Tag: Ram Man

Artwork

Masters of the Universe Cross Sell Art: Brazilian Variants

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

The Brazilian Estrela toy company was one of several foreign manufacturers to purchased a license to produce Masters of the Universe Figures. However, the artwork they used on their packaging was slightly different from the artwork that appeared on US packaging (front and back).

My theory is that Estrela purchased the rights to make the toys, but not the rights for the artwork. Maybe it was cheaper to contract the art out locally. Most of the Estrela cross sell art is closely based on the US version, with some slight variations, almost always on the face. They also seem to modify artwork to make it look closer to the actual toy, whenever possible. This is especially evident for their cross sell art for Castle Grayskull, Wind Raider, Teela, Stratos and Ram Man. Note they also remove the orange stripes on Battle Cat’s tail – a feature included on the prototype but not on the vast majority of factory versions.

Estrela cross sell artwork comes courtesy of Jukka Issakainen, originally scanned by Polygonus. US artwork comes from Axel Giménez, Tokyonever, Jukka, StarCrusader, and my own photos and scans.

Please allow some time for photos to load.

Masters of the Universe Cross Sell Art:

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Artwork

Masters of the Universe Cross Sell Art: 1983

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

On to part two of the cross sell art series!

Images come from Axel Giménez, Starcrusader, and my own scans and pictures. Unfortunately the quality of the Faker, Evil-Lyn and Screeech art isn’t the best, but it’s the best I have available.

Masters of the Universe Cross Sell Art:

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Resource

Parts Reuse in MOTU, Part Two: 1983

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

Masters of the Universe, for all its diversity and creativity, was quite an economical toyline, creatively (and sometimes uncreatively) using and reusing the same molds over and over again throughout its run. Sometimes this was done fairly invisibly, and other times it was as plain as the nose on Faker’s face.

In this series I’ll be cataloging the reuse of existing molds, in context of what is known and what is likely about which figures were created in what order. For example, He-Man’s prototype was almost certainly finished before Man-At-Arms, so Man-At-Arms reused He-Man’s legs, rather than vice versa. I’ll also include parts that were reused from other toylines.

Sometimes existing parts were modified for use in new toys. For example, Beast Man’s chest seems to have been based on He-Man’s chest sculpt, albeit with a great deal of hair added to it. This didn’t save money on tooling, but it did save some time and effort for the sculptor. I’ll point this out whenever I see it. Whenever a modified part is used again, however, I’ll refer to it as belonging to the toy that used it first (for example, Stratos and Zodac reuse Beast Man’s chest).

I won’t comment on “invisible” parts, such as neck pegs or waist springs that are normally not seen.

First, the toys from 1983 that had (at the time) all new parts:

Ram Man

Man-E-Faces

Point Dread & Talon Fighter

These toys from 1983 reused some existing parts:

Man-E-Faces – free weapons offer

Trap Jaw

Tri-Klops

Evil-Lyn

Faker

Savage He-Man

Panthor

Zoar

Screeech

Attak Trak

Parts Reuse series:

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Commercials, Videos

1983 US He-Man commercials

Posted on by Adam McCombs

by Adam McCombs

Continuing from last week when I covered all of the US toy commercials released in 1982, let’s take a look at what came out the following year. In 1983, Mattel released commercials that technically featured every new product, although there were no ads that I know of solely dedicated to Evil-Lyn, Tri-Klops, Panthor, Zoar or Screeech.

Probably my favorite of the commercials released in 1983 is this ad featuring all of the MOTU product available to date. Note that Zodac is grouped with the Evil Warriors:

The little kid at the end I think perfectly captures my reaction to these toys when I was that age.

The Man-E-Faces commercial has one of my favorite lines of dialogue:

Dad: “He-Man, he’s your friend?”

Boy (speaking as He-Man): “Friend and ally. He’s just kind of weird sometimes.”

The Ram Man commercial shows off Ram Man’s action feature quite well, but also highlights the original play pattern behind the Castle Grayskull playset – that it could be controlled by either the heroes or the villains at any time.

The Trap Jaw commercial uses a stand-off with He-Man to showcase all of Trap Jaw’s unique gimmicks and action features, with the curious exception of the figure’s articulated jaw:

Here is the Faker vs He-Man commercial, where we’re told Faker was created by Skeletor as an evil clone of He-Man:

I don’t remember seeing this Attak Track commercial as a kid, but if I had I would have been begging my mom for one. This thing looks unstoppable (or at least, it can’t be stopped by cardboard props):

There were actually two slightly different versions of the Point Dread and Talon Fighter commercial. One was narrated by Peter Cullen (best known as the voice of Optimus Prime), and the other by an unknown voice actor (hat tip to Grimbot2).

The facial expressions of the kid holding Skeletor are pretty priceless.

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