This section is inspired by the spirit displayed by Mego Museum founder Scott Carroll Adams.  Without his dedication to creating a wonderful community of fellow Megoheads, The Megoville Muse would never have been created.     Thanks Scott!

This issue we welcome the participation of Palitoy (Brian) and Abmac (Anthony) and MegoSteve (Steve)
in a feature we call:

OLD TIMERS FOUNTAIN OF KNOWLEDGE and INTERESTING STORIES

MM (Megoville Muse):    According to your recollections, how did the Museum come about?

Anthony:      Scott Carroll Adams erected the original site as a beacon to attract other Mego collectors. When enough of us finally got together and started comparing notes, we learned that, collectively, we had a huge amount of information that needed to be sorted, verified, and preserved. Scott's site was the perfect place to put that information, so it became the Mego Museum.

Brian:     The original founder Scott C Adams discovered there were no websites to help him with his love of Mego toys. So in 1996 (I think!) the Mego Museum was born. It maybe had 10-12 figures.

Steve:    Scott Carroll built the Museum in 1996. At the time, the biggest online toy collecting web sites (at least the ones I was visiting) were Eric Myers' Raving Toy Maniac (still alive at http://www.ravingtoymaniac.com, but run by different folks), and Jason Geyer's archives sites (now at http://www.toyotter.com), where he listed good color photos of every figure from a particular line. Another popular meeting place for toy collectors was the newsgroup rec.toys.misc.

I can't really speak for Scott, but I'd guess that the style of Jason's toy sites were a major inspiration for the Museum.

MM (Megoville Muse):     Who were the original founders?

Anthony:      Scott gets all of the credit for founding the museum and giving it direction and purpose. Original contributors included; Scott Adams, Brian Heiler, Joe DeRouen, Anthony B. McElveen, Rob Chatlin, Stephen Leach, Rob Levy, Eric G. Myers, Philip Nobile, and many others.

Brian:     The creation credit has to go to Scott Adams but some of the folks that helped with it's growth were Scott Arendsen, Calvin Weaver, Anthony MacElveen, Robert Levy, Rob Chatlin, Ben Holcomb just to name a few. There are many more.

Steve:    Scott Carroll was the original founder. The first incarnation of the Museum featured pictures from his collection alone; probably a dozen or so figures were pictured. It expanded greatly in 1997 with photo submissions from other collectors, particularly those involved in Robert Levy's email-based Mego Mailing List, which ran from 1997 through 1999/2000 (I'm a little fuzzy on the date), when Levy shut the list down. I guess he burned out, got sick of the constant arguments on the list, or just was tired of paying for it.

After it had grown in popularity, the Museum was hosted at Raving Toy Maniac (just like Jason Geyer's various action figure archives); within a year or so of the Mego Mailing List's demise, Eric Myers was rumored to be shutting down Raving Toy Maniac, so Scott got the domain name megomuseum.com and started hosting the Museum with Joe Derouen. He handed the editorial reins over to Brian Heiler (Palitoy), whose been doing Museum updates ever since.

Joe Derouen is hosting the site, and Joe's the one that set up the message boards we have now. Initially, many of the Mego collectors on the Mego Mailing List went over to one of two Yahoo groups created after its demise, but eventually, most of the Mego collector traffic has gravitated towards the Museum's message board.

MM (Megoville Muse):    Can you tell us any stories, which stand out in your mind, from the early days of the Museum?

Anthony:      In the early days, new figures and variations were being discovered daily. Because few of us owned carded figures, verification was often difficult or even impossible, so it usually consisted of nothing more than vague memories. We had some great arguments that dragged on for days over what accessories came with certain figures. I still think Conan looks better with a bearclaw necklace.

Brian:     We had alot of fun in the early days, everything was new, one month Scott did an update everyday, a new Gallery for an entire month. It was cool to visit the museum everyday to see what he was doing.

Steve:    response pending
 

MM (Megoville Muse):    Any other historical thing about the Museum which we might find interesting….?

Anthony:      No.

Brian:     I can't think of anything offhand, I'll have to give it more thought.

Steve:    This is taking a lot longer than I thought. I'll try to add some more if I get some time in the next few days.