He-Man Memories

The recent release of Masters of the Universe: Revelation on Netflix has the internet up in arms. Having watched it myself, I was hoping to really re-live some of the classic vibes from my childhood when He-Man ruled Saturday mornings. This won’t be a review of that, as I’d like to reserve judgment until I see the final half of the series. However, I’d like to highlight some memories I have from my childhood.

The show itself: to watch it now with its animation style, heavy use of reverb, voices of He-Man and Skeletor, the absolutely killer intro and music, and finally the Filmation sound effect that always preceded the show is a total mind trip. Words escape me when trying to describe the sensation, but it’s always a nice way to spend 10-15 minutes. 

My earliest memory of a He-Man figure coincides with my memory of my first swim lesson at the local YMCA. I don’t remember specifically what transpired, but I think I inhaled some water or sank, which led to me being extremely upset. My parents felt bad for me, and probably to ease the trauma (oh the humanity), they took me to a Wal-Mart to get me a toy. 

It was then that I took home Battle Armor He-Man and Battlecat. I remember the box with the plastic window on the front of it, and being so excited about this new acquisition.

My next memory is the commercials for the Slime Pit playset, which after doing some research, I just found was actually part of the cross-over with She-Ra and Hordak. To be captured in the Slime Pit would turn one into a mindless zombie, swearing allegiance to the Evil Horde. Killer movie with She-Ra if you have not seen it. 

I just remember being so captivated by the idea of a weird apparatus where a claw restrained you and slime was dumped on your head. Kinda grody. 

Some other favorites besides the obvious He-Man & Skeletor: Trap-jaw, Dragon Blaster Skeleton (with the water gun), Faker, Modulok, Roboto, Rokkon and Stonedar, Spydor, and the He-Man figure that you loaded cap gun ammo in the back which went off when he did his punch action.

After I got out of high school, my figures long gone, my partner in crime gave me all of his. For some reason, I went on a major eBay action figure binge and had soon amassed a pretty nice MOTU collection, including some of my favorites mentioned above. Maybe they helped me realize how much value there was in having these things around, which gave me some amount of feeling that anchored me back to being a young kid in awe of these amazing toys. 

Too many memories to fit into one post that you’d want to take the time to read, but just looking at these toys again takes me back now like it did when I first got them again in the late 90s. I hope that reading and seeing this gives you a little bit of that feeling too!

Thanks
Alley Cove

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