I Remember…He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe

Day 281

After my post last week about G.I. Joe I was reminded of another favorite fad toy from my childhood: He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe! Another “macho” toy that I embraced and enjoyed when I lived in Orem.

Gee, steroids much, He-Man?!

I actually remember when I saw an ad on TV for the He-Man action figure, and I saved up my allowance so I could buy this action figure. And those sneaky toy company capitalists made certain that there would be so many additional action figures and accessories that I would have to get them all! I didn’t, but I would have if I could have!

These were some of the action figures me and my brother Josh had:

Every hero needs an enemy - meet SKELETOR.

He was quite buff for being a skeleton! Probably on steroids, like He-Man!

I couldn't remember the name of the 2nd figure, so I called him Spritz-Man because you could take his head off and fill the inside with water. Then you'd put the head back on and push down on it to make

the mouth spritz water (which was supposed to be like poison or something).

Yep, that's how creative we were in the '80s! Kids today sure don't have it as lucky as we did!

We still have this toy! And his name is DORKO...I mean ORKO. I called him DORKO because he was kind of a dork on the cartoon. He was a bumbling magician and was He-Man's confidante.

Here's another action figure that is still around the house! MAN-E-FACES, so named because he had 3 faces. Why? Because 3 faces are better than 1, duh! Anyway, you could twist the knob on the top of his head and the face would change from human to either a robot or a monster.

For Christmas one year I got the coolest Masters Of The Universe accessory: Castle Grayskull! This was so awesome! Inside the castle was a trap door, activated by sliding a throne, and the entrance was this large “mouth door.” I spent many hours playing with this castle - it was one of my favorite toys!

Speaking of Castle Grayskull, at one time I had this Shrinky Dink play set that included a cardboard replica of the castle. Ah, Shrinky Dinks…I’ll have to do a separate post about these! I think I had more fun playing with the castle than the little Shrinky Dink figures.

I’ve already posted about coloring books, and of course Masters Of The Universe had its share of coloring books; and yes, I did end up having a little bit of fun turning them into “off-color” coloring books (which I’ll have to post about later!)

I remember that there was a cartoon of He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe and I would watch it in the afternoon. In the cartoon He-Man was actually this guy named Prince Adam (with an effeminate voice and wuss-like personality) living on the planet Eternia. Adam would turn into He-Man when he held his power sword aloft and shouted “By the power of Grayskull I have the power!” And then he’d have a tough voice and kick-butt personality, ready to take on the evil likes of Skeletor, Beast Man (hmmm, interesting name), etc.

For my birthday a few years ago my family gave me a DVD of the show. It brought back a lot of fun memories. But as an adult I was looking at this show in a whole new light, and my twisted humor certainly changed my view. Talk about lots of innuendo!