We Had That

2003 McDonald's Masters of the Universe Happy Meal Toys The Masters of the Universe toy line first appeared in 1982 and by the end of 1983, with the help of the Filmation animated series, it had become one of the most popular toy lines in history.  However, it's initial popularity was relatively short lived and by 1987, the original line was winding down.  A feature length film came out in 1987, but it didn't do much to breath additional life into the franchise and is generally considered to be...well...not an awesome movie.  The New Adventures of He-Man cartoon and toy line appeared in 1991 and was dead by the end of 1992.  This Sci-Fi reinvention of He-Man didn't make much of a splash and went mostly unnoticed (I never heard about it until many years later). McDonald's Happy Meal He-Man and Skeletor Nearly a decade went by with no official Masters of the Universe product, but that decade coincided with the early days of the internet.  Masters of the...

Fisher-Price Adventure People "Cycle Racing Team" set #356. My childhood set still looks pretty good after many years of adventures! The Fisher-Price Adventure People were first available in 1975.  They some of the earliest 3.75" action figures on the market.  In fact, they were used as the base figure for many of the prototypes for the Star Wars action figure line.  The Adventure People toy line ran from 1975 all the way through 1985, a very impressive run for a line of toys that wasn't supported by a movie, TV show, or comic book!  They were extremely well constructed compared to other 3.75" action figures.  In fact, it was much less likely that their heads would snap off (or that they would lose a limb) when compared to many of their counterparts.  As a result, there are a lot of adventure people still around today. The Cycle Racing Team taking a break from their adventures! Many popular sets were created for the Adventure People throughout t...

Masters of the Universe Minis, Mattel, 2014 Ever since the Masters of the Universe toys from Mattel appeared on the shelves in 1982, He-Man and company have been some of the most popular toys ever!  Although almost a decade passed in the 1990s with no new Masters of the Universe product, Mattel came back with commemorative figures in 2000.  That's when the company realized the potential for more Masters of the Universe products and the "Modern" or "200x" line of toys and cartoon arrived.  Although that line only lasted a few years, it was enough to get the ball rolling and the Masters of the Universe Classics line was born!  The Classics line was so successful that a variety of other Masters of the Universe lines followed. One of my favorite lines was the Masters of the Universe Minis from 2014.  There were 6 figures and a mini Castle Grayskull playset released over the course of 2014.  One 2-Pack came out every other month for the entire year and...

Micronaut Time Travelers by MEGO Shortly before Star Wars figures dominated the shelves of every toy store, MEGO released a line of more articulated figures in the same scale: Micronauts.  The Japanese company Takara had found success with their Microman line of toys, so MEGO licensed several of the figures, vehicles and playsets, re-branded them Micronauts and released them to the USA. The most common figures from the line were the 3.75" Time Travelers.  Sold individually as well as packaged along with select vehicles, the Time Traveler was the figure that just about every Micronauts fan had.  Even though the Time Travelers didn't come with every vehicle released by MEGO, they would fit in any vehicle that could hold a figure, so they were a 'must have' for any kid with Micronauts! Although there were several different Micronauts figures, the Time Travelers were always my favorite.  As a kid, there were many Micronauts figures that I never saw, but even if I...

Original 1982 Adventure People X-Ray Man with modern Imaginext A-Ray Man and Dog. A few years ago, Fisher-Price began releasing blind bag figures from their popular Imaginext line.  I started collecting them Imaginext when Series 1 first came out.  Although they're distribution has been kind of random, I've managed to pick up most of the ones I've wanted.  Fisher-Price has created a lot of cool figures for this line, but there has been such a variety of themes that I'm not really interested in collecting them all.  For the most part, I'm not interested in the sports guys or some of the more mundane characters.  I pick up anything monster related and most of the space or robot guys.  With that said, I've picked up at least one figure from almost every series. When series 11 came out, I picked up every figure.  There were several figures that were made as tributes to old toys from the 1980s.  There's a tribute to the M.U.S.C.L.E. figures (whi...

My childhood "Power Droid" action figure takes a walk outside As I've mentioned before in other posts, Star Wars dominated my world in 1978.  I loved Star Wars figures and played with them every day in the late 70s and early 80s!  I had all 12 of the first wave of figures and I thought every single one of them was amazing.  Apparently, I wasn't alone because Star Wars figures were selling like crazy and I would imagine it took no time at all for Kenner to decide to make figures of more characters from the movie.  At some point in 1978, a second wave of 8 figures hit the shelves. The second wave included 4 bizarre and intriguing aliens from the cantina, Luke Skywalker in his X-Wing flight suit, R5-D4 (the R2-D2 style droid with orange detailing), Death Star Droid (who looked like an evil, silver C-3PO to me), and Power Droid.  X-Wing pilot Luke was easily my favorite and I loved the aliens too!  It was cool to have two droids that, even at the time, fe...

Center: Metal-Man "Radon" figure. Background: Micronauts "Galactic Warrior" and "Space Glider" Going back at least as far as 1976, Metal-Man action figures were some of the earliest 3.75" figures on the market.  Their die cast metal construction and numerous points of articulation combined with multiple themes such as Space, Military, Robots, Police Men, and Construction Workers made them cool and curious toys!  Yet unlike many of the toys of the time, it seems few people remember them. Metal-Man "Radon" figure from Zee Toys Although Micronauts aren't as well known as Star Wars, G.I. Joe, or Masters of the Universe toys, I would think that most people who collect action figures from the 70s and early 80s are at least familiar with Micronauts, so it only makes sense that people might think some of the Metal-Man figures fell into that toy line.  I don't know if the reason for their relative obscurity was that Metal-Man didn...