Snout Spout: The Silliest Masters of the Universe Toy, Ever!

Snout Spout: His knock out nose knocks evil out! You can tell the design department of Mattel was bored to death of Masters of the Universe by 1986 when this commercial came out. I can just see some poor child at Christmas yelping “Mommy why did you get me an elephant? I wanted He-Man!” Don’t get me wrong as a toy it looks very clever but our pachyderm friend seems somewhat out of place with the other members of the Masters of the Universe. In fact the character wasn’t even shown in the series until after the toy came out (you can tell that merchandising was more important than story telling). Read more…

Tags: He-Man & The Masters Of The Universe, Mattel, She-Ra: Princess of Power, Toys

Watch Out He-Man — It’s Trap Jaw! (String Not Included)

The year is 1983 and as an art school student me and my buds are convinced that the era we were in was a low point for animation — except for Anime! Even though a generation has grown up loving He-Man we tested the dude, because his D&D routine wasn’t half as cool as Star Blazers or Mobile Suit Gundam. Looking back I still stand by my thesis of the lack of quality in Filmation productions, but now I can see how a generation of kids could look fondly back on this stuff. Read more…

Tags: 1983, He-Man & The Masters Of The Universe