Recommended music: Colter Wall – Snake Mountain Blues
Happy Monday, MOTU fans! Slithering by on this #MastersMonday, we’ve covered every vehicle from 1984 in the vintage Mattel Masters of the Universe toy line, so tonight, we’re moving on to Snake Mountain!
Snake Mountain was a favorite playset of mine as a kid. The “Evil stronghold of Skeletor” likely held just as many battles in my childhood playroom, or possibly more than my Castle Grayskull playset. I think the exterior depiction of Skeletor’s lair seen on the Filmation He-Man and the Masters of the Universe animated series was not nearly as exciting as the exterior of this playset with little monsters carved into the stone.
This week, I continued using William George’s amazing packaging art as the base for my picture. I did have to leave in more than usual because I forgot to photograph the three characters and the bridge as seen on the box. 😜 I didn’t actually ever have the box as a kid, but I can remember my mother picking this complete playset up at a second-hand store, though I was still amazed by all the play features.
From the big movable snake, to the trap door with a net, to the shackle prison, to the incredible demon artwork inside, I was in love. My favorite feature was probably the included wolf’s head microphone, which would give you an echoing voice that, as a kid, you also imagined was booming and terrifying to your heroic warriors stepping onto Skeletor’s turf.
As an adult collector, I’ve modified a few of these playsets into a larger custom project, but ultimately passed on reincarnations of the playset from the Masters of the Universe Classics line and the Masters of the Universe Origins line, as they just didn’t live up to this original version.
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