Masters of the Universe: Creating the Most Powerful Toy Line of the 1980’s

The following is a short paper I wrote for my History of Industrial Design class. Enjoy.

Masters of the Universe: Creating the Most Powerful Toy Line of the 1980’s

Growing up in the early 1980’s, I feel privileged to have been a child during a golden age of toys.  Specifically, action toys and figures aimed directly at young boys, such as myself.  Star Wars and GI Joe were the titans of the industry in those days, until 1982, when Mattel introduced a new character with the generic name of “He-Man”.  He-Man, and his colorful cast of friends and enemies, experienced an explosion of popularity that would see the Masters of the Universe line become one of the greatest success stories in toy history – only to sink to the bottom in a couple of short years.  As a young boy, however, I was blissfully unaware of the business behind the scenes.  I was interested only in the bizarre looking characters and the innovative action features they possessed.  I certainly had no idea that He-Man would be an important part of my life over 25 years later.

Mattel was founded in 1945 by Matt Matson and Elliot Handler, the name “Mattel” coming from a combination of their names [1].  The two of them began by manufacturing dolls from the scraps of picture frames.  Ruth Handler, Elliot’s wife, would eventually become president of the company, and is credited with creating the “Barbie” product line in 1959[2].  Mattel had a monumental hit with Barbie, and found success with Hot Wheels toy cars, not to mention many preschool and toddler toys.  In the early 1980’s though, they were struggling to attract the young male customer to their brands.  Much like the world of film, Star Wars had altered the landscape of toys permanently.  GI Joe had been a dominant force for Hasbro since the 1960’s.  Mattel was desperate to get a foothold into the male action figure (MAF) market.

While many designers and marketing people toiled away at Mattel’s Southern California headquarters, the creation of He-Man is often credited to Roger Sweet, a designer that would work at Mattel through most of the 1970’s and 80’s.  Outside of Mattel, Sweet held a design position at Walter Dorwin Teague Associates and helped design the interior of the Boeing 747 jumbo jet, along with the packaging for Downy laundry detergent and Scope mouthwash[3].  Though there are some people that would challenge the assertion that Sweet was the sole creator, or even a co-creator, of He-Man, Sweet laid out his argument in print in his 2005 book “Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion Dollar Idea”.  In his book, Sweet tells how Mattel president Ray Wagner, still smarting from declining the Star Wars license, put the call out for a heroic, male oriented action figures.

Sweet, an athletic man who enjoyed working out regularly, sought to “beef up” the action figure to unprecedented heights.  A marketing study by Mattel showed three themes to be worth exploring as action figures: “Space Military a la Star Wars”, “Current Military a la GI Joe”, and “Barbarian Monster Fantasy”[4].  Using these themes, Sweet went to work creating three prototypes.  Using Mattel’s “Big Jim” figure, he added clay to exaggerate the musculature of the figure.  He also cut and glued the arms and legs into more bent, action ready poses.  Sweet outfitted each of the three figures differently: one for space, one for the military, and one as a barbarian.  He came up with the name “He-Man” as a generic catch-all, “He-Man” could be anyone or anything, in any time period or setting.  Sweet showed these prototypes at product conference, where they were in direct competition with other action figure concepts.  Allegedly, Wagner was so taken with the He-Man figures that he gave them his approval with the phrase “Those have the power”[5], a phrase that would become synonymous with the He-Man in time.

Another important note on the creation of He-Man is the persistent but seemingly false story that He-Man was initially supposed to be Conan the Barbarian.  The story that is often repeated is Mattel had secured the rights to produce action figures for the Schwarzenegger-starring action film, but upon seeing the final product, balked at releasing toys from a movie with such graphic violence and sexual content.  So Mattel simply changed the hair color of the figure from black to blonde, and Conan transformed into He-Man.  While it’s true that Mattel did for a short time own the license for Conan, they apparently dropped it well before the He-Man concept was developed, and Conan is not officially recognized as an inspiration for He-man.  Supporting this claim is that the first Masters of the Universe toys were produced in 1981, a year before the release of the Conan film [6].  In fact, the estate of Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Mattel regarding He-Man in 1984 that was ultimately thrown out of court[7].

What would separate the Masters of the Universe toys from others on store shelves was the variety of characters and action features.  Mattel was extremely creative, especially early on, using a very limited amount of sculpted parts.  Since creating molding tools for toys is very costly, it was decided that there would only be two different torsos used – a muscular human form, like He-Man himself, and a furry form, like Beast Man.  All figures would share the same lower torso featuring fur shorts.  There would be three varieties of arms and legs – human, furry, and reptilian, like the ones used for Skeletor[8].  These body parts could be used in any colors or combinations, and in conjunction with attachable armor and accessories, could be used to create any number of different characters.  Typically the head would be unique to each figure, though eventually even heads would be repainted to create a new character. Some figures would earn themselves new molds later in the life of the line, but these original pieces would always serve as the foundations of the figures.

A perfect example of this ingenuity is the character of Stinkor.  Released in 1985, this “Evil Master of Odors” consisted of the repainted body of Mer-Man, from 1982, wearing the armor created for Mekanek, who was released in 1984.  Stinkor was also one of two figures whose “action feature” was scent related, the other being Moss Man.  To give Stinkor his distinctive odor, patchouli oil was mixed into the plastic while molding the figure.  25 years later, many Stinkor figures still retain a whiff of that signature stink.

Nearly every Masters figure featured the trademark “Power Punch” feature that would allow you to twist the figure at the waist and release, causing an internal elastic band to snap the figure forward in a punching motion.  The Masters preliminary design team created dozens of unique features, like Ram-Man’s projecting torso, Man-E-Faces rotating faces, or Kobra Khan’s water-spitting mouth.  While many successful figures hit the market, many more died on the design table.  According to David Wolfram, a design manager at Mattel, sometimes the design team would go a bit too far: “They’d promise all these great features that [the figures] would do, and there’s no way they could ever do them. So we had to go back and try to give some reality to their ideas. Sometimes we’d actually design [their ideas] just to show them how bad they would actually look or work. They’d fall in love with their ideas without any thought to cost, safety or practicality.”[9]

With the help of Filmation’s animated He-Man and the Masters of the Universe syndicated into homes across the country, Masters of the Universe had domestic sales worth $250 million in 1985.  The next year, that number reached a truly amazing $400 million[10].  Mattel, of course, wanted to keep that momentum rolling, and flooded toy shelves with Masters product.  An avalanche of product, a mediocre feature film release, and the aging of the target market made 1987 a disastrous one for Mattel and the Masters of the Universe.  Profits made a precipitous drop from $400 million in 1986 to a paltry $7 million in 1987[11]. Mattel’s marketing department had succeeded where Skeletor had failed so often – they had defeated He-Man.  Not surprisingly, this decline in sales would spell the end of the Masters toy line.  Mattel would launch a short-lived He-Man revival in 1989, in a space themed cartoon that would not achieve nearly the success of the original.  Personally, I have vague memories of the “New Adventures”, as I had moved on by that point.

He-Man and his friends were not done with me yet, though.  In 2002, Mattel would again resurrect the Masters with a brand new toy line and cartoon. Featuring modern takes on the classic characters, with a bit of a manga infusion, the line would have strong sales, mostly with older collectors though, not kids. I was one of those collectors, having just graduated college and having a little disposable income for the first time.  I would become deeply immersed in the line, collecting it twice over (one set opened and one mint-on-card, of course) and ultimately setting in motion the chain of events spanning almost 7 years that finds me here now, studying toy design at FIT and collecting Mattel’s current incarnation of He-Man, in the Masters of the Universe Classics line, sold exclusively online to the adult collector market.  It seems that I will always have a place in my heart, and toy collection, for my favorite heroic warrior.

Bibliography

1. Sweet, Roger, and Wecker, David. Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion Dollar Idea.  Cincinnati: Emmis Books, 2005.

2.  Chavis, Jason. “The History of Mattel Toys.” eHow. <http://www.ehow.com/facts_5234373_history-mattel-toys.html>.

3.  “Barbie’s Beginning.”  Dolls4Play. <http://www.dolls4play.com/barbiehistory.html>.

4.  “Roger Sweet.” Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Sweet>.

5.  “Masters of the Universe.” Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_the_Universe>.

6.  Herman, Paul. “Another Thought #2.”  Robert_E. Howard.org. <http://www.robert-e-howard.org/AnotherThought2.html>.

7.  Middaugh, Dallas, “They Were Masters of Their Domain,” ToyFare Magazine, August 1998.

8.  Jones, Tamara, “Mattel Tries to Stage a Revival Floundering He-Man Brought to Life and Told to Hit the Road”, Los Angeles Times, March 15, 1987.

All images taken from http://www.he-man.org, except for the photo of myself, which was taken by one of my parents.

---

[1] http://www.ehow.com/facts_5234373_history-mattel-toys.html, May 7, 2010

[2] http://www.dolls4play.com/barbiehistory.html, May 7, 2010

[3] http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Sweet, May 7, 2010

[4] Sweet, Roger & Wecker, David. Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion Dollar Idea (Emmis Books: Cincinnati, 2005), 76.

[5] Sweet, Roger & Wecker, David. Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion Dollar Idea (Emmis Books: Cincinnati, 2005), 91

[6] http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_the_Universe, May 11, 2010

[7] http://www.robert-e-howard.org/AnotherThought2.html, May 11, 2010

[8] Sweet, Roger & Wecker, David. Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion Dollar Idea (Emmis Books: Cincinnati, 2005), 107.

[9] Middaugh, Dallas, “They Were Masters of Their Domain,” ToyFare Magazine, August 1998, 20-23.

[10] Sweet, Roger & Wecker, David. Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion Dollar Idea (Emmis Books: Cincinnati, 2005), 144.

[11] Jones, Tamara, “Mattel Tries to Stage a Revival Floundering He-Man Brought to Life and Told to Hit the Road”, Los Angeles Times, March 15, 1987, 2.