Masters of the Universe Toys Through the Years

I am Adam, Prince of Eternia, defender of the

secrets of Castle Grayskull. This is Cringer,

my fearless friend. Fab - What do we have here?

It's Castle Grayskull! And it's mine! That's

so fast, Beastman! He -Man! You can pit He -Man

against Beastman, playing for the power of Castle

Grayskull. You have to put the castle together.

Beastman's escaping! The throne, Dad! Castle

Grayskull from the Masters of the Universe collection.

He -Man and Beast -Man each sold separately from

Mattel. I'll call our warriors from around the

universe and bring them here to Snake Mountain!

Let the meeting of the masterful plastic crack

collectors begin. That doesn't sound right at

all. Hello, my name is TFJ on mic and I'm addicted

or I used to be addicted to collecting Masters

of the Universe toys. And my name is Optimus

Solo and I also love collecting Masters of the

Universe toys. He likes stink -ors. Yes, he has

a problem. I don't know what that means. So,

but that is why we are here, because we want

to welcome you to the 50th chapter in the Powers

of Greyskull series. Are you ready to throw some

pogs? That's a terrible reference. No, it's not.

That's why the name of the overall podcast series

is Powers of Greyskull series, because I remember

having Masters of the Universe pogs as a kid.

I wanted to punch anybody that ever played with

anything called a pog. Well, then, good thing

we lived a state or two away then, right? I hated

those things with a passion. I used to love those

things. They're better than Transformers jump

-starter toys. In this episode of Power is the

Greatest Goal, we will be talking all manner

of MOTU toys. We wanted to have Pixel Dan, the

master of all Masters of the Universe toys, with

us, but sadly, he's stuck on Cybertron playing

with Transformers toys, and he hates that. We're

gonna be giving you a history lesson. Oh good.

Your teaching skills will come into play again.

After how many years? On the Masters of the Universe

brand from 82 to now. Nice 82 to now. Over the

toys we had as kids, the toys we wanted and so

much more. So let's all walk through the Evergreen

Forest and make our way to Castle Grayskull.

Alright folks, we are at Castle Grayskull for

this first part of our Toys Through the Years

for Masters of the Universe. Do you remember...

the very first Masters of the Universe toy, vehicle,

or playset you ever got? No, I don't remember

the very first one. I just remember having a

bunch of them at a young age. I remember my cousin

having a bunch of them even more so than I did.

I think he had almost every single one it seemed

like. But I just remember that I had, you know,

He -Man, Prince Adam, Skeletor. You know, those

were probably the first ones that I got along

with, I believe there was Attila, Sorceress,

and Zor. So that was probably the first group

that I had. I didn't have a few others, obviously,

throughout the years, but those were probably

the oldest ones I had. For me, I had a lot of

stuff. I had, throughout the 80s, well, I should

say... Most of it throughout the 80s, but because

there was the whole incident in 1986 that I've

told a million times in the seven years of my

podcasting experience. Basically when I was six

years old, I had Castle, and this is so weird

of me. I don't know why I did this, but I had

Castle Grayskull and all the good guys and some

of the bad guys at my mom's house. And I had

Snake Mountain and the slime pit and all that

other stuff and all the other villains and some

of the heroes at my dad's house. My dad at the

time was living in Rhode Island. He decided to

either sell him or throw him out or whatever

else and came down to his house one time We're

all my toys. You're six years old. You're too

old to be playing with toys Yeah, right anyway

So for me as a kid I had a bunch of of them I

had every kind of he man imaginable I had I had

Specifically to He -Man, I had almost every...

I had battle armor He -Man, I had regular He

-Man, I had... I don't know, frozen steel He

-Man, I don't know, however many He -Man actual

action figures came out of the character, I had

them. The battle armor He -Man was probably my

least favorite at the time because moving the

thing, the little armor thing on his chest, it...

got stuck after a while. I think I put him through

the slime pit way too many times. The same thing

with Battle Armor Skeletor. Actually, Battle

Armor Skeletor was funny for me because he was

the actual opposite. I couldn't get his little

insignia to stop spinning half the time. Yeah,

I only had a few of the actual He -Man and Skeletor

ones. I had the original ones and then I had

the gift Set that was two of them. It was the

flying fist he man and the terror clause Skeletor

I remember getting those, you know a year or

two after I got the other ones I remember they

were more of a later edition and I remember being

somewhat thrown off because I'm like when did

they ever look like this in the cartoon but They

were still fun because of the accessories and

because of what you could do with them So I do

remember getting those in 1886 Outside of those

two, I don't think I had I might have had the

battle armors, but I'm not remembering those

very well So I think I just had the original

ones and then the flying fist and the terror

claws Dude I had everything I had Skeletor I

had man -at -arms. I had like three different

zores. I had the sky sled I had I had Battle

Cat, I had Panther. The weird thing for me is

I didn't have all of the mainstays. I didn't

have Man in Arms and Ram Man and Evil Lin and

any of those. I had more of the kind of, not

oddball ones, but more of the side things. Even

if you look at the vehicles specifically, the

vehicles I had were the Bastrosaurus, I think.

The Battle Bones, which was basically just the

carrier for all the figures that you could put

them on their sides. And then I had the Jet Sled.

And I believe I had, yeah, I had the Mantasaur

as far as the guide and the kind of the carrier

there. And I had Laser Bolt. Most of the vehicles

I had are not ones that would... highly featured

in the show or whatever, you know, it's not the

Wind Raider, it's not the Attack Track, it's

not any of those. But I still had a lot of fun

with them even though I never saw them anywhere.

Did you have many other vehicles? I had, I can't,

because we're using He -Man .org's gallery of

wonderful lists here for... the images and stuff.

I seem to remember having three or four or five

different sky sleds. I know I had at least two

Wind Raiders. Obviously, I had Castle Grayskull

and Snake Mountain, like I've already said. The

one thing, because I thought it was going to

be show accurate, the one thing I always wanted

that I never had was the Palace of Eternia, and

it was not show accurate. Thinking of it now

as a 35 year old, I'm so glad I never had it.

Yeah, I can see that. I didn't have any of the

playsets growing up. I didn't have. I do now

and they're in my basement, obviously. But I

mean, I never had any. I didn't have Eternia.

I didn't have the Fright Zone. I didn't have

Castle Grayskull. I thought that those were all

cool elements to look for. But yeah, I never

had any of the playsets, but I never missed them.

It was never like, oh, I don't have the place.

I was more concerned with trying to get all,

you know, having cool figures and then going

to my cousin's house and getting to play with

all the figures that I didn't have because he

had everything. He was probably five or six years

older than me. So. He was more of a, you know,

10, 11, 12 year old when the show was popular.

So he was getting them right then where obviously

I was only, you know, four or five, six when

the show was going on. So those types of toys

weren't, weren't necessarily the ones that were

being bought at the same time. My, my weird experience,

I guess with He -Man toys is for some reason,

not, not as brutal as your story, but none of

his life altering, not as life scarring is mine.

No, I obviously. You know, I did have a bunch

of toys. You know, we didn't have a lot of money

or whatnot, but my parents did find a way to

get me quite a few toys that action figures related

to the cartoons that I liked. And, you know,

I had the Transformers, I had a decent amount

of G .I. Joes, not as many as I did Transformers,

of course. And then I had a decent amount of

He -Man and then just a smaller amount of like

Silver Hawks and a couple other randoms. Turtles,

I had a decent amount. And for some reason, my

mom had a garage sale at some point. I don't

know where I was. I don't know how old I was,

maybe in high school. And maybe I just wasn't

paying enough attention to what was going on.

I'm not sure when it happened, but my mom knew

better, apparently, than to put any Transformers

in the garage sale because not a single Transformers

character was put in that garage sale. For some

reason, He -Man and Silverhawks were put in the

garage sale. I don't think my GI Joes were, I

don't think my Transformers were, I don't think

my Turtles were. But apparently she thought that

I was over He -Man and Silverhawks because I

lost probably half of my He -Man characters.

Toys in that garage sale as well as almost all

of the Silverhawks I had except for like one

or two And man that sucks parents do not do that

ever to your kids box toys I can understand some

stuff I can understand like maybe I stopped animals

or something like that But if they have action

figures that are related to properties that they're

watching as a kid don't sell those Put those

in a box put them in the attic put them in the

basement seal them up mail them to yourself in

the future I don't care something don't do that

because man I and I was looking through this

list of images of all the characters because

obviously the ones that I still have are fresh

in my mind and I've seen them a million times

and you know I seen them recently I have He -Man

and Skeletor in my hero villain collection on

my shelf along with as many heroes and villains

from all the 80s cartoons that I can find so

I mean those are fresh in my memory but when

I'm looking through these images I'm remembering

wait a second I had that, like that had to be

one that went out in the garage sale. So, you

know, some of those, man, like, man, I wish I

could have that back. Like my jet sled must've

been sold in the, in the garage sale. Um, I had

a leech character that was sold in the garage

sale. I had the flying fists and the terror claws

that I mentioned before must've gone out in the

garage sale. Um, and then one of the rock people.

I don't remember the name of which one it was.

It wasn't the main one, it was more of a secondary

rock creature, but I liked those. I thought those

were clever characters that could, you know,

kind of fold up into a rock. But yeah, so I had

a similar experience where I lost a bunch of

them through parents doing things that they shouldn't

do. Yeah, you know, I'm not trying to... I am

far beyond looking at the original... 82 83 toy

line with rose -colored glasses because oh my

god as a as an adult These things are so small

As a kid we thought they were larger than life,

but I mean, here's the thing though. Hold on

You gotta you gotta kind of back that up. They

might be small compared to some of the toy lines

We're gonna get to in the future, but actually

If you put them next to most of the toys of that

era, they were actually a little bit bigger.

They were bigger than the Silverhawks toys. They

were definitely way bigger than the G .I. Joes

or Star Wars action figures. They were slightly

smaller than the Thundercats and probably right

in line with the Turtles figures for the most

part. But, I mean, they weren't small. I mean,

I get what you're saying maybe compared to...

Maybe it's just because the way that they're

shown on the website... In the small grid thing

that they look small to me even even looking

at a larger image. I'm looking at Skeletor here

and Yeah, he does look bigger than obviously

the problem I had with this line even as a kid

the weapons the weapons were cool, but they You

know you you look at an image of Skeletor and

the image I'm looking at he's standing there

with the Havoc staff in his hand But the Havoc

staff was a bendy thing And you could bend the

handle and whatever else. Same thing with his

power sword specifically in this image. It has

a weird looking attachment to the handle. I mean,

it's just one of those things where... I don't

know if it's something I expect to where it's

like, oh, just have a handle, put it in his hand.

But it just, it looks really frigging weird to

me seeing him having like, like the break on

a bike, like. You know, you have the bike handlebar

and then you have the, it's that kind of thing

that, I don't know. What I appreciated about

the toys that you got for He -Man though, a little

bit more than some of the more generic ones was

that they were, they more fit with the character.

It wasn't like they, all the weapons of the whole

series were all red or all the weapons were all

the same plastic orange color that you got with

some things like the Star Trek figures. So they

were all tailored and colorful towards that individual

person. And it wasn't. even like in some cases

where they're all the similar type of gun or

they're all a similar type of sword like they

all had show specific or character specific I

guess weapons which I appreciated but one thing

that I think I liked more in the He -Man series

than what you got in a lot of the other action

figure toy series which I don't count Transformers

in that sense it's a whole different type of

toy But when you're comparing it to more of the

standing, you know, stand up figures, like all

the ones that I've mentioned before, there was

a variety of these figures that had something

cool about them. And what I mean by that is take,

I guess, maybe the best example is Mosquitoer

because he had actual, well, not blood, but he

had actual liquid, a red liquid that was in his,

uh, in his nose, I don't know if you wanna call

it his nose, but in his body, in his chest. And

it was actually liquid, like it actually moved.

Like you could, I can't remember if you could

squeeze it or if you could like tip the figure

upside down, but he actually had what you would

consider blood in his chest piece. You had somebody

like Leach who actually had suction cups for

hands. You had Mossman who was actually mossy.

Like it wasn't plastic. It was an actual, you

know, it was flocked. Yeah Yeah, so I kind of

like that because I added something different

Panther had the same material as Mossman, you

know Rattler had a Rattle to him. He had something

in his tail or you know, a chess piece whatever

that rattled and I just remember all of that

kind of setting it apart from a lot of other

Action figure lines that it was just the figure

and maybe a cool weapon or something like that,

but that was basically all that they had, which

there are some of those in this line, but there's

also a bunch of cool triclops, you know, with

his head changing. Different things like that

that I always, it was more appealing to me as

a child than many of the other ones. Mantena's

eyes popping out, Manny Face's head turning.

So I like that. Mechaneck's neck working. Yeah,

exactly. No, obviously those were more things

that you could break and things like that. Grizzler's

fur. Grizzler was one of the worst things for

me. Oh my god. That toy. The other thing, and

I'll give you a second to react then, is the

other thing that I really liked that I didn't

see a lot from the other toy lines, and you mentioned

it a little bit, was the slime pit, which my

cousin also had. And I just remember that being

an event, like, get it together and setting it

all up and then actually, you know, doing that

to a figure. It was just like, I can't believe

we're actually doing this to the figure. But

it was fine. Yeah. And what we wanted, the reason

why we wanted to do that to the figure is because

of the damn commercial that showed the kids in

the commercial actually doing that to the figure.

And the way the commercial director, whomever,

had the slime coming out of the slime, just the

way that the commercial was shot, it was like,

hey kids, you can slime your toys. And you know

what, no disrespect to Mark, what's his name

in Doubleday. I'm sorry, but the slime pit is

the true slime time thing. Okay, it really is

For me Did you ever in school elementary school

middle school high school did you ever? Have

any experience with stink bombs not really okay,

so I mean I know I Other people I you know you'd

hear about oh somebody on the fourth grade didn't

have to use stink bombs I just bring I just bring

stink or and he would immediately I I remember

asking my mom to buy me two or three different

stink ores because as soon as you bought a brand

new out -of -the -box stink or that smell at

scratch and sniff or whatever it is smell lasted

for at least three weeks at least it did for

me at least that's what I remember and oh man

as bad as stink or smell because it was that

I don't want to say lacquer it was it was some

weird scent that it was it was supposed to be

obvious because he's supposed to be skunk like

but it wasn't a skunk I don't know it was just

some weird smell that they that they had put

on the thing and Wow, oh man did I get in trouble

with teachers at school with him Another thing

I really liked about the action figure line was

and there are some exceptions to this There are

some that are bad, but for the most part these

Looked like they should have looked like they

looked like the cartoon It wasn't just like hey

This is such -and -such from the cartoon like

you have with some of the action figure lines

in the 80s and you're like I don't know like

that kind of looks like the cartoon But I'm not

sure most of these with a few exceptions did

look like you thought they should I think like

I said, there's a couple I don't know if man

-at -arms and and Tila quite quite were pulled

off maybe like you would think they were but

and grizzler for sure, but Most of the other

characters that I can think of to me looked like

I thought they did in the cartoon Yeah, I think

for me and I know you said it was the the the

signs of the times and the size of the I think

that was the thing for me I was expecting he

man to be as Big Ellie Castle Grayskull to me

as a five and six year old that thing was huge.

Yeah It was, it was huge. So I was expecting

He -Man to be somewhat, not necessarily, obviously,

He -Man can't be the same size as Castle Grayskull,

but I was expecting him to be somewhat a little

bit larger than, because you always, you know,

I mean, look at us, you know, we're at the 50th

episode of this podcast for almost five years

into doing this. You know, we're now start, you

know, we've now started the She -Ra reviews.

We spent the last four years on He -Man. And

it's one of those things where going back and

looking at all that, I still expected the toys

to be as large or larger than life as the cartoon

was. And it's just funny to hear that because

when this line started in 1982, when the first,

you know, Skeletor and Merman and He -Man were

put out in 1982 and 1983, when those lines were

first starting, the size of these figures was

unheard of. Like all you had up to that point

was the standard Star Wars size action figure

You know what I mean? Like the three and a half

inch or whatever it is Small individual figures

like there wasn't out you either had that or

you had like the old -school GI Joe the you know,

like the 12 inch You know big giant figures.

You didn't really have this middle ground of

You know, kind of just, I don't even know what

the inches were on these figures. It had to be

like... I swear it was between four to five inches.

Like I said, if Pixel Dan was here, or if my

buddy Mike Lacey was here, or Jason Duvall, or

anybody... It's at least, it's three and a half

or up. It's bigger than three and a half. Oh,

absolutely. Which, you know, your standard Star

Wars action figure is two and a half. and and

then you know you have like the you had the old

school GI Joe from the 60s or 70s or whatever

it was that was the 12 inch but to have like

a three and a half to five inch figure was at

the time something that wasn't being done so

I mean I know afterwards a lot of different toy

lines had different sizes and different you know

there wasn't like a standard they all kind of

had different scale but But yeah, I mean, I like

the show accuracy for the most part. I liked

the diversity and the different elements that

they had instead of just like, um, like even,

even GI Joe, I'm not trying to bash GI Joe at

all, but that's basically outside of the weapons

they came with and the vehicle sections. The

figures are all just figures. Like there's not

a lot to them. There's you know, I mean, they're

not made out of different materials for the most

part They don't have like the blood in the chest

or or some of the different, you know, like the

suction cups for hands They don't have any of

that which I get that they're all for the most

part Humanoid figures instead of these beasts

and these creatures But that's something that

I definitely liked more about the human line

than a lot of the other lines turtles for the

most part, too You know they had a bunch of different

weapons and whatnot, but they didn't do a whole

lot of different things like Yeah, the problem

with the turtles weapons is it goes back to what

you were saying a moment ago or a few months

ago about about the all -orange and the turtles

weapons pissed me off because You actually, no

don't get me wrong, I'm all for interacting with

my toys, but the fact that I have to pull weapons

off of some sort of peg hole, oh my god, the

turtle's peg holders. Oh, I never wanted to ever

feel that. And the turtle's weapons were super

flimsy, and all the same color for the most part,

and Justin's like, eh. But yeah, I mean, so that's

something that I like. Did you ever have any

of the movie figures or any of the - I never

had any of the movie figures. We ought to move

into Princess of Power because I don't think

either one of us Maybe you have now maybe you

have a She -Ra now, but I don't think either

one of us ever had any of these Okay, Hordak,

Mantana sure, but like Adora well actually no

there was never an Adora figure It was always

She -Ra right and we'll and we'll get to that

later My sister my sister actually had a couple

She had I believe Arrow the horse and then she

had either I'm gonna get it wrong, but she either

had Butterflyer or Enchanto which were two kind

of like carrion type things and then I've told

the story once before but I did get her a She

-Ra figure for Christmas one year and it was

the I believe it was either Frosta I'm almost

Sure, it was frosta and You know, I we got home

from the store and I bought her, you know her

Christmas present because I was probably like

eight or something like that or seven and we

had put it in In the our hall closet and kind

of hid it behind a bunch of stuff And then you

know we that's what we would do and then we would

wait until like a week or two before Christmas

when all the presents were going out and then

I would you know go get it and wrap it up and

everything and I went to go get it and it was

not there and We searched everywhere for it couldn't

find it. So my sister did not get it for Christmas

I don't even know if I gave her a present that

year because that's what I you know use my money

on and To this day. We still have not found that

figure so Don't know if one day when you know,

maybe we're cleaning out the house or doing something.

We'll eventually come across it I don't know

if my sister somehow found it early and this

just has never admitted to it If maybe one of

her friends or something stole it, I don't know

but there is a Possibly a mint on card frost

a figure still that's never seen the light of

day somewhere in my mom's house So but yeah,

she only I don't Outside of the actual horses

and a couple of the carrying things. I don't

remember if she actually had any of the Actual

figures which is weird, but I'm assuming she

had at least a couple But I would not be able

to tell you which ones they were I myself did

not own any of them Yeah, I remember several

of my female cousins having some of these I I

remember I believe I had bow and arrow But that

was because even though they emasculate bow throughout

the entire cartoon series Bow and arrow were

the male heroes of the rebellion I remember having

either cowl or Luki. I think I had Cowl and not

Luki. I have never, even as a kid, you guys have

heard so far in episodes 48 and 49, I am not

a fan of Luki whatsoever. So I do not remember

having him. The thing I think that they messed

up with the She -Ra series is when they went

to do the toys for that, I don't think they are

as toy accurate or as cartoon accurate as the

He -Man ones. They don't look as much like that.

And then they went way too heavy on the... pain

well no they went way too heavy on the horses

and the accessories which i know they're they're

aiming it towards a female audience to buy them

but just all of the plastic horses that don't

what pissed me off about those horses is they're

completely immobile they're in us they're all

in the exact same pose basically you can't move

them they're a plastic mold So it was just really

weird. I mean, yeah, they have the hair I guess

you could brush or maybe or the wings that'll

flap or whatever and you could put your person

on it But I just thought they went way too much

on the horses and they didn't give you enough

of the actual figures nor did they make the figures

look like they did in the show and They only

marketed and only released basically the outside

of bow the female figures Yeah, like there is

no you the He -Man toy line had, you know leech

and Grizzlore and Hordak and a couple of things

but they were never released in the Second wave

there with the She -Ra figures. I think the reason

why is because as you already said They were

Mattel was marketing the princess of power line

to girls, right? And I don't think girls are

going to want a green character with suction

cup hands and feet called Leech. And I think

that because I was actually surprised when we

when we're looking at the He -Man .org listings

here that Grizzlore and Leech and Mantana and

all that are on the He -Man toy line side versus

the Princes. There's also a bunch of characters

that never got. Totally, you know, there's no

shadow weaver There's no there's a lot of the

characters that we've already come across so

far in just a few limited episodes That are not

present here Not in this line. They will be in

the future when we get to that but not in this

line No, I mean the fact that there wasn't a

shadow weaver I I'm kind of sad about that but

compared to what they did, you know here in the

last few years, I'm kind of glad that it took

them 30 some odd years to get an actual Shadow

Weaver figure. So let's move on to something

we have yet to cover. As I said, you know, we're

in the middle of the She -Ra show, the myths

of Etherea. It's going to take us to episode

82, I think, or something around there of the

podcast. So. I refuse. You know, you've chastised

me a few times for seeing She -Ra ahead of us

reviewing it. I refuse to watch New Adventures

until we review it. I absolutely refuse. New

Adventures, to me, as a 10 -year -old in 1990,

it was a travesty. This is not my He -Man. What

the hell is going on here? And, you know, Skeletor,

he sounded really like this when he... Just...

whatever. Just wasn't... It just wasn't my thing.

And I know I might have had a Battle Punch He

-Man from this line, but I know I did not have

any other toy from this line, because that cartoon

series pissed me off so bad as a kid. Yeah, I

don't even know what they look like. I refuse

to even look at them. Oh, you're not even gonna

look at the link. Okay, well then we're just

gonna skip over new adventures Maybe we'll come

back to it when we get to the new adventures

cartoon series After that they had the Masters

of the universe commemorative series in the year

2000 I didn't apparently know this happened because

I was I was a senior in high school freshman

in college at this point so this and I was in

heavy into collecting Star Wars and Transformers

so I and I don't remember these hardly even being

in stores like if they were in stores it was

not the ones I was around so I didn't have too

much exposure to these otherwise I probably would

have been all about them yeah absolutely this

reminds me of the Transformers also commemorative

series where they had the Transformers things.

Yeah, I didn't know anything about this either.

And surprisingly, this line is fairly short.

There's a 10 -pack gift set. There was a 5 -pack

exclusive with Mossman, 5 -pack exclusive with

Prince Adam. There was Battle Cat and He -Man.

There was Battle Armor Skeletor. But I honestly

do not remember the commemorative series at all.

No, this is completely... over my head under

my radar something that i didn't get a chance

to really see in person ever so um i think i

would have been into it because it's definitely

i like all the commemorative series but it wasn't

something i was uh exposed to i know we're getting

to some stuff that you are heavily exposed to

though Well, we are. We got to get through the

death knell though first, okay? So in 2000 we

had the commemorative series. Two years later

on Cartoon Network they launched a brand new

cartoon series for He -Man and the Masters of

the Universe. I... Caught an episode here there

back in 2002 2003 when it was running, but I

was like wait he man's back on TV What is this

and I remember watching the very first episode

back then? The very first the the three -parter

the beginning the opening three -part episode

right And I'm like, oh, this is kind of old Skeletor

looks cool. What's this mystic wall? They're

trying to And I thought, oh, this is great. I'll

try to watch this. And I saw it on Cartoon Network

at like 11 o 'clock at night or something. And

I never thought about it again until a number

of years later when I found out that the complete

series was on DVD, blah, blah, blah. And I went

and I watched it. And this was 2000. When did

we do that? Because we actually did that together.

So it was 2006. It hadn't been 2006 because it

was there. No, not 2006. We hadn't met yet then.

nine or ten maybe so about shit uh seven eight

years ago something like that uh i don't know

math is evil folks um but the 2002 series i absolutely

love but this toy line killed masters of the

universe for mattel yeah there was not a after

this toy after mattel decided to discontinue

this toy line there was not another toy line

until 2008 Six years without a toilet without

a Masters of the universe toy on the shelves

That's just baffling to me how how people can

not know like Okay in our circles in people our

age you say he man or Skeletor Castle Grayskull

or whatever you say whatever Masters of the universe

Everybody's gonna know you say he man to some

five -year -old today. I don't know what the

hell he man is He's too busy with Superman or

her Big hero six or I know I'm just trying to

think of other, you know You know, whatever but

the 2002 toy line these things are Really really

weird now. We've both seen this series already

Do you remember if these are anything like what's

in the cartoons? I have a couple of these My

girlfriend bought me a couple at a That were

meant on card at some type of toy store or something.

So I have merman and triclops and I At first

when she bought him I thought it was the The

classics Okay, but they they are the the modern

series figures because when I put them next to

the couple classics I have they're different

sizes There's a little bit they're a little bit

bigger than the originals and a little bit smaller

than the gigantic classic size But they do look

definitely much like the the cartoon series the

two that I have at least I haven't seen a lot

of the other ones actually like up close and

personal but But they're definitely legit. Their

weapons are legit. They have some interesting

poses that you can put them in. So I think this

is something that had I been watching the cartoon

at that time, I probably definitely would have

been interested in these toys because they are,

they're unique. Every character has a little

bit of a different style, a little bit of a different

position. And it's just a mature. Line as far

as the look and the weapons just like the cartoon

This was the line that had the first ever cartoon

accurate evil in I remember that because as much

as I like the Filmation evil in from Mattel back

in the 80s. I remember getting that toy and I'm

like wait It's not purple and white. There's

no purple cape. It's blue and yellow. What the

hell kind of smurf is she supposed to be? Yeah.

You know, it's just one of those things. But

yeah, the 2002 line, there were some really weird

things that they put out in this line. And that's

really what kind of killed it for them. And then

they didn't do anything for six years. Yeah,

there wasn't much demand for He -Man stuff for

a while there. Not at all. In 2008, we got the

classics line. I'm actually, let's take a break

here really quick because ever since I've been

podcasting for the last seven years or so, I

ran into a guy named Ender. Ender is awesome.

He really, really is. You really have to be able

to just go with the flow with his humor and just

sit back and laugh at him. He was one of the

hosts, I don't know if he's still doing it or

not, of Radio Free Cybertron with Brian Kilby

and that crew. During the time of the beginning

of the Masters of the Enders Classics, Ender

went on a little bit of a rant. So anytime I

get a chance to actually use Ender's rant on

Mattel, I love using it. So we'll be back after

this. This is Radio 30 Cybertron. Thank God Hasbro

isn't Mattel. Ender, the floor is yours. Mattel's

Masters of the Universe has gotten to be like

the most malignant, moronic, mishandled line

in history. Not since Hasbro Creative meeting

when one executive blurted out, let's kill the

red truck guy, has a franchise been handled worse.

The Masters of the Universe classics are an amazing

line. They use modern toy -making techniques

to bring out the best of a vintage figure, retaining

its charm and essence while consistently exceeding

modern quality standards and delivering fan -driven

fun for the adult collector at a price that while

higher than average is altogether reasonable.

Sadly, the He -Man genius falcon reaches its

apex at this conceptual stage, and then careens

out of the sky with the aerodynamic grace of

a quadriplegic hippo with an inner ear infection,

plummets through a sky of inept customer service,

plows straight and through a swamp of incompetent

planning, and rests broken and ruptured in a

bedrock of useless management. Mattyscalper .com's

inability to even handle its monthly server load,

much less the demand for its product, has settled

into a comfortable pattern of letting itself

be milked by scalpers at a rate of 10 figures

in order, while the real customers wait in error

screens. Meanwhile, scalpers, who are, by the

way, the most worthless scum on earth, have already

posted their overpriced rip -off auctions on

the well -oiled servers of eBay, touting items

rarity. due to a false scarcity they themselves

have created with the foolish help of Mattel.

Nothing endears fans to a brand like having legal

tender slapped out of their hands as they attempt

to exchange it for your product. The band -aid

of a club was offered, seemingly a reasonable

fix. You commit to buying the figures and they

guarantee you one. Simple enough. Until the line

branches out into non -club figures and the cycle

begins again as Battle Cat is snapped up by the

scalping horde and He -Man fans get shackled

with One -Dar, a not remake of a Never Was exclusive.

Now, underestimating demand for a fan line or

miscalibrating your limits is not an unreasonable

error. they have to make a profit and have to

hedge their bets. However, one might think that

after one and a half to two years might be enough

time to calibrate well enough that your servers

don't crash every full moon and your product

lasts more than half an hour. Mattel, get your

together. Fire everyone on this project who is

not a designer and sell us toys. We give you

money, you give us stuff! A female he -man! This

is the worst day of my life! Alright, folks,

there you go. Thank you, Ender, for... Now, he

did say one to two years. It's been a number

of years since he did that rant, so... He did

that when the line was still... fresh and whatever.

And I don't know what the deal is with MaddieCollector

.com nowadays. I don't know what it's like, if

it's still like that or anything like that. But

the Masters of the Universe Classics toy line

debuted 2008. For the first time ever, we got

an Adora action figure. Now, do you have Adora?

No, the only ones that I have of this line currently

are She -Ra, Skeletor, and He -Man. Really? Yep.

Which she see that's the other one of the other

debacles for Mattel they made like six different

sheers They made the original Shira. They made

a bubble power Shira Then they made a Shira 2

.0 that took the standards of the original and

the bubble power and combine them into you're

able to actually make the Filmation Shira, so

I I don't know I have the I just have the 2010

one from the Great Rebellion a couple things

this toy line number one is it wasn't a secret

of how bad this was ran and and how terrible

their customer service was and their attention

to the actual fans were and that's one reason

and probably the only reason why I stayed away

I Would have been one of those that was subscribing

getting the figures all the time and making sure

I had all of these because of how great they

are and because of the characters that are involved

but just the complete ineptitude of the people

behind it not the making of the figures but the

marketing and the selling and the that end of

it kept me away now the the best things about

this series i'm gonna i'm gonna give you the

best and the worst the best part and it's what

everybody always wants when you're a toy collector

and when you're a fan of something is the lesser

-known characters. It is the non -regular one

-episode, two -episode characters. It is the

characters that didn't receive treatment before.

So like you said, you get Adora. You get Shadow

Weaver. You get some of those characters that

were never done before. On top of that though,

you get characters like Seahawk. You get characters

like Granamere. All of these maybe one -off,

two -off, three -off characters that you didn't...

have before, and that is something that is amazing

for any collector or big time fan of the franchise.

Count Marzo, Chikoti. I mean, there's a ton of

these, you know... The Queen Marlena with the

little cringer is cool. The plunder, the bunny

character. So those are all of the awesome parts

of this line. Just the complete free rein they

had to make just about any character that ever

existed in anything. The bad part, I think, is

they're not 100 %... They don't hit a home run

with every figure. No. And I guess to point out

to one specifically, just off the top of my head,

would be looking at the Tila figure. I know they're

trying to do something else and they're, you

know, Battleground is a different kind of series

slash whatever. Well battle ground let me just

give you a bit of background battle ground is

their way to do a different vert like Battleground

Tila is supposed to be based on the comic, right?

Of Tila where she had blonde hair, right? So

I'm just saying like me personally if I'm someone

that's subscribing to this I'm doing it more

so for those TV characters The ones that appeared

in the cartoon and if I would have gotten battleground

Tila one month. I would have been pissed off

I would have been like, what the hell is this

stupid character? Well, the cool thing about

this is that if you pay attention to the conventions,

like San Diego Comic -Con, New York Comic -Con,

like the big conventions throughout the year,

usually by San Diego Comic -Con every July, they

will say, OK. subscriptions are now you know

at the end you know on Monday after the con the

subscription thing will be open and at the con

they would have given you a you know because

they do a Matty Palooza panel every year they

would have said okay this is you know January

2016 February 2016 March 2016 these are the three

figures you're gonna get so they're going to

give you some inkling of what you're going to

get but I think the thing for them is We want

you to commit to buy sight unseen, no matter

what, and we're just going to surprise the freak

out of you. You know what I mean? And I understand

where you're coming from, where it's like, yeah,

I'm not that. But see, the thing is, certain

people, they have day of sales. You can go on

there and you can buy the individual figures

that you want But you got to be really friggin

quick because they will sell out in a heartbeat

and they're not offered again Yeah, that's that's

my problem with the Maddie collector .com Masters

universe classics line is like I understand they

don't want to compete with Marvel Disney Star

Wars Transformers Turtles what whatever the hell

else is in Target or Walmart or wherever I understand

they don't want to do that, but find a better

way Like, just find a better way to offer the

figures again and again. Like, there are times

where they'll bring back the figures, like on

a Cyber Monday or something like that, but that's

really my only problem with the classics line

is, like we've been saying, more so with the

way that it's done. Well, I also could definitely

do without the Masters of the Universe versus

DC section of it. Okay, well, that... Me personally,

I have no interest in that. Yeah, well and they

didn't do that that like Those are all listed

as a gift sets those they put in stores because

it's DC universe those I do remember seeing like

When you get the the monthlies the the yearly

subscription, it's 12 figures plus It's usually

three or four different like specials like one

year a special thing was Like Ender said, Battle

Cat, or one year it was... What's his name? The

Griffin. Beast Man's Griffin. That was a special...

So it's like 12 actual action figures, two or

three creatures. That's what's in the actual

subscription. Stuff like the DC Universe versus...

That wasn't in the subscription. So you if you

did get a subscription you wouldn't have to worry

about that's good But no, this is this is probably

the one of the one toy lines that I haven't that

I never was a part of that I Wish I had been

more than any other franchise any other toy line

just because of how cool they are And just because

like I said that the different characters that

are involved that you could get just make it

that much More awesome. It's like It's akin to

like the Star Wars line actually it's the closest

you can get to something like what they did here

is the Star Wars Action figure toy line because

you do get any character that ever existed on

screen whether they talked with it they didn't

they've been made into a figure at some point

or another and That's kind of where you're getting

it's not there yet. There's still characters

They can make obviously, but that's that's what

I like most about the classics line We finally

the one thing about the classics line that we

finally got was We finally got a Grand Amir.

I actually did him twice. They did him, I don't

know why they did a green version of him, but

they did the original, obviously, Filmation version

and another green version we had. And like, some

of these, you know, other ones, like, oh man,

you know what I'd love to have out of this line,

and I'm sure you would too? The Horde Troopers

and the Horde Robots. Oh my god, the army building

we could do with those. Well, and that's another

cool thing that they did too because they also

had stuff like, you know, we're talking about

generic characters here. They had the, um, the

guards, the castle guards, you know, the attorney

and palace guards. And that would be cool to

have a couple sets of those to have an actual,

you know, group around something. But yeah, they

also had the hover robots. Um, yeah, the hover

robots, the horde troopers. So you could definitely

assemble some sort of army with all these guys,

which is very cool. Absolutely. Now, each year's

subscription also included a map of various things.

They started in 2010 with this. It was a map

of Eternia, 2011 was the map of Etherea, 2012

was the map of Preternia, 2013 was the map of

Subternia, 2014 was the map of the Horde Empire,

and this year was the map of Castle Grayskull.

Now, for me... Know I'm sure I could just go

on eBay and try to find them but for me if I

am as a die -hard humanist fan as I wanted to

be and I wanted to get these things to hang on

my wall is to kind of like have a Eternian wall

or a Masters of the universe map wall These would

be awesome because I do remember getting the

map of pre Eternia because I actually had a subscription

one year Would never do it again a little bit

Well, why would you not do it again? Because

of the constant just Okay, so Medi collector

calm Goes through I think they still go through

this company. I don't know goes through a company

called digital river for their customer service

Okay Digital River is the worst customer service

company ever in the history of anything. These

people will screw up an order. They will send

the wrong figure. They will charge you on the

wrong day. They will charge you a full 24 hours

either before or after you were supposed to have

had the fit box shipped to you. It just, it was

a frigging nightmare. So going on the site and

buying them day of sale even though day of sale

you're gonna pay a high Okay back when I was

getting them the subscription price was I think

it's $28 a figure if you got it on day of sale

It was like $30 a figure and don't get me wrong.

I know that's a huge price tag for an action

figure but what you got to think with the the

design and Today's toy standards and all that

stuff. And this is a collectible. This is for

this is not to give to your children. This is

for us to relive our childhoods, to have the

figures, to have the size and the playability

of the many of us are going to play with them.

But you know what I mean? It's to have what we

thought we wanted as kids. And it's just not.

It's not worth getting the subscription when

it constantly screws up. Now I don't know what

it's like today. I don't know if they're still

screwing up like they were four or five years

ago when I had it, but it just wasn't that fun

to have it. Think some of the cool ones in here

Like molar versus Skeletor I thought that was

kind of funny Skeletor at the dentist I forgot

one of my favorite characters that I always thought

should have been done more with is in this line.

They have Batros Yep, they have Batros. Yeah,

they did him What I think is really cool with

the line is they event that they've done a number

of weapons packs So like we mentioned earlier

with turtles weapons They did a number of weapons

packs, but they're actual you know real not real.

I don't mean real folks They're not just a piece

of orange plastic. They are plastic, but they're

better Constructed better put together and all

that they even had a weapons rack that you could

get to go with a castle gray skull Now they even

did release a castle gray skull at the time of

release The thing was 250 bucks. Last time I

looked at MaddieGlodger .com, it was on sale

for 195. Now this Castle Grayskull is to fit

with scale with these figures. So you could actually

have those larger than life things I was mentioning

earlier in the show. Because now we have the

figures that are what we thought they were supposed

to be as kids, at least what I thought they were

supposed to be as a kid. But you mentioned Shadow

Weaver earlier. Shadow Weaver was the subscription

figure one year. See, that's the other thing

where they get you with a subscription. They'll

put a figure that they know everybody wants.

But the only way to get it is to subscribe unless

you want to go on eBay for astronomically. I

remember the eBay prices on Shadow Weaver were

$75 up. Once people got her because people would

because that's the other thing people will buy

two or three or four subscriptions to get multiples

of the figures now I don't know a lot of people

that because these you know at 30 bucks a pop

12 figures Average I paid that one year was probably

somewhere around $130 for the entire year So

you're talking $130 times for I don't know anybody

that has that kind of money to blow on action

figures, even as cool as these ones are. Right.

You know, it just boggles my mind. Yeah, that's

for sure. It's definitely an expensive business.

Yes, it is. All the different Skeletor's that

they were able to do, very cool. They got snake

face. They got snake man in arms. They get the

sorceress and the cool thing about the color

the classics line is Anything that was filmation

is actually show accurate Like Swift when they

tried to do something really stupid with Swift

when they put it to a vote Do you guys want the

original pink toy or do you want the white anime,

you know? Screen accurate, of course everybody

voted white right Who's Why they did that but

You know, see I just I do love the line. I just

don't like the The way Maddie collector does

their their business. That's the only problem.

You got the winterator in here. Very cool wonder

I last time I checked they were supposedly gonna

be doing snake Mountain I haven't kept up with

the news on on the toys I just really haven't

but I do absolutely love the classics toy line

now they have two other little lines we'll actually

talk about these together here they have the

Masters the universe minis and the Masters of

the universe Giants Okay, which would you prefer

to have the Giants or the minis? Oh, man, probably

neither. Oh Come on, maybe the minis See I kind

of like the Giants because it's almost like going

back 30 something years to the original Because

if you if you look at the link and you look at

the at the he -man giant figure It's essentially

the old filmation he -man. It's It's pretty much

the original Filmation He -Man, even down to

the weapons. With the minis, the minis look cool.

Battle Armor He -Man and Murmur, Battle Armor

Skeletor and Mossman, King He -Man and Clawful,

Man in Arms and Faker, Scare Glow and Stratos,

and Zodak and Beastman. The minis are alright,

if you're into minifigures. I guess. I don't

know. Yeah, I don't know. And there was another,

there's a bunch of other stuff like international

collections and collections and prototypes and

concept art, but we're not going to get into

all that. The toys overall, I still love them.

I mean, I'm not collecting them right now, but...

I still think the classics line has done very

well overall as far as giving us what we always

wanted. All right, anything else you want to

bring up before we take it on the break? No.

All right, we'll be back after a few ads. We'll

see you in a minute. It's showtime synergy the

latest review podcast from the geek cast radio

network is here So join TFG one Mike Nicole hailstorm

and myself lady rec as we will be reviewing all

65 episodes of John the holograms in a 25 episode

long podcast You can find showtime synergy on

iTunes and geek cast radio comm we are the truly

outrageous podcast that you want to be listening

to Hello Geeks and Geekettes! Looking for a podcast

that covers a vast array of topics? Then check

out Altered Geek Unleashed, where we discuss

our thoughts on this week's geeky news, tech,

gaming, television shows, movies, cartoons, comics,

and more. So, get altered, get geeky with the

Altered Geeks, every Friday on the Geekcast Radio

Network. in our 50th episode so where is your

head at this time well I've been looking at what

it's the state of current Maddie collector comm

is and man talk about expensive because they

have two different things basically they have

your collectors choice subscription and then

they have a classics 2 .0 subscription All right,

so if you want to do the Classics 2 .0 subscription

for a year, what that gets you is it gets you,

for example, we'll just use 2016 as kind of an

example. One, two, three, four, five, six, you

get seven characters, seven figures. So in 2016,

you'd get Classics 2 .0, He -Man, Trapjaw, Skeletor.

Beastman, Evil Lin, Clawful, and then a subscription

-only figure of Evil Seed. So you get seven figures,

and the cost to you is $145. But if you want

the collector's choice ones, obviously that's

not included in that. And the collector's choice

ones are more like the ones that the fans vote

on on stuff that you would want. So if you take

2016 for example, it includes Lord Mask, Boltak,

Darius, Tuskador, Despara, Krita, General Sunder,

Horde Wraith, and Night Stalker. That would cost

you $240. So if you were to get everything involved,

you're looking at almost $400 for a year. Mm

-hmm, and that's not necessarily possibly counting

anything. That's not a subscription figure That

you would want to buy Well the subscription figure

they've charged for you right up front, right?

So that's part of the subscription but but sometimes

there's characters that aren't subscription characters

that Come out. So I mean it turns out to be about

for the collectors choice. It's about $24 a figure

24 25 and for the other one it's closer to 20,

but man, that's $400 just to get those figures

and You can't you could only sign up for a subscription

for the collectors choice through August of 2015

so yeah, why is there a cutoff date? Like you

should be able to sign up for a subscription

through I think the reason why they have the

cutoff date is because they need to reach a goal

by a certain date to be able to produce the figures.

And if they don't reach that goal, they don't

end up getting produced. But that being said,

I do remember when they did a, was it Masters?

It was one of their other club lines. It was

Club Infinite Earths. They did a DC Club Infinite

Earths thing a couple years ago where they're

like, okay guys, go sign up and if we reach our

goal, the figures will get made. If we don't

reach our goal, then everybody gets refunds or

whatever the hell it was, I don't remember. They

didn't reach their goal at all. They came like,

they get up to like 50 % out of 100 and they

still went ahead and made the damn things anyway.

I don't know. It hurts my head to think about

anything that Maddie Collector friggin does.

It just... just boggles the mind, folks. Yeah,

so I don't know. It seems like they're still

having issues because I'm on their forums and

there's still people as recently as this month

complaining about stuff. You know what? To be

honest, you're better off finding someone that

has bought... Couple of the subscriptions and

we'll let you cherry pick the figures that like

cost plus shipping So even if you only want say

like the Despara figure that that you mentioned

that's essentially part of the comics right now

It's it's Shira's alter ego when she was evil

under hordak spell etc. Etc. Etc You know say

you want that say you want you know a Double

dare slime merman or you know what whatever say

you want two or three and you know if you do

cost plus shipping Let's say the figures are

30 35 bucks plus whatever. It's gonna cost to

keep ship those. That's that's not that bad but

yeah, I mean 400 bucks to To get every oh my

head hurts. Oh That's a house payment for somebody.

That's a that's a car payment for somebody. That's

a yeah It's a plane ticket for me to go to California

for crap's sake. You know? I mean, so. Anything

else we want to bring up? No, I just think that

it's definitely an interesting toy line. They've

had a lot of ups and downs, but I think, like

I said, from the original ones, I think they

stand out as in the 80s something that was better

than a lot of other things that were being offered.

Transformers notwithstanding. And I think the

characters that they do in the classes are cool,

but it is super expensive and it's almost priced

out of my price range, that's for sure. I'm just

better off watching Pixel Dan's video reviews

of each figure when he does them. Thank you for

listening to the Powers of Greyskull series 50th

episode. If you'd like to get in contact with

us, we'll leave feedback for the show. There

are several ways to do so. Visit the website

geekcastradio .com, leave a comment on this and

all of our other episode posts. Leave the show's

feedback in iTunes. Please do this. Call the

Weissman Line. The number is 502 -526 -5821.

Tell us the show you're leaving the message for

and your name. Follow us on Twitter at geek cast

radio is the network Twitter the Twitter for

this show is at power Grayscale minus TF Joe

and Mike What is your Twitter optimus solo? Become

a fan on Facebook go to Facebook comm slash geek

cast or radio network We hope you enjoyed the

masterful toy talk today And don't forget to

join us in our next adventure when we will return

to aetheria and take a look at the next three

episodes of Shira those being friendship He ain't

heavy, man Wow, that's an Austin Powers reference,

folks. And return of the Seahawk. For now, I

am TF2 and Mike with... It's actually a reference

to a song, but I am Optimus Solo. Yeah, but I

had Austin Powers in my head already. By the

power and for the honor of Grayskull, you all

have the power.