construction Rollers.  The date on these, the packaging, and the fact that the lot of both from one seller leads me to believe that these are all buyer samples that were never used.  Clearly these are next generation Woodys and if I'm not mistaken these toys have NO staples.  My belief is that these toys were produced in an attempt to recover the line after the staples debacle but apparently these never made it out into the market.   Although these toys are awesome apparently the damage to the brand was already too great and sadly this line was also scrapped.  As you can see, the back of the packaging shows four products: Fire Man, Garbage Man, Mail Man, and Milk Man.  To date I've not seen actual examples of any of the four except for the Fire Man which I have about 8 of....all from the same guy.  Please please please join me in hoping that the other three surface some day!  :-)

*Recently Found*  Here is an example of the Mego Preschool Woodys Milk Man in the box vs. on a card

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