Tag: Masters of the Universe

Classic Commercials: Evil Horde Slime Pit Playset (1985)

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The Masters of the Universe was one of the great loves of my cartoon and toy life when I was young. I had a fairly large collection of Masters, as well as Skeletor minions. I also had some of the vehicles, and I had Castle Grayskull and Snake Mountain. But just when I thought the battle for Eternia would finally be won by one side or the other, along came Hordak and his Evil Horde to make it a three-way battle!

The Horde had some cool figures, but its playsets were where their real strength was. The Fright Zone was pretty good as a small base of operations, but the Slime Pit was evil at it’s best…in playset form anyway. This commercial did such a great job at making this thing look so darn evil, yet awesome at the same time. After seeing it at the time, I knew I just had to have it.

Slime of any kind was the hot property back then, so MOTU incorporating it into its line was a no-brainer. But how they incorporated it was genius and fit the story so well. Hordak would seize his victims and had them transported to the Slime Pit where he would drown them in his slime and turn them into his zombie servants. And they made a toy out of that. Sheer genius. At least until you tried playing with it in your room on the carpet where the slime would become stuck and your Mom would then outlaw the stuff from that point on. But that’s a story for another time.

You can see the Evil Horde Slime Pit in all its advertising glory in the 1986 Masters of the Universe catalog from Mattel, which I just happen to have the full scans of. Just click that link to go check it out. You won’t be sorry!

The Things I Loved About 2020.

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2020 may very well go down as one of the worst years on record. We’re talking top 10 all time if I had to guess off the top of my head. But I’m trying to pick out some of the good things from this year instead of continuing to focus on the bad.

Below are 10 things I loved about this year. I hope you can find some things you loved about it too. Give it some thought and post your list in the comments.

The Mandalorian!

Now I know that The Mandalorian debuted in 2019, but I didn’t pick up Disney+ until January of 2020. The first thing we watched on the service was some episodes of The Gummi Bears, but the second was The Mandalorian. We binged the whole first season over a Saturday and Sunday, and when season 2 dropped, we watched every episode as they aired.

I’ve always considered myself a casual Star Wars fan. I don’t have to be at the theater on opening night to see a new release, and I don’t really collect anything associated with the brand. But I’m telling you right now, The Mandalorian is one of my favorite shows of the last several years.

To me, it’s a great western. There are certainly plenty of Star Wars references of course, but it just feels like a western to me. And that’s a good thing. I’ll take a heavy dose of Star Wars lore in my wild west feeling show.

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