Collecting the She-Ra Toy Line

I consider myself a toy collector, in particular an action figure collector. Due to trying to be more responsible with my budget, AND the simple fact that I've simply run out of space to display figures, I've slowed down on collecting. I will admit that I've reached a sort of saturation point in some areas, and just have no interest in collecting right now >>cough<< Transformers >>cough<<. Being a 30-something shiek-geek, I have a focus on figures based on 1980s properties - in particular: Masters of the Universe MOTU (which started it all), Transformers, Thundercats, Princess of Power, DC Comics figures and Voltron. One of the boldest collecting moves I made in recent years was to collect the principle vintage Princess of Power toy line. My goal was to collect a bulk of the line, whilst shaving off some of the more erroneous product like variants and accessories.

The Princess of Power Toy Line:
My collecting efforts actually started back in 1985 when my mother "smuggled" the She-Ra action figure to me. Being that She-Ra was a "doll", my father would not have been too thrilled with seeing me comb She-Ra's hair with her little pink comb. But I had gone to the theater to see "Secret of the Sword", the animated movie that depicted He-Man searching for his long-lost twin sister She-Ra. My He-Man collection was already unrivaled by any other toy line I was collecting at the time, and it only made sense to have his sister as part of that collection.

Unfortunately, She-Ra was the only figure I would get out of the POP line...until I was in my 30s. Now in my 30s, collecting figures was going a bit slow - I did have some focus on Transformers, but each year would produce product that I became less interested in. And then, Mattel decided to release revamped figures based on their vintage MOTU toy line - MOTU Classics. When I discovered that Mattel planned to incorporate the MOTU spin-offs Princess of Power (POP) and New Adventures of He-Man (NA) into this new MOTUC toy line, I became even more intrigued (by this point, I had a good-sized collection of the rebooted 200X MOTU toy line, and wasn't really motivated to collect yet another reboot of He-Man figures).

The idea of being able to collect POP figures that were designed for contemporary audiences was exciting! Waiting for Mattel to release these figures (about 1 to 3 a year spread out randomly over several months) was a bit much for me to tolerate. SO, I decided to satiate my thirst by going and collecting the vintage line...

8/15/2009:
Purchased She-Ra's Dress to complete my old childhood figure.

1/02 - 24/2010:
Purchased MOTU Classics Adora, POP Frosta, POP Sweetbee, POP Mermista, and POP Castaspella

2/7 - 15/2010:
Purchased POP Bow and POP Double Trouble

3/3 - 31/2010:
Purchased POP Swiftwind, POP Catra, POP Entrapta, POP Peekablue, MOTU Hordak, POP Clawdeen, POP Angella, POP Glimmer

4/14/2010:
Puchased POP Perfuma

8/15/2010:
Purchased MOTU Classics She-Ra

9/21/2010:
Purchased POP Crystal Castle

12/19/2010:
Purchased MOTU Horde Troopers x2

Nielsen Ratings Suck!

There have been a high number of shows cancelled this year, some of them being replaced by cheaper reality shows. Could the escalating number of cancelled shows be tied into money more than it is falling ratings? There can be no debate that the Nielsen Ratings system is terribly archaic. Implemented in the 1950s as a marketing tool to track how audiences responded to programming, the Nielsen Ratings system used a sample of the population to gauge what would air on television - what would last a season, what would last several seasons. Flash forward to the 2000s, and there are more people in the population, and there are now several ways to watch television - "recordable" cable boxes, smart phones, iPads, iTunes, iTV, Hulu, Netflix and internet download are only SOME of the ways to do it. The problem is: most of these are not counted in the Neilsen Ratings system.

As more and more people gravitate towards "non-traditional" methods of watching their television, and Neilsen not keeping up, how accurate is the decision making when it comes to dropping the axe on a lot of the programs that are being canned? Is it possible that a drop in ratings is actually a reflection of the changing behaviors of today's audience? With so much to do, and so many shows for our viewing pleasure, the on-demand trend has become the cornerstone of most people's viewing habits. Remember the days when you had to rush home in the hopes of catching your favorite program from the beginning? That's no longer an issue nowadays - you don't have to wait for a rerun, you can just head to your most convenient on-demand outlet and watch it there, set your DVR to record it, find the episode for download on the internet, or wait for it to show up on DVD if you're patient enough.

The Neilsen Rating system has fundamentally changed very little sense its inception - a select group of about 25,000 households are chosen based on region and key demographics. This small group determines what the rest of the country of about 3 million people gets to watch. With today's information technology, do we really need to be tied down by this old system to make such decisions?

Why not utilize tracking systems that report on the number of internet downloads, program streaming sessions, DVR episode recordings, etc. to more accurately determine which programs deserve the chopping block?

What are your thoughts on this?

Next time: I'll touch on the more conspiracy theory-oriented idea that perhaps a lot of shows were cancelled due to budget.

Are You OK with Bow Replacing Sea Hawk?

As Teela and He-Man were destined to be love interests, I always thought that Bow and She-Ra would be the same. Bow was essentially the "Teela Equivalent" in the Princess of Power toyline - maybe that's why the writers at Filmation wished to avoid the predictable route by creating a non-figure character to fill the role.

Granted, both the He-Man and She-Ra shows spent most of their time avoiding the romance theme, but enough insinuation was done to solidify the idea that Teela was He-Man's love and Sea Hawk was She-Ra's. I always thought that was wrong - especially when Bow is listed as "She-Ra's Special Friend" in the toy line.

Now with Bow's bio being released for the MOTUC line, it seems more likely that he will finally take his place as Adora's official love interest - especially with the fact that Sea Hawk is unavailable to the MOTUC storyline with him being a Filmation-exclusive character.



How do you feel about this?

The Takara Tomy Unicron is Exciting,
but NOT THAT EXCITING.

The following review, provided by Optibotimus.com, gives a relatively rave review of the new more G1 accurate 2010 release of Unicron. I agree with most of the points that this version of the Unicron mold (released previously in the Transformers: Armada line) is an improvement of its predecessor. But with the 3-figure price point, and the toy just being little more than a repaint with some new molding, I'm not going to rush and buy.

I will save my $$$ for when they release a Unicron that is perfectly spherical, like his "brother's" figure Primus. We know it's possible Takara/Hasbro. Give it to us! We'll buy it.



-M

2010 hasn't been the greatest year for top-of-the-line blockbuster, popcorn flicks. Of course, everyone has an opinion like they have an asshole, so I'm sure there's room for disagreement. What's left for 2010 that MAY drive me to the theatre you ask? Let's see if the following titles catch your eye...


Machete
Resident Evil: After Life
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
Saw VII
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I
Chronicles of Narnia
Tron: Legacy.

2011's year promises to be a better one for movies. 2011's Summer Blockbuster season alone promises to be a spectacular one:
Thor
Pirates of the Caribbean 4
Green Lantern
Transformers 3
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I
Captain America
Smurfs*

Why "By the Power of Eternia"?
Adam says "By the Power of Grayskull" in the first episode of The New Adventures of He-Man. But by the second episode, the phrase is inexplicably dropped and replaced with "By the Power of Eternia".

The toy line's explanation is revealed in a mini comic, where the Power of Grayskull is channeled into Starship Eternia. But by that point in the comic, He-Man sheds his Adam persona. Obviously the mini comic continuity is NOT in sync with the cartoon...

There is thus no definitive answer for the cartoon series, as the Starship Eternia does not serve the same purpose as in the mini comic.

Here are my theories:

1) It's possible that in this future, Castle Grayskull no longer exists, and so the Power comes from the planet Eternia itself.

2) With the big focus in the previous toyline shifting to the Eternia playset (in the mini comics, I believe the playset was more powerful than Castle Grayskull - since in the mini comic "The Ultimate Battleground", the Eternia playset becomes more important than Grayskull), perhaps "By the Power of Eternia" refers to it.

3) This is a retroactive idea: Maybe "By the Power of Eternia" is the original summoning cry that was used before and during King Grayskull's claiming of the sword of He (this idea ties into the concept of the Power being a force created by, or existing within, the planet Eternia itself).

Who should have been Catra cohorts?
It has always been strange that Catra and Entrapta were the only villains in the She-Ra toy line. Is it because girls aren't allowed to be bad? Looking at that prototype video, and reading up on some of the characters on wikipedia has made me write this entry.

From the prototype video, it looks like Catra, Glimmer, Double Trouble and Castaspella (villainous Castaspella a precursor to Filmation Shadow Weaver?) were supposed to be the first wave of villains - leaving She-Ra, Bow, Angella and Frosta as the heroes. This makes more since, establishing both sides with an even number of characters.

So who do you think would be the heroes and villains for waves 2 & 3?

I go for this line up (some choices enfluenced by events in the show):

Wave 2
Peekablue - Villain
Sweet Bee - Villain (nemesis of Flutterina)
Entrapta - Villain
Flutterina - Hero
Mermista - Hero
Perfuma -Hero

Wave 3
Spinerella - Villain
Netossa - Hero (nemesis of Entrapta)