TV URBAN LEGEND: He-Man could have been either a futuristic soldier or a space warrior instead of a barbarian (or he could have been ALL THREE).
As I have covered in an old Toy/Movie Legends Revealed, one of the most persistent legends when it comes to He-Man is that he was originally intended to be a toy tie-in for the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film. Conan Properties International even SUED Mattel over the He-Man toy line since Mattel had a deal to do Conan toys and backed out of that deal and then released the Masters of the Universe line of figures. However, their contract clearly stated, "[CPI] agrees and acknowledges that toy figures and accessories based upon or appearing to be ancient characters or futuristic characters or combinations thereof from various time periods with which articles are or may be competitive have been and will be produced and sold and may hereafter be created, designed, produced and sold by [Mattel] (collectively referred herein as "Related Toy Line") without incurring liability to [CPI] under this Agreement." He-Man, of course, was that "Related Toy Line" and so CPI lost its attempt to sue Mattel, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Conan WASN'T a major influence on He-Man, as he obviously was, just not literally a case of "Oh, let's do Conan toys. Actually, screw it, let's just keep these toys to ourselves."
Instead, it was a case where the legendary artist, Frank Frazetta, and his Conan paintings, were just a conceptual influence on a number of the artists and designers working at Mattel, like the Frazetta cover to Conan the Conqueror...
Frazetta's work was a major influence on both Roger Sweet and Mark Taylor, two very important figures in the history of He-Man (Sweet as a preliminary designer and Taylor as an in-house illustrator). In fact, one of the great sort of unresolved...I don't know if mystery is the right term, but perhaps disputed part of He-Man history is whether Roger Sweet's Frazetta-influenced work was inspired by Taylor's Frazetta-influenced work. It's very similar to the story of Gerry Conway and Len Wein creating Man-Thing and Swamp Thing concurrently with each other while being roommates. They both, of course, were influenced by the Golden Age character, The Heap. Similarly, Sweet and Taylor were both influenced by Frazetta's work, there just in a bit of a dispute as to whether Sweet was also inspired by some of Taylor's earlier Frazetta-influenced designs (like a barbarian character named Torak that Taylor had drawn in the early 1970s).
Whatever the origins, suffice it to say that one of the original He-Man designs involved drawing He-Man like a barbarian and that, of course, is what He-Man and the Masters of the Universe ultimately became centered around. However, it almost went a VERY different direction.
As I noted in my piece last week about the origins of Battle Cat, the first major action figure was Hasbro's G.I. Joe in 1964, which was soon followed by Captain Action in 1966 from Ideal Toy Group.
What Captain Action did was take the idea of the action figure of G.I. Joe and adapt it into the concept of re-designing Captain Action based on the accessories sold with the figure. In other words, Captain Action came with a wardrobe that could turn the figure into Superman or Batman or Spider-Man (and then more accessories would be sold that could be used to turn Captain Action into a NEW hero).
Mattel's answer to this during the 1970s was called Big Jim....
While G.I. Joe was tied more to being a soldier and, later, an adventurer, Big Jim was like Captain Action, a blank slate that Mattel could have multiple different toy lines based on Big Jim doing ALL sorts of things. Big Jim as a soldier, as a spy, as a cowboy, as a survivalist, stuff like that.
Well, when He-Man was initially developed, the idea was to make He-Man along the lines of Big Jim, as well.
In an excellent interview with He-Man expert, Danielle Gelehrter, Derek Gable, Mattel's director of preliminary design at the time that He-Man was put together, explained their original concept for He-Man, which was basically Big Jim, but, you know, BIGGER.
I tried to have Mattel’s sculpting department sculpt something up but they were too busy so Roger had a go himself I believe using clay over a Big Jim figure. After he completed the sculpting he made some weird space like accessories that clipped on like a gun turret head gear etc
He also did some drawings and called his oversized muscle bound fool He Man!
Roger also created other characters along the same lines, Vicon etc.
Once again at our regular monthly Toy presentation meeting we presented Roger's creation.
Ray Wagner’s reaction was one of complete frustration “ I have absolutely no idea what these boys want” turning to Marty Miller head of Marketing Research he said “Do a test with a bunch of boys in our target age range to see what they like.”
After the meeting Marty came to my office. “ It’s alright for Ray to ask me to do a test but what do I test?!” Marty blurted. "Leave it with me. I will put together some drawings of different themes we think boys would like for your test."
Roger and I along with others in my group put together 12 different lines with figures vehicles and play sets covering themes such as Robots, Swat teams, Military, Western, Knights, etc along with space represented by Star Wars and the He Man line which by this time I believe called Space Fantasy.
Courtesy of OAFE.net, here are the three original designs - He-Man as a futuristic soldier, a barbarian and a space warrior...
Mark Taylor fleshed out the Space Fantasy/Monster Fantasy concept and it tested through the roof, way over the other concepts, so Mattel decided to just do the Space Fantasy/Monster Fantasy (in other words, the barbarian concept) version of He-Man rather than either the others or the interchangeable line and so He-Man was born!
That original trio was later released as a character named Vykron, as an almost sort of in-joke toy release.
The legend is...
STATUS: True
Thanks to Danielle Gelehrter, Derek Gable and OAFE.net for the information and the image.
Be sure to check out my archive of TV Legends Revealed for more urban legends about the world of TV. Click here for more legends specifically about animated films and TV shows.
Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com.
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