Masters of the Universe toys were produced under license by various international toy manufacturers in the 1980s. One of those manufacturers was Top Toys, based out of Argentina.
In addition to manufacturing Masters of the Universe toys (including the famous “Kamo Khan”), Top Toys produced some high quality television commercials for the MOTU product line. Here are the five that have surfaced so far, which heavily feature He-Man, Mer-Man, Skeletor, Zoar, Battle Ram, Panthor, Man-E-Faces, Clawful, Spikor, Sy-Klone, Land Shark, Battle Bones, Snout Spout and others.
Special thanks to Andy W. for pointing out the “Top Toys He-Man Offer” video to me, and to “Anonymous” (in the comments below) for sharing the last two videos.
Skeletor’s most iconic weapon has always been his havoc staff, with its distinctive and menacing ram’s skull. The two are so interconnected as to be practically inseparable. Skeletor also carried his purple half of the power sword, and it made plenty of appearances in mini comics and story books.
There is however, another weapon that Skeletor carried in the 1982 mini comics (artwork by Alfredo Alcala, story by Don Glut). This was Skeletor’s energy blade (sometimes called lightning blade or lightning weapon). It was a fairly ordinary-looking short sword with a curved hilt that was capable of releasing searing blasts of energy, or even calling up magical images.
I always assumed that this particular sword’s design was an invention of artist Alfredo Alcala. But I recently noticed what appears to be the same sword showing up in early box art by Rudy Obrero. That lead me to believe that the energy blade may have originally come from Mattel*. I’d like to think there is a B-sheet lying around in a box somewhere with a drawing of this sword in it. Without definitive proof, of course, we can’t know for sure.
Here are some representative appearances of the energy blade in the 1982 mini comics. There is some variation with how it was drawn, even within the same comic:
Here are the appearances of the sword in Rudy Obrero’s packaging illustrations for the Battle Ram, He-Man/Wind Raider, Wind Raider, He-Man/Battle Cat, and Castle Grayskull boxes. Note that at times Beast Man carries the same sword:
Incidentally, a sword of the same design appears in Man-At-Arms’ hand in the 1983 comic book, The Power of Point Dread:
Artwork by Alfredo Alcala
He-Man holds a similar sword on the cover of the same booklet (hat tip to Jukka Issakainen):
Artwork by Alfredo Alcala
Somewhat similar swords appear in this 1982 advertisement for Faker:
Image source: Robert Schultz. Artwork by Alfredo Alcala
In one depiction of Mark Taylor’s Vikor character (who pre-dated He-Man), Vikor carries a sword similar to the energy blade:
Image source: The Power and the Honor Foundation/The Art of He-Man
*Update:
Øyvind Johannes Meisfjord pointed a fatal flaw in my reasoning. It seems that Alfredo Alcala drew a very similar looking sword that predated the He-Man property by several years:
1976 illustration of Conan by Alfredo Alcala
Furthermore, swords similar to those in the Rudy Obrero illustrations show up in artwork by Frank Frazetta and John Buscema throughout the 1960s and 1970s:
Given this evidence, it seems unlikely now that the common source for this design was Mattel (it’s possible, but I don’t think a strong case can be made for it). I have to conclude that Alfredo Alcala was drawing upon the fantasy concepts he’d been illustrating for years, and Rudy Obrero was drawing upon general sword and sorcery themes of the ’60s and ’70s. Given Mark Taylor’s Frazetta influences, he probably drew from the same general creative well for his Vikor sword.
Thanks to Øyvind for challenging my theory. I think it’s been successfully refuted!
In this post I’d like to take a closer look at the Battle Ram prototype. For a more exhaustive treatment of this vehicle, see the toy feature.
Designed by Ted Mayer and sculpted by Jim Openshaw, the Battle Ram prototype was in some ways more impressive than the final toy.
Here is the prototype Battle Ram, from various angles (also shown is the prototype helmeted He-Man figure):
Images 1, 4 and 5 are courtesy of Ted Mayer; images 2 and 3 were retrieved from He-Man.org.
The overall profile is very similar to the final toy, but when you look closely, there are many subtle differences. I’ll go over each photo of the prototype and compare it with a similar photo of the final toy, noting some of the differences in each:
Notice in the fifth prototype image, the front half of the Battle Ram seems to have a greenish tint (in most images it looks grayish-blue). Perhaps the paint took on that tonality depending upon the lighting. That might explain the greenish coloration of Rudy Obrero’s illustration for the Battle Ram packaging. On the other hand, his color choice may have been determined by the lighting in his landscape.
Speaking of which, Rudy’s illustration is also based on the prototype Battle Ram, although it features the reptilian sticker on the front section from the final toy, as well as a modified missile:
As you can see, his illustration is quite faithful to the source material, although he did elongate the front half of the vehicle. He also gave it a jet engine nozzle at the rear, visible when in flight mode:
Alfredo Alcala’s Battle Ram cross sell art is also based on the prototype vehicle:
The prototype also shows up in the 1981 “Fast Male Action for Licensees” kit:
It was also featured in issue 90 of Tomart’s Action Figure Digest:
The prototype was very likely based on this control drawing dated May 28, 1981, drawn by Ted Mayer. It matches up almost perfectly with the prototype Battle Ram.
I’ve got a lot of affection for the television commercials produced for Masters of the Universe toyline. From the 1982 to 1985, they all had the primordial chant in the background – “He-Man, He-Man!” The tone changed somewhat in 1986, when a futuristic synth score replaced the caveman chant, but even then they were great. The commercials always had great dioramas and were a blueprint for a thousand sandbox adventures.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to know how many ads were produced. They pop up on YouTube as they are found, but there is no definitive list.
Recently I was delighted to find several commercials in German and Italian that I had never seen before. What excited me the most was seeing a commercial that features Battle Ram, Battle Cat and Wind Raider. This is the first time I’ve seen a MOTU commercial where those vehicles take center stage. I’m sure many of you have seen some of these before, but most of them are new to me.
For now I’m featuring only the foreign language commercials for which I have seen no English language equivalent:
