The Power Of Grayskull: He-Man Documentary on Netflix

[Battle Ram]

Interesting link, thanks! I appreciate the info and another perspective. I'm trying to recall where I heard the Conan theory, I thought it was canonical. But I may have read it in the Art of He-Man book.

The way Mark Taylor tells it, someone in marketing started pursuing the Conan license while they were in the middle of developing He-Man, which he called a colossal mistake. Luckily the judge in the case ruled that pointing out that He-Man was a half-naked muscle-bound character was not enough to argue for infringement (there are a ton of similar Conan-like characters in comic book stories throughout the 70s and early 80s). Interestingly Mark did the design work for the abandoned Conan line as well.

Mark was definitely influenced by Conan, but also Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon and a host of others.

Edit: here's an abbreviated timeline, with Conan stuff in bold:

1979 – Torak (He-Man) & early Skeletor concept, by Mark Taylor
Aug 15, 1979 – Category Management Teams memo
May 22, 1980 – Fantasy Make Believe idea disclosure form
November 3, 1980 – Megaton Man project request form, Roger Sweet
Late November, 1980 – Work started on “He-Man trio”, Roger Sweet with Mark Taylor
Mid-December 1980 – He-Man trio presented at Mattel Product Conference
December 30, 1980 – He-Man Characters & Accessories idea disclosure form
Early 1981 – He-Man prototype, by Tony Guerrero
1981 – Bird Man (Stratos) concept, by Mark Taylor
1981 – Mer-Man concept, by Mark Taylor
1981 – Castle Grayskull concept, by Mark Taylor
1981 – Battle Cat concept, by Mark Taylor
1981 – Sensor (Zodac) concept, by Mark Taylor
1981 – Heroic Figure Battle Tester (Castle Grayskull combat trainer) concept, by Mark Taylor
1981 – Heroic Figure (He-Man) concept, by Mark Taylor
1981 – Heroic Figure (He-Man) battles plant monster concept, by Mark Taylor
January 23, 1981 – Drawing by Colin Bailey depicting Mark Taylor working on He-Man project, titled “Death of Mark Taylor From Night Visitation”
March 30, 1981 – De-Man (Skeletor) concept, by Mark Taylor
April 1, 1981 – Man-At-Arms concept, by Mark Taylor
April 2 1981 – Tree Man (Beast Man) concept, by Mark Taylor
April 6 1981 – He-Man (tan boots) concept, by Mark Taylor
April 7 1981 – Battle Ram (tank treads version) concept, by Ted Mayer
April 24, 1981 – Memorandum urging negotiation for Conan license
May 3, 1981 – He-Man (red/yellow boots) concept, by Mark Taylor
May 5, 1981 – CPI draft licensing agreement sent
May 28 1981 – Female Warrior (Teela) concept, by Mark Taylor
May 28, 1981 – Battle Ram control drawing, by Ted Mayer
June 3 1981 – Sorceress concept, by Mark Taylor
July 14, 1981 – Memorandum discussing Mattel’s presentation of He-Man to Toys ‘R’ Us
July 23, 1981 – September 21, 1981 – Tony Guerrero worked on Conan toys
July 31, 1981– CPI and Mattel entered license agreement to manufacture toys based on Conan movie

https://battleram.wordpress.com/2016/10/03/masters-of-the-universe-timeline-1979-1987/

[EmergencyIan]

Oh yeah, I always thought of the movie as some sort of revival. It was produced and released way too late to ever capitalize on the toy line while it was a hot property.

- Ian

[hedrap]

...I felt it also explained what really happened, grew too fast, key early developers left, late shipments signalled a loss of faith in the line and kids moved on.

I sincerely remember when the movie hit it felt like He-man was sort of dead at retail. Kids were more interested in Transformers and GI Joe.

Yep to all that. The movie release was so late, it felt like a last ditch effort to revive the line, not capitalize on it.


Re: Conan. That's the part of the story that's always fogged up. Mattel held a Conan movie toy license at that time, but were tired of paying fees for lines that weren't successful. The link Werewolf posted shows the trackback from Sweet is to '79 with Taylor's Frazetta inspired Conan. Conan The Barbarian was in the works since '77. Mattel knew this. Star Wars made all fantasy licensing a hot commodity.

Oliver Stone was the original writer, possible director for Conan. His approach was post-apocalyptic, like Thundarr. The blend of swords and tech was the trend. While I don't believe Taylor and Sweet had direct knowledge of what was going on with Conan's development, I don't question they knew Matty was tired of paying licenses. So Matty tracked against trends while developers worked on knock-offs. '82 Conan hits big. '83 MOTU toys hit big. '84 Conan the Destroyer.

The problem Dino and Pressman had was Frazetta wasn't credited as a producer/designer etc...for the movie. He didn't sign on for whatever reason. If he had, Mattel would be paying royalties. They got extremely lucky.

[palitoy]

That She-Ra myth seems to be the "Star Wars killed Mego" garbage but in He-Man terms. I know it was midly addressed in this movie but I felt it also explained what really happened, grew too fast, key early developers left, late shipments signalled a loss of faith in the line and kids moved on.

I sincerely remember when the movie hit it felt like He-man was sort of dead at retail. Kids were more interested in Transformers and GI Joe.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Saw it this weekend and I really enjoyed it as well. The scene of the kid in front of the TV with the Power Sword got to me.

Chris

[cjefferys]

I watched this over the weekend, it was really enjoyable and I don't even collect the line.

[Nostalgiabuff]

they were planning it as a Conan line, until they realized Conan was rated R. the early designs for HeMan predated conan but it was Conan that brought it to the forefront and got the line going
I enjoyed the documentary, watched it yesterday

[PNGwynne]

Interesting link, thanks! I appreciate the info and another perspective. I'm trying to recall where I heard the Conan theory, I thought it was canonical. But I may have read it in the Art of He-Man book.

[Werewolf]

I know MOTU was originally planned as a Conan line, Skeletor is very Thulsa Doom.

Development of MOTU predates Mattel's cancelled Conan line.

https://battleram.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/he-man-most-powerful-man-in-the-universe-1982/

[TomStrong]

I watched it this evening, totally enjoyed it.

[PNGwynne]

I totally agree. In the TTMU doc some of the men alleged She-Ra made the boy toys line effeminate, in an era of strong homophobia with Prince Adam running around in pink and elevating his voice to disguise from sounding like He-man.

Are you kidding me? Have they never seen or read a Superman adventure? Or early Batman, for that matter, or Zorro? It's ridiculous, and Prince Adam was around years before She-Ra. The scapegoating, as Werewolf aptly puts it, is not only 20/20 hindsight, but an example of the modern "Mary Sue" mentality of certain segments of fandom.

I will say the the new cartoon handled Prince Adam's SI a little more "realistically" by ripping off another hero, Captain Marvel.

[Werewolf]

The 70s and 80s really were a different culture. Pink wasn't as demonized as it is now. Six Million dollar man toys came in pink packages. Mego Batman came on a pink card. No one batted an eye. That would never fly now. The 80s were full of hot pink and neon colors. From neon grid artwork to Miami Vice. Pink was just a cool color.

[jacoblb]

I totally agree. In the TTMU doc some of the men alleged She-Ra made the boy toys line effeminate, in an era of strong homophobia with Prince Adam running around in pink and elevating his voice to disguise from sounding like He-man. As a child I never saw what I suspect many adults of that time did. Much in the same way one of the first LJN WWF figures I got was Brutus the Barber Beefcake...another guy wearing pink tights. The looks I got from grown people. It was just a toy for a kid.

I am beyond tired of the She-Ra blaming as well. It couldn't have been that the popularity of the Sword and Sorcery genre was waning, increased competition, Real Ghostbusters or TMNT craze, the live action movie failed, etc. Nope it had to have been She-Ra, If anything She-Ra extended the property a bit longer after MOTU had ran its course. Not to mention MOTU at its worst would still have been a big enough seller for any other company. That's why we got the sci-fi New Adventures reboot so soon. Because they realized they killed off the property too quickly. Its just the blame game and using She-Ra as the scapegoat.



Same here.

[EmergencyIan]

And BONG!

No kidding! The producers loved sticking it to Marty, subtly or not.

Maybe it’s just me, but most of the episodes seemed like they were well produced YouTube videos. Maybe I expected too much. In saying that, I mostly enjoyed the five or six episodes that I watched.

- Ian

[PNGwynne]

Mary, the way I indulged my love of MOTU is through the ReAction figures. They are affordable to me in a way that the (purposefully scarce) MOTU Classics of ten years ago were not. I'm really enjoying them.