CHIPs
During Mego's later years, they tried desparately to find a hit toy line. They continuously tried to built from the television market of the late 70s with toy lines of Happy Days, The Waltons, Starsky & Hutch, The Dukes of Hazzard and CHIPs. They even had a failed Love Boat line.
The CHIPs 8" figures were pretty well sculpted and had a great likeness to the actual characters. Unfortunately, these figures (especially Ponch and Jon) are some of the most frequent figures found with "Zombie Disease", which is used to refer to the head coloration that turned from flesh to gray color. This was caused by an interaction with the rubber and the plastic from the bubbles. Ponch is by far the hardest to of this line to find with a proper tinted head.
Its too bad they didnt whip out some goofy looking bad guy for the 8" line like they did for the smaller line. Chopper from Starsky and Hutch is a pretty scary sight late at night in blue tights and boots.
These are easy to get carded and not too expensive. All 3 came with the same accessories which include a helmet, sunglasses, wristwatch, belt with holster and gun, nightstick/baton, two piece outfit (light or dark tan), boots (shorter hand-cut Mego 8" Klingon boots) and sticker Sheet.
Quick Links:
Ponch Jon Sarge Motorcycle
Highway Patrol Launcher 3 3/4" Toys Did You Know?
The one widely distributed vehicle for the CHIPs line (at least put out by Mego) was the Free Wheeling Motorcycle. Basically, the same as the Happy Days Motorcycle with different stickers!
Mego gets credit for trying something new, at least to them. Evel Knievel motorcycle and launcher sets were so popular, it was driving Mego crazy. So, they came up with one of their own, the Highway Patrol Launcher & Motorcycle Set. It is basically a modified Evel Knievel charger with a chromed out motorcycle (that broke easily). This is a very hard to find set but not highly sought after, so you can probably find it fairly cheap.
Mego also produced a 3 3/4" action figure line, but it was not very successful. Included in this line were Ponch, Jon and Sarge with removable helmets and a couple of bad guys, Wheels Willy and Jimmy Squeaks as well as a motorcycle for the small figures.
Ponch
Jon
Jimmy Squeaks
Wheels Willy
Empire also made a large van for the series. It came with a number of accessories and was scaled to fit the 8" figures. Also, Ideal purchased the rights to sell the line late in the 70s as Mego started to fade out. They released Ponch and the Free-Wheeling motorcycle as a two-pack.
Have a question about a toy you have or one you are looking for? Send us an e-mail!
