Written by Adam McCombs
Name: Snake Mountain
Faction: Evil Warriors/Snake Men
Approximate US release date: June 3, 1984
Snake Mountain was a toy I only ever saw twice as a kid. I never owned one, but I certainly admired it from afar. Up close it was perhaps not as exciting to play with as it looked (and certainly not as instantly memorable as Castle Grayskull), but as Skeletor’s evil hideout, it had undeniable evil charm.
The first known mention of Snake Mountain seems to come in the December 1, 1982 Masters of the Universe Bible by Michael Halperin. (Note: there is one episode of the Filmation cartoon (“Diamond Ray of Disappearance”) that was written a bit before that (November 30, 1982), but it was revised months later, and I don’t know if Snake Mountain was included in the original script.)
Skeletor led them to his lair beneath the twin peaks of SNAKE MOUNTAIN. Around one of the crags twisted a terrible carved snake. A portal along the snake’s back until it reached the fanged mouth. Entrance here entrapped the incautious stranger for once a person stepped into the snake’s jaws they snapped shut thrusting the trespasser into almost inescapable dungeon.
A footbridge connected one mountain with the other where a blood red waterfall cascaded over crags, past blasted trees and murky swamps. Skeletor’s chamber hid behind BLOOD FALLS and only he knew its entrance, its traps and snares. The lair itself was a dark cavern dripping with venom. In one corner, its eyes blazing red, its tail twitching, sat Skeletor’s pet and charger, the giant cat PANTHOR. Its purple fur glistened as its muscles rippled when it stretched out iron claws from the mighty paws.
In other media, Skeletor’s stronghold was being called Point Dread. The 1983 Filmation Series Guide described it this way:
Point Dread is a craggy peak emerging from the Eternian Ocean. It is an extinct volcano with a tunnel leading down to a fantastic ruined, Atlantis-like city hidden beneath the ocean floor. Inside Point Dread, Skeletor keeps all the treasure he has plundered from a thousand worlds. There are also mines and construction sites waiting for the slaves Skeletor plans to take once he has seized control of Eternia.
But the heart of Point Dread is the great council chamber where Skeletor summons the sinister Masters of the Universe. Here Skeletor sits on a raised platform above the round table where are gathered the likes of…
This idea was echoed in the 1985 UK MOTU Annual (the UK annuals seemed to consistently draw on older source material):
In the end, Point Dread became the magical/technological moving perch of the Talon Fighter, which could relocate from the top of a mountain to the top of Castle Grayskull. Snake Mountain became the fortress of Skeletor.
In September of 1983, when the He-Man cartoon debuted, kids were introduced to Snake Mountain for the first time. It was an imposing structure – a large pointed peak punctuated with jagged “teeth” and a giant snake carving wrapped around it. Nearby was another, smaller peak, and Blood Falls flowed in between them:
The interior of the mountain featured a bone throne and a table with a magical globe for spying on enemies, a docking bay for Skeletor’s fleet of vehicles, various creepy creatures, and myriad twisting passageways. The snake carving was also hollow, and Skeletor could stand in the open mouth and overlook his dark domain:
Snake Mountain was trademarked by Mattel on August 15 of 1983. At some point in 1983 Mattel started working on the playset design. Rather than basing the toy off of Filmation’s fortress, they elected to come up with a completely different look, based off of a previous jungle playset design that had been abandoned:
Mattel wasn’t saving any tooling by reusing the idea, but perhaps it was a way to quickly re-sculpt a previous effort into a viable product.
Colin Bailey did some of the preliminary design work on the toy, as is visible in this design drawing from The Power and the Honor Foundation Catalog:
His drawing is simply called “Skeletor Playset” and shows the goblin-like face and manacles that would be built into the right half of the design.
The main attractions of of the playset are clustered on the exterior – the shackles, the “talking” goblin face, the wolf echo microphone, the bridge (a fragile piece even in the 80s, and too narrow for figures to cross any way but sideways), numerous semi-hidden sculpted faces and claw-like root structures, the stairway, the gate and trap door, and the “striking” snake. There was also a scaling ladder, reused from the original Castle Grayskull playset.
The interior was pretty bare bones by comparison. There was a net to catch warriors who fell through the trap door, there was a volume control/switch for the echo microphone, and a couple of stickers on the floor. The goblin mouth could be articulated from the rear.
The box art was painted by William George. Early versions of the art, dated 1983, show Man-E-Faces in shackles, but the final artwork replaced him with Man-At-Arms. For more on that read this interview with Bob Nall, by Jukka Issakainen.
There were a couple of variations on the packaging. In some versions, the mountain is quoted as saying “I am the spirit of Snake Mountain” and in others it says “I am the voice of Snake Mountain.” I don’t know the reason for the change, but if I had to guess it would be because some parents might have objected to the “spirit” of Snake Mountain for religious reasons.
As a playset, Snake Mountain felt a bit undersized compared to Castle Grayskull. It was technically taller, but only because of the archway. The rest of the playset was about 25% shorter, and the stairs were out of scale with the chunky He-Man figures. It was still an impressive and coveted item, but it paled in comparison to Grayskull.
According to the 1987 Style Guide, Snake Mountain was the “talking mountain of evil.” The style guide gives the mountain several characteristics that were never used in any canonical materials, to my knowledge:
Power: Ultimate evil power center, which commands and controls Skeletor and his minions.
Character Profile: Snake Mountain is the home base for the Evil Warriors. Within it resides the horrible spirits of the Lords of Destruction. It is from these wicked spirits that Skeletor and his henchmen draw their evil power. A baffling series of catacombs are built beneath Snake Mountain. Exploration there has been limited; even Skeletor is fearful of what may reside there.
Errol McCarthy did the artwork for the Style Guide, and depicted Snake Mountain in several other illustrations as well:
Snake Mountain’s first several appearances in the minicomics follows the toy design. You can see that here in Siege of Avion and The Obelisk, illustrated by Alfredo Alcala:
In The Clash of Arms, illustrated by Larry Houston, a simplified version of Filmation’s Snake Mountain makes its minicomic debut:
With the advent of the Snake Men in 1986, Snake Mountain was reimagined as having been the fortress of King Hiss and his minions thousands of years in the past, before they were locked away in a pool of energy (the “Pool of Power”) in the caverns under the mountain:
In the 1986 Kid Stuff story book/record, Battle Under Snake Mountain, the fortress seems to be under the control of King Hiss, with no mention of Skeletor at all:
When Snake Mountain appears in the Golden Books stories, it is typically modeled after the toy:
The UK Masters of the Universe comic series (issue 22, 1987) tried to harmonize the toy and Filmation designs, although the reasoning used (Skeletor needed more protection, and so rebuilt the mountain) seems to require more explanation – I don’t quite follow the logic here:
Snake Mountain, in its toy form, makes an appearance in all of the posters illustrated by William George for the toyline:
The fortress also appears in posters by Esteban Maroto and Earl Norem:
Skeletor’s stronghold was also used to sell other Masters-related merchandise, including games, puzzles, and even a themed Hot Wheels stunt set:
Snake Mountain had a lot to live up to, following Castle Grayskull. It could never quite measure up to it, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. The design itself was certainly creepy, although perhaps in a more childish kind of way compared to Grayskull. It gave you a lot to look at and a lot to play with, but lacked the depth and archetypal pull of its predecessor.
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I’ve got to be honest, I loved Snake Mountain far more than I did Castle Grayskull. My parents got both for me second-hand, so they were both missing a fair few bits, but Snake Mountain was more complete than Grayskull (which didn’t have the detachable tower, and both the lift and the throne-trapdoor mechanisms were a bit dicey).
On the other hand, it always struck me as a bit silly that when you closed Snake Mountain, the bridge fell off.
I do love Snake Mountain. It makes a great display piece for us adults, and there are a ton of fun little gimmicks. I just think Grayskull let you run wild a bit more with your imagination
never had snake mountain but it always looked good but a bit lacking.. probably due to the inside not having too much going on. I did like the idea that, when they introduced the Snake Men, it had been there fortress long before Skeletor came to Eternia and took it over. Made sense. I mean, while we can say that Grayskull had little design links to He-man, it was shown to have been around along time and he then used it. Snake Mountain had no links to Skeletor, who I would have expected more skull (like Grayskull) or even Ram (after his staff) theme.. nothing about him said ‘Snake’. in the same way, it also made sense with the change in Kobra Khan. How he was linked to the Snake men. Can’t you just picture, Skeletor looking for a base of operations while recuiting his Masters of the Universe, when he founds Kobra Khan, last of the once great Snake Men, hanging around this fortress. Khan then teams up to Skeletor, believing that one day his race will return and Skeletor will help and they will all rule the universe together, but Skeletor has no plans to help share his new throne. then one day, the Snake Men return!
I always wanted Snake Mountain simply for the microphone. Always seemed so cool in the commercials.
I received Snake Mountain for my 8th birthday and it was a bit of a let down compered to the Mighty Castle Greyskull. Even if the toy Greyskull did not exactly resemble the Cartoon version it did at least try. Snake Mountain on the other hand looked like had been kit bashed from anything laying around. Even as a kid I could see how the Cartoon version could of been made into a toy.
big let down for the forces of evil.
Problem is, Greyskull in the cartoon was based on the toy, not the other way around ^_^ It didn’t try to look like the Cartoon. the Cartoon tried not to look too much like the toy
The Castle Greyskull playset didn’t try to resemble the cartoon. It came before the cartoon. It was the other way around.
Though of course, the toy version of Grayskull came several years before the cartoon, so it didn’t really have to ‘try’ at all 😀
Very well-researched and entertaining post once again! I came to peace with Snake Mountain being an adult. As a kid, I was rather disappointed by the playset. SM looked cool then but it would provide so little playground scenarios for me. It was not as imaginative and “multi-dimensional” as CG was. What Grayskull has to offer in terms of gameplay options, Snake Mountain exactly lacks that. There are features – like the mic, the handcuffs – that offer the potential. But the thing is that back in the day, my friends and I, we would not really find a way to built in these features in our gameplay. To me/us, there was no real continuity in the playsets features that we could use while playing.
We only came across one variant back in the day: the heroic warrior would enter Snake Mountain from the right side. He would then be warned by the evil voice (microphone/voice distorter), was then held up by one of Skeletor’s hunchmen on the bridge, fought his way onward up to the gates of Snake Mountain only to fall into the trap-door. End of game.
Great observations Wolfstor. Yes, Snake Mountain seems to take you on a guided tour which is kind of the same tour each time. Castle Grayskull is much more open ended
Oh, noticed something.. erm.. you comment about a possible story point that was never used with
“Within it resides the horrible spirits of the Lords of Destruction. It is from these wicked spirits that Skeletor and his henchmen draw their evil power. A baffling series of catacombs are built beneath Snake Mountain. Exploration there has been limited; even Skeletor is fearful of what may reside there.”
but then even feature the minicomic which has Caves beneath snake mountain (caves/catacombs) with even Kobra Khan commenting about ‘No one’s ever come this far into the caves”. Not quite the same but .. then evil lords of destruction (King Hiss). weak link but possible.. need to ask the writer to be sure, and even then probably hazy.
Hi Manic Man – I was referring to the parts I bolded: “Ultimate evil power center, which commands and controls Skeletor and his minions….Within it resides the horrible spirits of the Lords of Destruction. It is from these wicked spirits that Skeletor and his henchmen draw their evil power.”
So according to the Style Guide, Snake Mountain actually controls Skeletor and the other baddies, and Skeletor draws power from evil spirits in the mountain.
fair enough ^_^
I love Snake Mountain, I think for me it held more imagination than Castle Grayskull in the stories in my head.
Because to me, maybe 1 out of a hundred times could Skeletor or his baddies even get inside, so it was a hero HQ/background piece.
But Snake Mountain was perfect home for kidnapped heroes that need rescuing, surprise traps and battles with King Hiss.
Skeletor wouldn’t be putting traps in Grayskull and He-Man would have no problem knocking down the front door.
Reading this and thinking about it all really brings back some great memories.
I loved Snake Mountain. Some of my friends used to complain that it didn’t match the cartoon version, but I thought (and still think) that the toy’s design is much cooler. One of my favorite things about it was all the partially visible faces; I reasoned that each of these was a demon or some sort of monster that Skeletor had bound to the mountain to fortify his stronghold, as well increase his own power. The large head with the articulated jaw was the most powerful, and I called him Havoc, given the backstory that he was the mightiest demon who ever menaced Eternia, and Skeletor had defeated him and made his staff from his skull after binding his spirit to the mountain. A long-running adventure I stretched over weeks involved He-Man and his allies trying to free all of the spirits from the mountain to cripple Skeletor’s power, but they didn’t know about the link between the Havoc Staff and the giant demon in the mountain. The battle culminated in Skeletor using the staff’s link to the demon to make him rise from the mountain, scattering He-Man’s forces, and marching directly toward Grayskull for an all-out assault. (I used my Inhumanoids Metlar as a stand-in for Havoc, haha.)
This is just one of the many adventures Snake Mountain inspired in my young mind, and it was directly based on the toy’s design. The one gripe I really had with the playset was that it was tough to get figures to stand on top of it, as it lacked the parapets and flat top that Grayskull had. That’s a minor gripe, though. I loved it then, and I love it now!
Fantastic blog and great post! Would you happen to know who designed the stickers for Snake Mountain? I adore the lizard monsters in the yellow water.
Thank you! Unfortunately I don’t know who did the stickers. I’d love to find out!
Snake Mountain was a bit bland compared to CG, which seems to be a fairly consistently shared opinion. I did not have it, but my best friend in the latter part of the 80’s did (he actually had the best MOTU collection I’d ever seen… i suspect he had around 90% of the figured and vehicles produced, but this was his sole focus well until we got through primary school – he didn’t buy into Transformer, GI Joe or TMNT like the rest of our friends and I did) and I do recall it being the only time I’d ever see SM in person.
He was however, the only kid I ever knew who had Eternia… and SM looked pretty cool alongside that and CG.
I always found SM’s Filmation design to be far more aesthetically pleasing and stylish, whereas the to always came across a bit lacklustre, especially internally. Felt like there was no actual ‘base’ aspect unlike CG, which had so much better internal play value. Snake Mountain just across to me as way too much like the jungle outpost it originated from, ironically.