Trio Simpatico – Bonus Episode: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

TRIO SIMPATICO is back! (Sort of!)

On this bonus episode we are without co-host David Tavolier but we do have returning guest, television and movie reviewer, LUCY WITSAMAN!

This time Lucy is dissecting SHE-RA AND THE PRINCESSES OF POWER the newest incarnation of the Masters of the Universe Etherian heroin from Dreamworks and Netflix!

As always co-host JOSHUA WITSAMAN holds our guests to the strictest standards of authenticity and expertise, putting this particular critic’s opinions through the wringer!

Tune in to this bonus episode to hear their thoughts on the show, find out Lucy’s favorite character, what she thought were the most frightening moments, and precisely which toys are the most distracting when giving an interview!

All this and more right here on TRIO SIMPATICO!

simpaticopodcast.com

Eternia Restoration Part 2: Hand Washed Plastic Pectorals

It looks like it’s about time for the next installment of my Eternia Restoration Project and if you’ve been waiting for a close up look at the individual action figures of my Masters of the Universe collection, then this is the post for you!

Cleaning up this group of figures wasn’t as nearly as difficult as cleaning up the mouse-urine-soaked hoard of GI Joes that comprised my Terrordrome Renovation Project a few years back.  By comparison this toy restoration will seem as easy as a sparkling wave of magic issued from the elegant fingers of the mysterious Sorceress of Castle Grayskull!

To begin I separated all of the accessories and weapons, figured out exactly what I had, and (after a quick internet search) sorted them all out to the appropriate heroes and villains.  Then over the course of a few days I gathered up small batches of the figures and gave them a dunk in a bucket of soapy hot water, gently scrubbed them with a toothbrush, rinsed them off, vigorously shook out any excess water from their hollow abdomens, then toweled them off and let them dry over night.

Like I said most of these figures were in pretty good shape, all things considered.  Sadly several figures I thought to be complete were actually missing arms, accessories, or were just completely broken.  Also there were a couple of otherwise flawless figures who had fallen victim to unprovoked pet attacks and were irrevocably scarred by dog teeth.  Apparently the family dog at the time was deep in the puppy chewing stage when some of these figures entered my collection.

Battle wounds add character!

In a few of these cases I was able to take a very small pair of wire cutters and trim away some of the gnarly plastic snags and gouges.  After some delicate snips and clips it actually helped shape up some of the nastier bite marks, making the figures slightly less disfigured.

As far as cleanliness went though there really wasn’t much to contend with.  One or two of the Eternians had been tatted up with some marker at some point, a couple were just mysteriously sticky, but the only real troublesome figure was the legendary Moss Man.

Covered in a fine coat of coarse green felt, Moss Man not only had fur adhered to his stock Masters of the Universe body but said exterior moss was originally endowed with a distinct perfumed scent.  All of that situation; a brillo pad fur, adhesive undercoat, and whatever chemical magic was used to induce that smell combined with years of play meant that Moss Man had gathered a lot of gunk, identifiable and otherwise, all across his namesake moss!

Even cleaning Moss Man however was not an arduous task, he just took a little extra time as I gently brushed out the years of embedded carpet fibers and pet hair.

All in all the best way to describe this effort is to say that I spent a few hours of my free time giving sponge baths to a large group of musclebound men in my basement.

But enough about that let’s take a look at the results!

Clearly Eternia has a shortage of shirts.  Pictured are two average varietals of He-Man on the ends, Thunder Punch He-Man on the left, and He-Man’s alter ego Prince Adam wielding his fuchsia sword middle right.  Thunder Punch He-Man is the most complete all the other He-Men pictured are missing most, if not all, of their accessories.

 

Here we see a group of recently washed heroes of Eternia: Mekaneck, Cyclone, Wundar, and Ram Man.  Mekaneck is missing his armor, Cyclone is complete with his lenticular chest piece and shield.  Wundar is actually a mail away promotional variant of He-Man given away from Wonder Bread.  Fans and collectors gave the brown haired version the name Wundar and the name stuck!

More heroes! Fisto (you read that right!), the aforementioned Moss Man, Man-E-Faces, and Roboto with theme song by Styx.  Moss Man is complete with his brown club.  Roboto is missing one of his interchangeable arms. Man-E-Faces and Fisto are missing their weapons.

Childhood favorite Orco with his weird stack of coins accessory which features other characters pictures on them.  (Of course most of those are missing)  He also has a rip cord that would send him spinning.  Also pictured is a random Orco stamp that was in my collection.

Baddest of bad asses SKELETOR seen here in his battle damage variety and undamagable original flavor!  Although battle damage Skeletor is missing his accessories I was ecstatic to find that the classic version was 100% intact!

Four of my favorite baddies: Fakor, Trap Jaw, Stinkor (the villainous scented equivalent of Moss Man), and Tri-Clops.  These guys were the best at being the worst!  Whenever I was plotting evil deeds these would be my go to guys to make it happen.  However in the process they lost most of their accessories.  Except Stinkor, though at this point he has lost his distinctive scent.

Skeletor’s B-Squad: Mosquitor, Whiplash, Webstor, and Spikor.  (I’m sensing a pattern here with the names.)  Whiplash was one of the figures that received the worst of the canine maulings.  Although you can’t quite see it in the picture his entire right arm is chewed all to hell.  A lot of cool action features with these four though, dripping blood, whipping tails, zip lines, and retractable arms!

The Evil Horde!  A revitalization of the Masters of the Universe meant new and better figures!  Enter the Horde, these guys pulled double duty battling He-Man AND She-Ra.  Who has the time?  Seen here Mantenna, Hordak himself, Grizzlor, and Leech.  Leech had a great feature, he had a vacuum sealing mouth.  When you pressed a button on his back he could suction up to flat surfaces!

Let’s not forget about King Hiss and the Snake Men!  Actually let’s go ahead and forget about them, I was never really much of a fan.  But these two were pretty cool, Rattlor and Sssqueeze.  In my story lines these guys were always on loan from King Hiss in order to repay Skeletor and/or Hordak a favor.  These were the only Snake Men to ever grace my MOTU collection

 

Sadness.  Let us not forget our fallen heroes (and villains).  Here we have the broken toys.  Clawful, Man-at-Arms, and Trap Jaw.  Thankfully I had two Trap Jaws and the other was in fairly decent shape.  Unfortunately Clawful is missing an arm, and that crazy crab curmudgeon was one of my favorites!  Similarly Man-at-Arms has encountered an equally disarming fate.  I’ll be vigilantly on the lookout for these missing limbs as I occasionally go through old boxes at home and at my parents house!

Once again we have my wife’s She-Ra collection, finally reuniting Prince Adam with his sister Princess Adora under the roof of Castle Grayskull!  Pictured: SweetBee, Frosta, Perfuma, She-Ra, Bow, Glimmer, Castaspella, and the jealous beauty Catra!

 

And just for shits and giggles here is my small collection of Masters of the Universe figures from the early 2000’s as sculpted by the legendary Four Horsemen.  As a kid I wanted the original Merman and Beast Man but they always eluded me but that all changed in 2003!

Well there you have it!  Up next the VEHICLES!

 

That is all!

The Eternia Restoration 2016

It should be stated that I have three older siblings.  Much older siblings in fact.  When I was born my two sisters had already moved out and the next youngest, my brother, was turning 18 and was on his way to leaving the house as well.  Growing up I was essentially an only child, as such I quickly developed a love of toys.  There was something great about being able to create your own entertainment through imaginative play which really clicked with me.  Wherever I went I’d bring along a few cars or action figures for the trip in case things got boring or I found that the mood required a high speed chase or epic battle scene.

One of my earliest collections of toys were the Masters of the Universe figures and playsets.  In fact it was probably one of the earliest fandoms to which I belonged.  As a kid I loved the He-Man cartoon and would spend hours recreating the battles and adventures of that crazy post-apocalyptic fantasy world of Eternia.  In the basement of my childhood home I had a large corner that was dedicated as a play area where I kept most of my toys and playsets.  There were representatives from several classic toy lines lingering around in that basement.  Star Wars (of course), Transformers, GoBots, Voltron, and even Rainbow Brite (I’m not ashamed!) but dominating the playscape was He-Man and the Masters of the Universe!

The art of the Masters of the Universe franchise is outstanding and this poster sums up my era of collecting the figures.

From around the ages of 4 to 6 Castle Grayskull stood at the center of my toy multiverse like a dull green beacon of adventure!  I had what seemed like a legion of heroes and villains to choose from along with several of the zany and seemingly inefficiently engineered vehicles.  Swords of power and magic staves were strewn across the carpet just waiting to be taken up in combat by the most worthy of heroes or misshapen of monsters.  Skeletor, Hordak, He-Man, Buzz-Off.  These were names of legend.  The epic storylines I would construct would incorporate many of my other toys until seemingly every toy I owned had vowed their loyalty to one side or the other in the continuous struggle of good versus evil.

The laws of physics and rules of logic did not apply to my corner of the basement which made those epic struggles all the more fun.

However there was one rule to that play area, the rule of Mom!  Specifically Mom asked that I keep my toys picked up and tidy when I was done.  No doubt this was some attempt by my parents to teach me about responsibility and the importance of taking proper care of my possessions.  Having children of my own now I completely understand but at the time it was really putting a cramp in my style, more importantly it was hindering He-Man’s quests which would often span several days, picking up where they’d left off during the previous afternoon.

How was I expected to pick up my things when Skeletor had just invaded the castle and was holding Ram Man hostage?  Man-At-Arms just called in Optimus Prime for assistance and if I put it all away now I’ll never remember who had already been killed off and who was only slightly wounded?

However time and time again I was asked to keep my toys picked up and the basement tidy and time and time again I would forget, half-ass it, or outright refuse until finally my other had enough.

“Keep your toys cleaned up or I’m getting rid of your He-Man toys.”

Cue the Ennio Morricone music.  A challenge had been thrown out.  Our eyes locked in a silent but intense stare.

I feel that I must point out here that I would not describe myself as having been a defiant kid or someone who by any means challenged authority but I was, and to this day still am, extremely stubborn.  When I feel like I’m being wronged I’ll double down and hold my ground.  Unfortunately for me my mother is the same way.

Now I was young, I don’t recall the exact details of what happened next, but as you might expect I did not keep my toys picked up or at least didn’t keep them picked up to the standards of my mother.  Believing Mom to be bluffing I was utterly taken aback when like a galactic crushing cyclone my mother came swooping down into the basement and began disassembled Castle Grayskull, the Fright Zone, and Hordak’s Slime Pit.  She meticulously plucked up every multicolored weapon; melee, energy, or otherwise.  He-Man, his friends, and enemies were unceremoniously bagged up together with seemingly no appreciation for their deeply ingrained and often conflicting friendships and rivalries.

In an instant Eternia was completely wiped out, it was like millions of plastic voices had cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.  It was Alderaan all over again, if Alderaan were a series of techo-medieval kingdoms populated by barbarians and beast men.  (Who knows, maybe it was, we’ve never had a real good look at Alderaan at this point.)

I was told my He-Man toys had been thrown away and that was the end of that.

In the intervening years other toys would come and go.  The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would eventually rise to prominence and surpass He-Man and his friends in number and overall interest.  But there was always a soft spot in my heart for the denizens of Eternia and the few small pieces of He-Man accessories and memorabilia which managed to slip through the cracks would go on to become artifacts of great import in my future play.

Whether or not that experience has left any indelible emotional scarring, who’s to say?  I’ll ask my psychologist when I see him next week.

It wasn’t until years later, around age 9 or 10, when I was sent into our crawl spaces in search of holiday decorations, and I discovered the truth!  My Masters of the Universe toys hadn’t been tossed out like so much fantastic garbage but had simply been stashed away, hidden from me and simply awaiting to be rediscovered.  Occasionally afterwards I’d covertly work my way back through the racks of clothes and stacks of boxed junk in the crawl space in order to get back to my old friends.  I’d pick through the toys remembering how awesome they were and matching them up with their distinctive armor and weaponry.  Even at that time I didn’t dare take them out beyond the crawl space for fear that my mother might have simply forgotten they were up there and upon discovering them would finish the job once and for all!

Well now after all those years I’ve finally freed the citizens of Eternia from the bondage of those attic boxes and have decided to make use of them in a new series of blog posts I’m calling The Eternia Restoration 2016.  If you’re familiar with my Terrordrome Renovation 2011 then you’ll know what to expect!  The short answer is I’ll be going through these old toys, cleaning them up, putting them back together, and just generally restoring them to as much of their former glory as is now possible.

So let’s get right down to it!

For starters here are a few shots of the toys I’ll be cleaning up.  These Masters of the Universe figures, vehicles and playsets have seen a lot of action and are far from complete.  Overall however they were really in much better shape than I expected!

The heroes and villains directly from their cardboard imprisonment. For the record at this time they all smelled like a lovely melange of Moss Man and Stinkor odors.

The remaining accessories. Already we can tell there are a lot missing.

 

Next we have the vehicles and war machines of the Masters of the Universe!

 

The majestic Dragon Walker. The zaniest design for a vehicle ever produced and the best part is that it’s motorized! Here’s hoping we can get it to work!

Stridor. The mechanical mount of Eternia’s heroes.

Skeletor’s Land Shark. Watch out all you celebrity billionaire business folk, this is an actual Shark Tank!

The Wind Raider. This is the oldest of the vehicles I have. It’s missing several parts and is sadly in the worst shape.

Attack Track. Another highly illogical mode of transportation and it too is motorized!

Battle Bones. This has always been my favorite. Essentially the bus of Eternia but also a handy carrying case when visiting friends and family.

 

Finally here we have the big guns, the playsets.  I was lucky enough to have not only Castle Grayskull, but the Fright Zone, and Hordak’s Slime pit as well!  Still in pieces I really want to clean these suckers up before reassembling them.

 

Castle Grayskull. Surprisingly almost all of the castles parts and decals seems to have survived the years in exile.

The Fright Zone and Slime Pit also seem to be in good shape though I haven’t had time yet to pull them out and sort through to find out.

 

FINALLY we’ll end this with another bit of good news: I’m happy to announce the reunion of He-Man with his sister She-Ra!  Huzzah!  As fate would have it our house was already in the possession of a She-Ra collection which my wife saved from her childhood house a few years earlier!

 

She-Ra the Princess of Power and her pals.  Although my wife Lauren kept these heroines hair on fleek she seems to have lost all of their accessories.    

 

 

Rivals Playing Chess

So I have been following the promotional campaign for X-Men First Class because the movie intrigues me.  I was initially really looking forward to this X-Men prequel, then a few details were revealed and I thought it sounded kind of goofy, then they’d reveal a few pictures from the set and I was interested again, until they would show some footage which looked questionable and then I was off the wagon once again.  This has continued for some time now until I’ve reached the point where I am now, basically feeling that this movie will simply be whatever it has become.  Obviously it doesn’t stick to the comics, and they say it doesn’t necessarily stick with the previous X-Men movie continuity but at this point I am just looking forward to seeing this movie if for no other reason than to find out if I will actually enjoy it or not.

All of that not withstanding there is one image from the various promo shots that I really like, and that’s the picture of Xavier and Magneto hunched over a table playing chess.  I like this image for several reasons; First I think it captures the Professor X/Magneto vibe pretty well, Second it harkens back to X-Men 2 (best of the X-Movies) when the two rivals are playing chess in Magneto’s plastic jail cell, and third, and most importantly, it is simply a classically composed iconic image of two great figures caught up in an epic struggle of dark vs. light.  The archetypes of the black and white knights not only physically waging war but mentally and idealistically clashing as well, are ones that can add depth to characters without having to utter a single line of dialogue.  Of course this imagery has been used countless times in every genre and medium imaginable and though it is perhaps overdone and on the verge of cliché, I want to take this time to share with you some other images of other minds coming together over the chess board.  Behold this gathering of great rivals dueling it out on the checkered field of kings!  I start you off with the previously mentioned image from X-Men First Class!

Masters of the Universe: Caverns of Fear

Have you ever spent hours working at something only to realize when you’re done that it was all just a waste of time?  Yeah well I just had that happen to me.  Whompers.

I was at my parent’s house the other night and I came across a cassette from a read along He-Man book entitled Masters of the Universe: Caverns of Fear.  A very compelling title to say the least.  Well anyway I had the brilliant idea of recording the tape to my computer and making a simple movie of it to post and share here on my blog, why not?  I didn’t have the book but I was able to find scans from the pages on He-Man.org and so I was set, all I needed to do was time the page images with the recorded audio and I’d be in business!  So I did that, I recorded the tracks with a little editing at the beginning and end to cut out the cassette play button noise then just added the pics and stretched them out to go in time with the narration.  Although this is all a pretty simple project it took an hour or two, I’m only working with Windows Movie Maker and it’s not the smoothest of tools.  Anyway I get it all done up, publish it, load it to YouTube no problem.  Then I decide to do a quick search to see where it would end up in the hierarchy of search terms only to find that, yep, you guessed it, there were already about three other versions of Caverns of Fear up on the site. 

Ah well just goes to show you that there are very few original thoughts.

Regardless I had a good time putting this together, looking over the pages and nostalgically reminiscing about my homemade Masters of the Universe adventures and the memories of reading this book as a kid.  At the time when He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was hitting it big (1983 or so) I was still rather young and wasn’t playing with those types of toys, but just a few years later when I was about 5, I was lucky enough to be the recipient of an entire MOTU collection including Castle Greyskull!  Some older kids who were friends of the family were getting rid of a bunch of their toys and somehow I was lucky enough to be next in line for the hand-me-downs.  I still don’t know how or why this happened, but I was of course extremely appreciative, and this encouraged me to add to the collection afterward asking for He-Man toys for all major gift giving holidays.

In my mind this was my basement playroom as a kid.

 

Toys have always been my thing, as a kid I loved setting up complex play landscapes in my basement with opposing bases set up across from each other composed of officially licensed toy accessories and my own homemade additions.  Filling the expanse between such fortresses were epic battlegrounds populated by vehicles, cardboard ramps, innocent bystanders (usually some other random toys who somehow became part of the storyline) and the discarded weapons, unattached arms, and other carnage one would expect to find in such an environment.  This was the case not only with my Masters of the Universe toys, but my Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Star Wars, Crash Dummies, and whatever other toys I dealt with.  However I believe I can trace it all back to He-Man and his pals and their unexpected arrival on my doorstep, it was like a real life Toy Story moment.

Ah childhood memories.  I guess it’s not really just a childhood memory, seeing as how I still collect Marvel Legends and Star Wars toys to this day, some habits die hard.  I don’t know what it is about cool action figures, but I’m a fan and they only keep getting better and cooler as time goes on!

Maybe in an upcoming blog I’ll talk about how I’ve recently discovered that I had the worst Transformers as a kid, really.  But that is a topic for another day, in the mean time take a look at my redundant video compilation of the Masters of the Universe: Caverns of Fear!  Enjoy!

A favorite Transformer of mine as a kid, though now I realize he is pretty lame as far as Transformers go.

That is all!