Tag: Snake Mountain

Commercials, Videos

1984 US He-Man commercials

Posted on by Adam McCombs

by Adam McCombs

Masters of the Universe commercials had settled into a comfortable rhythm by 1984. All of them had more or less the same pacing and background music. They often ended with the tag line, “may the mightiest power prevail,” or sometimes just “yaaargh!”

I’ve been able to locate commercials for almost every item released in 1984, including Battle Armor He-Man, Battle Armor Skeletor, Orko, Prince Adam, Fisto, Clawful, Buzz-Off, Whiplash, Kobra Khan, Webstor, Roton, Dragon Walker and Snake Mountain.

I could not locate 1984 US commercials for Road Ripper, Stridor, Jitsu, Mekaneck (he appears in a 1985 commercial with Land Shark), or the Weapons Pack. I’m not sure if they exist, although if I had to guess I would think Mattel would have at least produced a commercial for Road Ripper.

One interesting note – Battle Armor He-Man appears to be an early production sample. The one featured in several of these commercial looks identical to the early version from the 1984 Mattel Dealer Catalog. This sample is a bit different from the final toy in that the “H” symbol has a darker outline and is filled in red rather than orange.He also has relatively dark-colored boots and loincloth.

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Production version (Taiwan)

Clawful is also an early production sample, with brown Skeletor boots. You can read more about the evolution of his design in the feature I wrote on Clawful several weeks back.

One nice thing about some of these commercials is that characters that didn’t feature prominently in commercials from previous years get a little more spotlight here, including Mer-Man, Zoar and Stratos.

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Catalogs

1984 Mattel Toys Dealer Catalog

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

Here is the 1984 Mattel Toys Dealer Catalog. Intended for retailers, Mattel’s dealer catalogs showcased all the latest and greatest releases, along with existing products within its various current (at the time) toy lines. New products are highlighted here with a “New For 84” graphic. New releases included:

  • Snake Mountain
  • Dragon Walker
  • Road Ripper
  • Stridor
  • Roton
  • Battle Armor He-Man
  • Battle Armor Skeletor
  • Fisto
  • Buzz-Off
  • Orko
  • Prince Adam
  • Whiplash
  • Clawful
  • Webstor
  • Kobra Khan
  • Jitsu
  • Weapons Pack

Interestingly, Mekanek is not marked as “New For 84”, but he also doesn’t appear in the 1983 catalog. He seems to have been an in-between figure. I tend to think of him as a third wave figure for various reasons, but more about him another time.

(Source: Orange Slime)

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I’m including close-up shots for some of the “new for ’84” items, although the resolution isn’t great. As you can probably tell, Orko is an early prototype, not the final figure. Many of the others seem to be late stage prototypes that are painted by hand. Clawful has Skeletor feet with brown boots (he also showed up like that in the cross sell art). Whiplash has meaner-looking eyes and a purple spear. The gold detail on Jitsu’s boots are is a bit brighter than final. Buzz Off has metallic blue eyes instead of metallic green (again, this showed up in the cross sell art). Battle Armor He-Man’s “H” symbol is colored a dark red. The Weapons Pak weapons are hand-painted. All in all not dramatic differences, but worth noting.

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