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2025 is the 40th anniversary of She-Ra. I feel very old.
A very brief and very shortened bit of history. This is all public info. Interviews, Power Con videos, etc.
She-Ra was developed because Mattel's internal researched showed 30 percent of MOTU fans/collectors were girls. Which was unprecedented for the time. Teela was also selling very well. Much higher than they ever expected. A market was obviously there, and they knew they had to develop a girl He-Man or their competition certainly would. Like Galoob eventually did with Golden Girl.
Due to Teela's popularity the early plans were to make a new Teela figure or Teela like character. Very early development started in the "boys team" and had not gotten past a Teela like character, complete with snake headdress, before it was moved to the "girls team. " Opinions differ and I'm sure some on the boys team felt like the project was stolen. Another opinion is the project was moved to the girls team because Mattel felt there wasn't anything, yet they could really successfully market. Because it's not just girls they have to sell to but also mothers and retailers.
Mattel designer Justine Dantzer refined the Teela like character into more of what would actually become She-Ra. She-also created most of the first wave characters like Bow, Kowl and Catra. A lot of her ideas came from her earlier Princess of Power like Andromeda concept. Mattel designer Noreen Porter then further refined the designs to what would eventually become the action figures. Filmation was also heavily involved in the final development. He-Ra, like the Greek goddess, was one of the preliminary names for She-Ra. Filmation writer Larry Ditillio came up with the name She-Ra and along with J. Micheal Straczynski created the cartoon backstory. And the rest is history more or less.
A very brief and very shortened bit of history. This is all public info. Interviews, Power Con videos, etc.
She-Ra was developed because Mattel's internal researched showed 30 percent of MOTU fans/collectors were girls. Which was unprecedented for the time. Teela was also selling very well. Much higher than they ever expected. A market was obviously there, and they knew they had to develop a girl He-Man or their competition certainly would. Like Galoob eventually did with Golden Girl.
Due to Teela's popularity the early plans were to make a new Teela figure or Teela like character. Very early development started in the "boys team" and had not gotten past a Teela like character, complete with snake headdress, before it was moved to the "girls team. " Opinions differ and I'm sure some on the boys team felt like the project was stolen. Another opinion is the project was moved to the girls team because Mattel felt there wasn't anything, yet they could really successfully market. Because it's not just girls they have to sell to but also mothers and retailers.
Mattel designer Justine Dantzer refined the Teela like character into more of what would actually become She-Ra. She-also created most of the first wave characters like Bow, Kowl and Catra. A lot of her ideas came from her earlier Princess of Power like Andromeda concept. Mattel designer Noreen Porter then further refined the designs to what would eventually become the action figures. Filmation was also heavily involved in the final development. He-Ra, like the Greek goddess, was one of the preliminary names for She-Ra. Filmation writer Larry Ditillio came up with the name She-Ra and along with J. Micheal Straczynski created the cartoon backstory. And the rest is history more or less.
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