In early 2002, the Palisades toy company embarked on a journey to make Micronaut fans all over the world rejoice... They began the production of the Micronauts Retro Series of figures. Their mission was to painstakingly reproduce the vintage Mego Micronauts, and make them better than they were before; better, stronger, faster...with new color schemes, tighter detail in sculpting and new accessories. To reproduce, improve and bring back to life one of the most innovative toy lines from the 70's ever. Palisades production of the Retro Series Micronauts ran into many problems. Production in Hong Kong was farmed out under Palisades nose to an inferior factory. Production errors ran rampant, and hurt future retail ordering. A dockworkers strike right before the first series was supposed to hit the shelves didn't help either. The initial factory even tried to sabotage the tooling, but Palisades got it to a newer factory, tweaked and fixed it and managed to salvage what was left and produce a stunning Series 1.5 set of figures. This new factory also was the home of Series 2, but by this time the damage had been done and the bright future of the Retro Micronauts was at an end. Series 3 designs? A Series 3 was planned, but was shelved due to cost. Series 3 was to contain the first "new" Micronaut designs in 20+ years...to find out the rest of the story, please continue on... Palisades Production: an insiders look It's a lot of work to produce a toy line, and a whole lot more to "reproduce" a vintage one! Visit the Inner Space Onlines exclusive "Behind the Scenes" page dedicated to the production of the Palisades Toys Micronauts Retro line, featuring pictures and interviews with the honchos at Palisades and never before seen shots of prototype Micronauts! It's an incredible journey into the makings of a toyline, from conception to completion. |