Recommended music: New Order – Everything’s Gone Green
Happy Monday, MOTU fans! I hope you had a great weekend. Besides watching some quality college basketball games, mine was mostly spent packing up toys for an upcoming collection relocation, so it probably wasn’t as exciting as yours. For this #MastersMonday, let’s check out another 1985 release from the vintage Mattel Masters of the Universe line: Moss Man!
Spring is here, and we’re finally taking a look at a Heroic Warrior for the first time this year. The “Heroic spy & master of camouflage” came out early in 1985 and was one of my childhood favorites. The Moss Man figure was made entirely from reused molds, but as a kid, I didn’t mind at all. Even though he had Beast Man’s head, chest, arms, and legs, plus He-Man’s trunks and a mace from Castle Grayskull, he stood out because he was covered from head to toe in mossy green flocking. [My vintage mace appears to be lost in the Evergreen Forest, so thank you to MOTUC Moss Man for lending a weapon for today’s post.]
This made him look completely different from the bright orange Beast Man figure, and I always had him face off against Stinkor, just like in the mini-comic they both came with. Stinkor was known for his strong patchouli scent mixed into the plastic, while Moss Man, in turn, had a fresh pine scent associated with the figure, though it has grown very faint for Moss Man figures that have been loose for the past four decades. As a kid, I had no idea there was a real-life legend known as the Florida Moss Man, but I enjoyed seeing the character in Golden Books and on TV.
Moss Man first appeared in animation on the original Filmation He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon, showing up in two episodes during season two, right around when the action figure came out. He also made a quick background appearance in He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special.
Though he appeared in a few episodes of the 2002 Mike Young Productions He-Man cartoon, he didn’t get a regular release in the Mattel toy line that accompanied the show. Near the end of the line, Mattel offered Moss Man as a mail-away exclusive, likely to clear excess stock at retail. You had to send in a receipt for three Masters of the Universe figures and three proofs of purchase from the packaging. That version was just a repaint of the 200X Beast Man, since a new sculpt wasn’t made before the line’s cancellation.
The character later returned for both the Netflix Masters of the Universe: Revelation and Revolution series, and has received several additional action figure releases, though none as memorable as the original piney flocked masterpiece.
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