Before God created the Transformers, he created the Universe. Masters of the Universe, that is. At least, that’s how my memory as a child of the 1980’s goes. For me, the Masters of the Universe was the snowplow that really paved the way for many more US toy lines with cartoon tie ins to come. I was introduced to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe by watching the Filmation cartoon on Sky Channel in 1985 and I was mesmerized by the beautiful packaging of all the Masters of the Universe toys in my local toy store. These were seriously cool toys!
Teela, Sorceress & Evil-Lyn (Mattel) – from my personal collection
I’ve acquired quite a few European Masters of the Universe toys over the past few months and I plan to feature them here in the next few weeks. Today we start with Teela!
“Teela”
According to the mythos of the Filmation cartoon of Masters of the Universe, Teela was the daughter of the Sorceress. Teela was raised by Man-at-Arms as if she was his own daughter. In the episode “Teela’s Quest” she shortly discovers the truth about her mother, only to have the memory erased by the Sorceress for her own protection.
Teela – from the cartoon by Filmation
“European Teela”
In the US, Teela was part of the first wave of Masters of the Universe toys that were introduced in 1982. I am not sure at what time the toy line got introduced in Europe, but it was probably introduced first in France and the UK in 1983 and in the rest of western Europe in 1984 I’d guess. I found this MOSC (mint on sealed card) European Teela not too long ago on one of my many travels through the internets. The bubble has yellowed and it seems there’s some discolouration on the arms, but otherwise it’s in pretty good condition and has never been opened!
Masters of the Universe – Teela (Mattel) 1983
“Single logo card”
What struck me as odd is that Teela comes with a “normal”, single logo on the card as is seen on the US cards. Most of the European releases came with two logos on the card, one in English and one in French as you can see from the photo at the beginning of this post. There are three languages on the front of Teela’s card below the Masters of the Universe logo, which are English, German and Italian. This is also unusual, because the language missing here is French! I am not sure what the significance of this is, but I do know it’s hard to find good information on all the packaging variations that existed in Europe, especially in the early years! The back of the card does have the usual quad-lingual texts including French.
Masters of the Universe – Teela (Mattel) 1983
“The Women of He-Man”
I don’t know exactly how it happened, but the funny thing is that all the MOSC (mint on sealed card) Masters of the Universe action figures I have are female! As you can see from the photo at the top of this post, besides Teela I also have Evil-Lyn and the Sorceress. These will feature in a future post soon so stay tuned!
“Gallery”
Hi! Very nice blog, I like it a lot. Very informative about 80’s toy lines. I’m a collector myself of Masters, Transformers, GI Joe and TMNT. I also have opened a small blog myself recently about 80’s toy, from the Italian point of view. Check it out if you like :-))
In Italy Teela was released in 1984, but the first Masters figures were released in spring 1983: Skeletor, He-Man, Stratos, Merman, Beastman, Man-At-Arms and Zodac.
Cheers!
Thx for the info on MOTU! Really appreciated. I have read your Galvatron article and enjoyed it immensely. Very much looking forward to new posts, I have bookmarked your site! :-)