Recommended music: Fred Bongusto – Una rotonda sul mare
Happy Monday, He-Fans and She-Ravers! Right on time this #MastersMonday, we’ve got another 1984 vehicle from the vintage Mattel Masters of the Universe toy line: it’s the Roton!
The Roton was another childhood favorite of mine, but this “vehicle “Evil assault vehicle” was strictly for the Evil Warriors. While the wheel on the flat bottom made for a good ground ride for traveling baddies, the large saw blade made it look so cool as a flying vehicle.
Instead of the typical William George packaging artwork I’ve been sharing, I chose a different approach. I decided to put some toy Rotons into a zoomed-in version of this Earl Norem painting. This painting was included as a poster in the second issue of the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Magazine in spring 1986. While the art on the vehicle’s box was great, this Norem piece contained multiple Rotons, so I was able to include several versions.
That’s right. While most vehicles may have slight color variations due to factories located around the planet, the Roton had very different colors because it was also included in the line of “Snap Tite” model kits produced by Monogram. As a kid, a family friend had a son six years older than me who had one of these versions of the vehicle, which eventually became a strange, fuzzy memory.
Not only did the model kit come with a version that reversed the vehicle’s common colors of red and black, but the model kits also had something my Mattel vehicle did not – a roof! Thankfully, when the vehicle appeared in Golden Books and the Filmation animated series, it did look more like my toy than those other versions. I’m not sure why, but I don’t believe any Rotons ever made it to the mini-comics included with figures.
As an adult collector discovering the extent of the toy line on the internet, these model kit variations definitely made their way into the collection, along with a few extras of the Mattel vehicle. They’re great for army-building, or in this case, I guess you’d call it fleet-building.
#MastersOfTheUniverse
#ToyPhotography
Bonus video the whole family may enjoy (mine did):
Dale's Toys 